so im having trouble with decals that silver, i recently found out that is was because of matt paint. I have been working on Revells queen mary 2 1/400 for a while, and painted it Solid Silk Matt, so decals will guarantee to silver, now one option would be to spray the whole thing with an clear gloss finnish, which is quite a job for such a big model, is there any other way to do this? because i prefer painting my ship silk matt, not solid gloss, will look to shiny for me, any ideas?
MicroMark sells a product called Decal Fix #85847 designed especially for silvering decal issues. I’ve used it for my model trains and it works great.
Rob
ill try humbrol’s decalfix since i do not life in the USA, cant buy from micromark. ill see how it works when i get to the decals
Good luck
Rob
you could do what the armour boys do gloss it then decal then matt coat, or as your desired finish satin coat.
I have gotten by with applying a gloss medium just to the area where a decal will go. I use Future, and in those cases in which I didn’t want to coat the whole model, I laid down a puddle of Future where the decal would go, then the decal. When everything cured, I hit the model with DullCote. I think that might help you, too, at least, for future applicationes (no pun intended. Oh, heck, I’ll take the pun!)
Just the name on the stern and bows, correct?
A local amount of Future should work.
Ditto on what Baron and GM said. The Future, decal/Future then Dullcote works for me. Lots of clear Matt & Satins out there that work.
Jim [cptn]
Mainly yes, but also the black lines near the bridge, helipad, playgrounds and lots more, so many decals on this model!, but what is this future you talking about, any links?
If you live in the UK see this link:
Thanks to 1943Mike for the link! Future is a clear acrylic floor coating. Modelers discovered years ago that it has a place on the workbench. Yours is one case, it can be used to provide a smooth surface over which to apply decals and help eliminate silvering. Silvering comes from air trapped between the decal film and the surface below. A matte surface is rough, which is why it appears matte, it scatters light, instead of reflecting it. The clear acrylic makes a much more smooth surface.
Another service Future provides is in making clear parts appear clearer. It’s the same effect as in gloss-coating for decals–the clear acrylic fills in tiny scratches and similar imperfections in the surface of the clear part, and allows better direct transmission of light. Those scratches scatter light and that’s way makes the part look cloudy. Airplane canopies or other transparencies, for example. You can also use it to repair a clear part that gets damaged, especially from glue smudges. Simply sand the smudge down with successively finer grits, down to polishing grits, and then dip the piece in Future. It’s pretty effective.
It can also be used as an adhesive, especially for clear parts. I also recall someone mentioning that he used clear acrylic to attach photo-etch bits.
Matt Swann, who maintains his website, Swanny’s Models, maintains a page with more info about Future, including its history and the various brand name changes it has undergone over the years, and in many different countries:
http://www.swannysmodels.com/TheCompleteFuture.html
Hope that helps!
Thanks for all the great info! But how does it compare to humbrol decalfix? since its much more easy for me to get, and use, or atleast thats what i think. Are there any video’s out there showing how people use future?
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the decal setting solutions “Solvaset” or “Micro-Sol & Micro-Set”. Solvaset works on thicker decals and can actually ruin the very thin decals like made by Micro-Scale. You can use Micro- Set/Sol on very thin and thick decals fairly safely.
While decal setting solutions and solvents do nice things, in my experience they do not do a very good job of eliminating silvering due to application over flat paint.
they seem a little difficult to use too, unlike decalfix from humbrol, i think ill get some soon and test out on some spare decals, see how it cures to matt and gloss service.
It’s good to test stuff for yourself. No substitute for that.
A good gloss surface is always a real help. Whether or not you’ve used Future or clear acrylic spray or lacquer.
Doing a local area of gloss has it’s problems, because that usually slightly darkens the look of the color under it. That’ll show unless a fair amount of weathering is planned.
And Future has it’s challenges too. Runs and accumulation in depressions in particular.
A good overall coat of either Future, applied by hand carefully without bubbles, brushmarks or runs; or a good couple of lacquer spray coats works well.
I’ve had that happen, too, the puddling. I used a cotton swab dipped in a weak ammonia solution (Windex) to dissolve the accumulation, then touched up the area with a brush.
You know what? I never had any problem with it, until someone said that I couldn’t do it. Had to put decals on over a gloss finish they said. How was I supposed to know that I was doing it wrong…heck, it worked for me. Maybe, that is why the edges of my decals seemed to disappear. But, I was doing it all wrong they said. Truthfully, I must say that it is much easier to get rid of the air bubbles when used over a gloss finish.
On further review, maybe the fact that I was using Floquil paint and its fine pigments was what allowed me to get by applying decals directly to the flat finish and get rid of the air bubbles.
Very likely.
So i got some decalfix, seems to work decently, but decals are so frustrating, screwed some decals up, like the helipad, its just so big and kep folding. so no helipad on my QM2[:(], is there maybe a shop that sells spare decals or something? because it would also be nice to decal my old models, which i took of because of silvering.