railway colors in acrylic

[virginhst539]

Hi all, 

working away on a loco and was wondering if anyone knows what vallejo paints are a close match to modern warning panel yellow. Using 71.002 Medium Yellow as an alternative to network rail yellow. I know humbrol do Br yellow code RC407 just looking for an alternative incase I cant get hold of this. Also don't know how the humbrol stuff reacts with vallejio and AK thinners and varnish so want to play it safe and avoid any unwanted reactions

[Erixtar1992]

Following with interest, i use acrylics and would love to know of a supply of railway colours.

its a shame as enamels have such an incredible range but i really just cant deal with the mess and smell.

[Darwinian]

The advantage with Vallejo paints is that the dropper bottles make repeatable mixes much easier. I have reasonable matches for the interwar GWR colours all mixed from the “Air” base colours set plus Camo Green.

If you try different mixes on the primer you intend to use and keep a record of the numbers of drops of each colour it’s not too hard. For a “lake” I’d start with “maroon”.

[Jeff Smith]

Although you can thin them all (I think) with distilled/filtered water, you often cannot mix different brands of acrylic paint.  Manufacturers have been known to change formulations over the years too, although they usually change the paint name as well.

[Jeff Smith]

12 hours ago, Darwinian said:

The advantage with Vallejo paints is that the dropper bottles make repeatable mixes much easier. I have reasonable matches for the interwar GWR colours all mixed from the “Air” base colours set plus Camo Green.

If you try different mixes on the primer you intend to use and keep a record of the numbers of drops of each colour it’s not too hard. For a “lake” I’d start with “maroon”.

There is no maroon in the Model Color  or Air ranges

[teaky]

I wonder how close Cavalry Brown is to maroon?

 

https://acrylicosvallejo.com/en/product/hobby/model-color-en/cavalry-brown-70982/

[Jeff Smith]

There's only one way to find out!

[Darwinian]

11 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

There is no maroon in the Model Color  or Air ranges

Oops, quite right, I was thinking of “71.036 Mahogany”. Should have checked my paintbox before posting.

[Jeff Smith]

On 15/11/2020 at 18:32, virginhst539 said:

so want to play it safe and avoid any unwanted reactions

I personally prefer Testers Acryl to Vallejo, it dries to a harder finish which passes my thumbnail scratch test....

I also found that Vallejo paint, even when dried for weeks, can react to isopropyl alcohol which is the base of a weathering wash I use - Testors does not!

 

Several years ago I bought many many red acrylics from various manufacturers in the search for LT tube red and Metropolitan Maroon.  Tube red came from a now discontinued range, but Met/LT maroon is Milwaukee Maroon from Badger Model Flex, the only company still producing US railroad colours.....!

[virginhst539]

I have been using the Ak german late ww2 armor sets on a few tanks I have been building with great results. the drying time for acrylics is the main plus point for me and they just seem so much easier to get going when spraying and cleaning the airbrush. saying that is has been a few years since I last dabbled with spraying the likes of railmatch so maybe just out of practice. discovered rainbow railways have a range of railway acrylics. personally I am surprised there are not railway acrylics more widely available as there must be others that prefer them over the alternatives. 

 

on a side note have been toying with the idea of trying some of these armor based products on some rolling stock as they produce some rather nice results 

[virginhst539]

2 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

I personally prefer Testers Acryl to Vallejo, it dries to a harder finish which passes my thumbnail scratch test....

just a quick question. Are you applying a layer or two of varnish after the paint cures or just as it is out the bottle?

 

[warbonnetuk]

5 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

I personally prefer Testers Acryl to Vallejo, it dries to a harder finish which passes my thumbnail scratch test....

I also found that Vallejo paint, even when dried for weeks, can react to isopropyl alcohol which is the base of a weathering wash I use - Testors does not!

 

Several years ago I bought many many red acrylics from various manufacturers in the search for LT tube red and Metropolitan Maroon.  Tube red came from a now discontinued range, but Met/LT maroon is Milwaukee Maroon from Badger Model Flex, the only company still producing US railroad colours.....!

 

Scalecoat I or II and Tru-Color??? Admittedly they are both lacquer based

[warbonnetuk]

On 16/11/2020 at 00:40, Erixtar1992 said:

Following with interest, i use acrylics and would love to know of a supply of railway colours.

its a shame as enamels have such an incredible range but i really just cant deal with the mess and smell.

 

Railmatch do a pretty wide range of acrylic railway colours. Lifecolor also do a limited set of BR railway colours 

[Jeff Smith]

5 hours ago, virginhst539 said:

just a quick question. Are you applying a layer or two of varnish after the paint cures or just as it is out the bottle?

 

My scratch test was out of the bottle with maybe a couple of days drying.  Normally I do varnish though.

[Jeff Smith]

2 hours ago, warbonnetuk said:

 

Scalecoat I or II and Tru-Color??? Admittedly they are both lacquer based

I presume you are asking about discontinued paint ranges?  I don't recognise those names.  Over here Floquil was the go to enamel paint for railroad modellers but was bought by Testors and then discontinued.  Testors original acrylic paint for railroads was Polyscale.  This was pretty awful and replaced by Acryl, again with railroad colours.  Now there are no railroad colours just general and military.

[warbonnetuk]

16 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

I presume you are asking about discontinued paint ranges?  I don't recognise those names.  Over here Floquil was the go to enamel paint for railroad modellers but was bought by Testors and then discontinued.  Testors original acrylic paint for railroads was Polyscale.  This was pretty awful and replaced by Acryl, again with railroad colours.  Now there are no railroad colours just general and military.

