I’m going to be tackling some salt fading here before too long, and the two times I’ve tried it, the water has beaded and run like crazy…not a big deal but it means that the salt dries in place as the beads dry, creating “salt circles” the size of the drops instead of a more random distribution.
Anybody have any ideas how to break the water’s surface tension in a way that won’t mess with the thin paint coats that’ll get sprayed on top? I know that a drop or two of dish soap will break the surface tension of the water, but I’m not sure how it’ll play with highly thinned enamel paint going down on top of it, especially when it’s time to rinse the salt off.
A drop of dishwashing detergent is all I can think of. And maybe distilled water would be better, since there would be no mineral residue when it evaporates.
I also use a tiny drop of either liquid hand soap or dishwashing soap. Works well. Some folks also use that tip on their decal water but I haven’t found decals needing it as much as weathering and such. Also, when I use thinned white glue, as for things like small photo-etch, I add the drop of detergent. I use a drop per eight-ounce glass. If I don’t want that much water on bench I dump out half of it before bringing it to bench, but hard to get less than a drop if you add soap to too small a quantity of water.
You could also add a little future to the water, that breaks the surface tension too, but I can not guarantee for the results with this application. Hope it helps, have a nice day
When i use the salt chipping technique I either brush a little water or isopropyl alchohol on the piece and sprinkle with salt the water or alchohol dries quicklky and leaves salt whereever you have sprinkled or set it
Are you doing it over a gloss coat? I brush the water over the flat paint without a problem, sprinkle the salt and let it dry. I then use a toothpick to fine tune and remove some of the salt before the next paint layer. Hope this helps.