Pollycale flat totally screwed me. I did some updates on my F-15 for the contest tomorrow, and when I went to flat coat it with my “new” Pollyscale flat, it totally spattered all over the model (It was more than thin enough), and dried extremely streaky.
How can I get this off without damaging decals or paint?
Also, what did I do wrong?
What kind of paint is it?
Sounds like you had an incompatibility problem with the flat coat, or something caused the flatting agent (the pigment that makes the coating flat) to clump up. What did you use to thin the PollyScale?
It’s enamel paint. I thinned it with water, but not distilled.
You can`t thin enamels with water. The splatter was proberbly due to the polyscale being to thick.
Almost certainly something in the water played hob with the binder/pigment system in the flat coat. Most flatting agents (pigments) are forms of microsilica. Microsilica is weird stuff. Clear flat coatings are formulated to keep it at least minimally dispersed, and they are much more sensitive to contamination than ordinary flat paints. Microsilica is microscopically fine glass, possibly doped with elements besides silicon. When glass is that finely divided, it becomes chemically unstable. (Think of how sensitive opals are to certain chemicals—that’s essentially what you have here.)
Bottom line: Always use distilled or deionized water.
Since your base coats are enamel, you can strip the flat with Simple Green, Windex, or 90% isopropyl alcohol. I recommend Simple Green, but it has to be rinsed off (follow rinsing with an alcohol wipe). If you gloss coated over the decals with Future, you will have to be very careful over them—just use a cotton swab or clean cloth soaked in the cleaning solution, and a light touch.
Good luck!
It’s not the paint I’m thinning it with. I’m thinning the flat coat (acryl) with water.
Thanks for the tip on windex, I was almost afraid to use it 'til I got a second opinion. I’ll go try it out.
Are you sure it was enamel? Because Polly Scale, at least their military colors, are water-based acrylics. I love 'em, use them all the time. But I haven’t used the clear coats. If by enamel you mean it was an oil-based paint, there’s your problem. Don’t EVER put water in oil-based paint because, as we all know, oil and water don’t mix and nothing you do will make it so. Your paint will ball up, just as you discovered. I’m surprised it came out of the airbrush.
As for removing it, I first try to gently get it off with alcohol. If that won’t work, go to the art supply and get some Turpenoid. This is a turpentine substitute that is much milder than the real thing, and great for delicate jobs like this. And while this is a long shot, if you have access to a hobby shop that’s well stocked, get hold of Hawkeye’s Thinner and Brush Cleaner. It’s more kind to painted surfaces than plain old hardware store paint thinner, or turpentine, or mineral spirits, which I think are the same thing generally. (Somebody help me out here.)
There’s also diluted acetone (which is to say, nail polish remover, and it’s already diluted so you needn’t dilute it more). It’s cheap and you can get it anywhere.
Anyway, Haweye’s (www.hawkeyeshobbies.com) has taken over the full SnJ line of those fantastic metal paints (plus a few metals they’ve added). But they also make this thinner which is great for such jobs as this. I realize that time might be too much of an issue here, and these suggestions will be of no help. But I’ve found that enough work with alcohol will usually loosen just about anything.
As with any of these suggestions, try them on the smallest, least conspicuous place first to make sure they don’t make your problem worse. Good luck.
TOM
Ah, nononono, I’m not using Pollyscale paint, just the flat coat.
I know that incompatible paints will produce undesirable results. I’m using MM gunship Gray with %20 black. I sealed that with future, wash, weather, flat coat.
Then, when I went back in to fix some decals, I added more future on top, so I needed to flatten it. So I thinned the Pollyscale flat with water, and it totally went FUBAR.
I’ll try windex.
It worked very well. Thank god I used a lacquer flat coat to protect the decals previously, otherwise I’d be screwed.
It’s coming off in sheets like skin, and I’ve been through about three coats of windex.
Well, something went wrong and the build is now a loss, there’s no reasonable way to fix this new problem of white film (hard) covering 1/4 of the model. Now I’m starting to curse myself, it was a great model that won a lot, but I just HAD to fix those decals. Grr…
I’ll make another one next year or maybe sooner, it’s one of my favorite aircraft.
Thanks for everyones help, and I’ll avenge the F-15 soon.
When did the white develop, and in what layer of the coatings? Did it develop gradually, overnight, or suddenly while you were working on it?
I don’t want to get your hopes up, but there may be a fix.