I am very appreciative of Acrylicos Vallejo (AV) for sending new products for review, and I am equally appreciative of all the Review Corps crew members who take care of all of the legwork to get materials to reviewers and the completed reviews published for the modeling community. It is a privilege to be part of this manufacturer-modeler group effort.

Description

I am pleased to see more specialized weathering and detail treatments from Acrylicos Vallejo. Each of these relatively transparent stains is designed to effectively cover an engine with sloppy fueling stains, overfill spills, grime and other interesting maintenance or hurry-up oversights. Using these stains will bring an engine from the factory floor to a realistic operating appearance, looking thoroughly used under hard field conditions, limited maintenance, or otherwise. Each 40 ml bottle provides about 440 scale gallons of liquid, so your fleet is covered. A step-by-step guide is available on the AV product page with all sorts of good suggestions for application.

Since this review is evaluating stain quality to represent engine operational effects, and the reader may have several engine types in mind, I did not paint a model engine, but instead made a “test-bed” of plastic diamond plate. I inclined the surface about 15 degrees, put a drop of each stain under the corresponding stain number, and teased each downwards to represent a liquid flow. I did not shake, but stirred each stain to bring up all of the pigment. I also discovered that the working time is fairly short. I found that if I teased the flow line a couple of minutes after application, a rubbery peeling came up. Please look at the test bed photo to see the contrasts. The main picture is taken in daylight, and the inset picture is a scanned image of the same diamond plate.

The engine effect samples provided for review are:

• 73.813 Oil Stains
• 73.814 Fuel Stains
• 73.815 Engine Grime
• 73.816 Diesel Stains
• 73.817 Petrol Spills
• 73.818 Brown Engine Soot

Conclusions and Recommendation

These stains worked flawlessly, very certainly living up to the engine effect designation. I am pleased with the effects on the diamond plate, and look forward to putting them to work. My brushes cleaned easily with water, and there is no nasty chemical fume issue. A possible con to these stains is possible overuse. Be subtle!

I highly recommend these engine effect stains without reservation.

Thank you again to Acrylicos Vallejo and the Reviewer Corp, it was a lot of fun!