Airbrushing Scale 75 Metals

[DranuTemplar]

Vallejo Metal Colors are easily the easiest and most beautiful acrylic metallic to airbrush with.  Nothing comes close... that is, if you are not using their gold.  The only way to warm that cold sickly green gold is to add copper, and still it is really off tone or pale compared to other golds.  

On the other hand Scale, 75 Metal Alchemy has the most beautiful and vibrant golds.  The problem:  I cannot get them to airbrush right.  I've tried adding glaze mediums, thinners, flow improvers, etc.  Without fail the metal flakes go spraying out in a huge cone away from the center of the main cone of air.  It also easily sputters and clogs the brush if I turn down the airflow.  This is with two different high quality Iwata air brushes.  However, until vallejo makes a warmer gold for their metal colors line, I REALLY want to airbrush with these Scale 75 golds.

Long story short: Has anyone had success airbrushing with the Scale 75 metals?  If so, how did you get them to work?

Perhaps a better question, what the best warm or dark tone gold that you all use?  The shinier the better.

Edited April 30, 2020 by DranuTemplar

[Bung]

What Gold, thinner, nozzle size and pressure do you use?

That information is the least to help you.

 

Scalecolors can be a bit tricky to airbrush If you dont use the right thinner.

[DranuTemplar]

What Gold, thinner, nozzle size and pressure do you use?.

Dwarven Gold and Elven Gold, Vallejo airbrush thinner (also tried glaze medium and Vallejo flow improver), both .35 and .2 (.2 sputters more often), and I've tried between 35-18psi. Edited April 29, 2020 by DranuTemplar

[Bung]

Its probably your thinner. In my experience Vallejo Airbrush thinner is not working well with some Scale colors either use their own thinner or something Like Tamiya X20a or Mr. Hobby Aquaus Thinner (the one for waterbased acrylics).

[Magos Takatus]

This surprises me. I don't remember having much of a problem with the Scale 75 gold colours. Granted, I'm probably still pretty heavy-handed with my application so I might not have noticed. I am quite curious about this for future reference. When I was painting with them last it was the trim on an Imperial Knight so I didn't need to be so precise.

[Evil Eye]

I could be wrong but IIRC Scale75 paints need their own brand of thinner to work best, as they are formulated fundamentally differently from most "regular" acrylic paints.

[DranuTemplar]

Hmm I tried Tamiya x20a and the same problem occurs.  Gold flakes go out beyound the center cone of spray.  Son't get me wrong, I can still spray it safely with lots of maksing on the mini, but it prevents smooth transitions between Scale 75 metal colors.

Perhaps a better question, what the best warm or dark tone gold that you all use?  The shinier the better.

[Aarik]

I've had the same problem.  For what it's worth, I've had some limited success with using Vallejo airbrush thinner and thinning the paint more than I normally would.

[Bung]

 

Perhaps a better question, what the best warm or dark tone gold that you all use? The shinier the better.

Most time i airbrush metallics i use alcohol based paints. AK Extrem Metal, Alcad II, Tamiya. They work best for me with an airbrush.

[Mango Polo]

You're not the first person to run into issues with thinning Scale 75 using Vallejo thinner.  Pretty sure I remember at least two threads over the last few years on this forum about this exact issue

 

To summarize: for some reason, the two just don't want to play together nice.

 

For me and others, the solution has been Liquitex thinner and Liquitex flow improver. Since swapping to those I've not had any issue brushing and airbrushing S75, both metals and non-metals. Though of course, some S75 paints can be quite different in consistent and require more or less thinner, so there's always going to be some degree of trial.

Edited April 30, 2020 by Mango Polo

[Crovan]

I've yet to try my Scale 75 through the airbrush, but as others have said, they're formulated differently.  I believe I've read that the medium they use is pretty different.  I suspect it may be part of the reason the coverage is so brilliant.  That said, I really like Vallejo's Metal Color Gold.  It's a bit of a yellowy gold, but flows and covers brilliantly for me.

[Ramell]

I haven't used Scale 75 golds much, but I airbrushed a Ki-43 a few months ago with Scale 75 silvers (Black Metal, Heavy Metal, Speed Metal). I just thinned them with Scale 75's own thinner, equal parts paint and thinner.