 

Happy to be corrected but Minuteman who produce Scalecoat seem to have an active website and were doing offers as part of the NMRA Vitual  National Convention. https://www.minutemanscalemodels.com/category-s/146.htm

 

I've recently managed to get hold of some Tru Color via a dealer in the UK and am sufficiently impressed that I've ordered a load more.

https://trucolorpaint.com/products/

 

Also forgot about Rapido's paint range which is acrylic but mainly covers Canadian and N.E. US roads

https://rapidotrains.com/products/parts-accessories/protopaint/rapido-protopaint

 

 

Edited November 18, 2020 by warbonnetuk

[Jeff Smith]

I must admit to not keeping up with US railroad colours as I don't model them.  My experience is from trying to find UK equivalent colours over here.....

[Jeff Smith]

On 17/11/2020 at 18:46, Jeff Smith said:

I presume you are asking about discontinued paint ranges?  I don't recognise those names.  Over here Floquil was the go to enamel paint for railroad modellers but was bought by Testors and then discontinued.  Testors original acrylic paint for railroads was Polyscale.  This was pretty awful and replaced by Acryl, again with railroad colours.  Now there are no railroad colours just general and military.

 

On 18/11/2020 at 11:31, warbonnetuk said:

 

Happy to be corrected but Minuteman who produce Scalecoat seem to have an active website and were doing offers as part of the NMRA Vitual  National Convention. https://www.minutemanscalemodels.com/category-s/146.htm

 

I've recently managed to get hold of some Tru Color via a dealer in the UK and am sufficiently impressed that I've ordered a load more.

https://trucolorpaint.com/products/

 

Also forgot about Rapido's paint range which is acrylic but mainly covers Canadian and N.E. US roads

https://rapidotrains.com/products/parts-accessories/protopaint/rapido-protopaint

 

 

Just a correction to my post above by looking at some paint bottles I still have.  Accu-Flex was a discontinued acrylic range.  PolyScale was actually an acrylic paint from Floquil.  Testors acquired the Floquil ranges and continued to sell the PolyScale range but dropped the Floquil solvent range.

[laurenceb]

On 18/11/2020 at 16:31, warbonnetuk said:

 

Happy to be corrected but Minuteman who produce Scalecoat seem to have an active website and were doing offers as part of the NMRA Vitual  National Convention. https://www.minutemanscalemodels.com/category-s/146.htm

 

I've recently managed to get hold of some Tru Color via a dealer in the UK and am sufficiently impressed that I've ordered a load more.

https://trucolorpaint.com/products/

 

Also forgot about Rapido's paint range which is acrylic but mainly covers Canadian and N.E. US roads

https://rapidotrains.com/products/parts-accessories/protopaint/rapido-protopaint

 

 

Who is your UK stockest please, quite fancy trying these paints

[Jeff Smith]

No one has mentioned Citidel paints from Games Workshop.  Available in the US and the UK and probably elsewhere.  The colour range is incredible but the names are a bit strange......I bought Caliban Green when looking for GWR green, it wasn't quite right but it's very nice paint.  There's three or four others that could possibly match but I cheated by carrying back a Railmatch pot......

[warbonnetuk]

13 hours ago, laurenceb said:

Who is your UK stockest please, quite fancy trying these paints

 

I got mine from N Scale Amercian Trains.

 

https://www.nscaleamericantrains.co.uk/en/337_tru-color-paint

 

Model Railway Solutions were supposed to be stocking a fuller range but the last I saw the order had been placed but Tru Color hadnt dispatched so a phone call may yield an update

[laurenceb]

Thanks for that

[andypops]

On 16/11/2020 at 13:55, Jeff Smith said:

Although you can thin them all (I think) with distilled/filtered water, you often cannot mix different brands of acrylic paint.  Manufacturers have been known to change formulations over the years too, although they usually change the paint name as well.

Quick note with Vallejo - they have a special ingredient in their thinner formulation which I’ve found by trial and error is critical to the paint stability, if you use water or IPA (or mixes thereof) you will very likely get some precipitation of solids which blocks the airbrush and leaves a horrid surface finish. This doesn’t seem to be the case with other paints (eg Tamiya) which I regularly thin with water-IPA. 
 

The specific formulation Vallejo use can be made at home, but for anyone who isn’t a chemist (and even those who are!) it’s far easier to just buy their proprietary thinners - I grudgingly resorted to this as a final sanity test after having to repaint a Sea King model four times, and can say with conviction that using their acrylic thinners is absolutely critical to get a decent finish. Oddly some colours (e.g. pink) weren’t that badly affected using just IPA or water, but I consistently found that yellow was terrible when water / IPA was added - it went clumpy very quickly, like when gone-off milk is added to tea. 
 

(no connection to Vallejo, just a customer who was initially very angry with their paints, couldn’t understand why other modellers raved about them then worked out where I was going wrong and started enjoying them!)

[Jeff Smith]

As has possibly been evident from my earlier posts I have a love/hate relationship with Vallejo paints for brushing.  I recently completed some GWR road vehicles and 4 wheel coaches.  Vallejo Chocolate was a good GWR brown but I had to resort to Humbrol Cream as neither Vallejo or Testors had anything close.  I have say though that the Humbrol brushed a lot better than the Vallejo - perhaps I should try brushing the Vallejo Air but the colour ranges are not duplicated.......