'Vallejo' v 'Admiralty' paint brands - your views appreciated

[Ian Barefoot]

I've been model-making in other fields and for the last few years have been very happy with Vallejo brand products - paints, stains and weathering overlays.  Today a very nice package arrived from Caldercraft containing my first wooden ship - HMS Sherbourne. In the packaging was a recommendation to use 'Admiralty' brand paints - which I've not met before. Does anyone have any comment - for or against both brands?

 

Regards

 

Ianh

[Old Collingwood]

I think the main thing that is different between them  -  Vallejo is designed for finer work  probably on smaller  objects  and the Admiralty range are supposed to be colour matched to period ships   and  possibly designed for a rougher  texture  like wood.

 

I guess both can be used  (as I have used both on my  Waterloo dio build)    - brush work tends to  be roughly the same.

 

Hope this helps.

[Jörgen]

Hi

 

I have used them both. If you check my builds so is Endevour painted with vallejo color and sherbourne is painted with both vallejo and admiralty.  

 

Both of the colors is painted with a airbrush and both are diluted in Vallejo's airbrush thinner. I didn't noticed any difference between them and both worked perfect.

 

I have not brush painted the admiralty paints but vallejo is perfect for this. Just use a wet pallet so you can dilute the paints little.

 

Best regards

Jörgen

[thibaultron]

Vallejo makes two types of paint, Model Color (for brushing), and Model Air (prethined for airbrushing). The Model Color can be airbrushed with thinning, but the Model Air has a finer pigment flake size. A majority of the two paints have matching colors.

 

Their site has charts for color matching the two, as well as matchings for several of the other brands.

[wefalck]

Vallejo has been around catering for artists for a long time, so I think they know what they are doing. I use their Model Air range also for brush-painting, when washes are required or the build of thin layers of paint - obviates the need for dilution. However, I am working on small models only, so the higher price for less pigment is irrelevant.

 

I don't think colour-matching to some historical prototype is really relevant in our realm, as we mostly don't actually know what colours exactly were used and how the respective paints were mixed up from what components. So this is all rather speculative the further you go back in history, particularly in the time before the 1920s, when the first attempts at standardisation were made.

[Jörgen]

Wefalck has right about the color-matching. If you really want to dig in to this, then just check all threads, opinions and hard debates on internet on the exact camouflage colors for world war II aircrafts 

 

The reason I use the red and yellow admiralty paint for my Shelbourne were because they look right to me and i didn't have found this tint in Vallejo's range that I have.  But the reason they look right for me is because i have seen so many other models painted here on the forum with these colors so that has  "formed" me in my opinion. The same thing have happened to me when I building aircrafts, many magazines are using gunze colors and there shades. If you choose another brand of paint for example RLM70 it would look different and I have to convince my self to use the other shade even if they are more correct. 

Edited July 9, 2021 by Jörgen

[thibaultron]

Even if you have paint chips, for modern equipment, you may still have problems.

 

Gray paint, in particular, can vary between batches, even from the same manufacturer. A story I heard in the 70s is: An upper ranking officer was going around and comparing the gray paint on radar units, and almost all of them varied from the paint chip he had . Afterward he sent each installation a paint chip, and ordered them all to repaint the units in the proper color, or else (he used different words, but this is a family forum). At the appointed time he reinspected the units, and all but one still did not match! The other unit maintenance personnel were demoted. Later some of them asked the person in charge of the one that passed, how he did it. He responded that he repainted the chip, at the same time he painted his units.

[wefalck]

Ochre is a pigment widely used on ships of all times. Unfortunately, ochre is a complex mineral with varying properties depending on the source and its further treatment/refinement. Basically it is an iron-oxyhydroxide (FeOOH), but can be mixed with magnetite (Fe3O4), colloidal iron-hydroxide (Fe(OH)3), iron carbonate (FeCO3), and various other impurities, such as manganese compounds. In practice, the colour of natural occurences can vary from pale yellow to a blueish dark red. The more mineral water it contains, the paler the yellow and the less (in general) the more orange-red it appears. By heating it, one can make it deep red. Given this variability and the cost of refinement, since the middle of the 19th century the better quality is synthesised by precipating it from an iron solution, but the temperature variation still is there.

 

In addition, ochre is rarely used by itself as pigment in paint preparation, but often diluted with some cheap white pigment - which changes it tint, particularly, if the pigment changes the pH of the paint, as e.g. ground limestone would do.

 

The kind of binder used and any addition of driers will also change the tint of a paint - and glossy surface looks different from a satin or wheathered one ...  

[Roger Pellett]

If you need a more technical approach than the Mark I eyeball, Eric Ronnberg published a well researched article about early Nineteenth Century paint colors in the NRJ, maybe 1989.  An abridged version of this article is included in Volume II of the Guild’s Shop Notes (Support the owners of this forum, buy a, copy ).  The color chips from this article are on the Guild’s website.

 

Roger

[Ian Barefoot]

To all that responded to the thread - my thanks for the valid points raised.  I've decided to take a 'middle road' and have ordered the 'Admiralty' paints for Sherbourne.  My intention is then to prep some relevant woodstock and the paint it with a test sample of each brand with the colours as close as possible without actually touching!

 

With regard to paint formulae a funny(?) story with a moral...

As a nautical archaeologist I worked as a project officer for the Nautical Archaeology Society.  We're based a 'Fort Cumberland' in Southsea which is a 'Scheduled Ancient Monuument' (the same level of protection as Stonehenge).  The structures date back to the Napoleonic period.  The front door to our office was peeling badly & we asked for permission to repaint it.  'Only if you use the correct formual paint' for the period' was the reply.  Samples were sent for analysis, and £70:00 later we recieved a small tin of paint.  We happily rubbed down the old paintwork and applied the new...  It took six weeks to dry and another two weeks to peel..  We didn't have the same problem with the £7.50 tin of 'Valspar' which we painted over the top.....

 

Kindest Regards and once again - my thanks

 

Ian

[Nirvana]

I have no experience with other paints than Vallejo, so I am very biased.

I am using both the Air and regular paint. I like the product, could be because of it's pigments.