I must be searching using the wrong key words but how does one join multiple tables with SQL that share the same data type so you get them in the same column?

To better explain let me give you an example. I have 3 tables:
data_char, data_float, data_integer

They all have the first 4 columns in common, but the 5th column is different. So they all have aID (int), bID (int), cID (int), val_timestamp (timestamp)

The data_char has a val_char (varchar 255), the data_float has a val_float (float), and the data_integer has a val_int (int) column.

The aID's in each table are auto-incrementing values and not related to each other, but the bID is how I link all the tables together.

Is there a way to write a query (I'm using MySQL) to return a result set that has:
Code:
cID  val_timestamp   val_char  val_float  val_int
for a specific bID?

I can't find a way to get the cID and val_timestamp columns from each table to merge into a single column, they are coming out as cID cID_1 cID_2 sort of thing.

Or what would you recommend to pull out that data from different tables?

Thanks,
Jeff.