The Little World

Just when you thought hat you had the rock-solid, universal, standard-of-the-industry advice from every model making magazine and reference article….the YouTube brings more experts to you who decry generally perceived wisdom. This has just occurred with the business of Future floor polish and other clear coats, and now I am back at square one.

Up until now everyone has been telling me to spray with Future floor polish whenever I wanted to seal off a model surface. Never mind that I cannot get the stuff here in Australia and must be frustrated forever. I am expected to find substitutes in other floor polishes or expensive proprietary varnishes. If they do not work, or work poorly, it will be my fault for doing it wrong.

Well, that’s no new thing – being wrong is the common condition of anyone in a trade, profession, or hobby. Being wrong and defiant with it is the real test of character. Spitting in the eye of an opponent is one thing – doing so for an instructor or someone trying to sell an expensive product is another. The real adventurers do the spitting and then wipe the eye with an onion-soaked rag…

The YouTube advice now comes from two experts who decry the use of the floor polishes altogether for decal preparation – they are advocating use of decal setting solutions straight on bare paint, and seem to have the results to prove that this is as good as the more complex procedures. I’m prepared to believe them in the case of some paints that are gloss or semi-gloss to begin with. Indeed, if this is really the case it is a good argument for using these surfaces at the paint stage and leaving all reflectance alterations to the final dull or semi-dull coat. Yet there are so many models with impossible lines and rivets that obstruct the decals…

I am prepared to risk $20. The next fighter plane – a Martlet or Fulmar – will be painted with gloss lacquer or acrylics and the decals floated onto the surface with a 20% mixture of Micro Set as  – quote – ” Decal water “. Then Micro Sol will complete the task of snuggling them down to the paint. If it is successful I will continue doing it until I run out of the Micro products and hopefully by that time the Gunze decal setting products will be in the shops.

The final seal of the thing will likely be a Gunze varnish of some sort – though there is a fair backlog of Tamiya and Humbrol products on the finishing shelf. I’m starting to think it is all much of a muchness when sprayed on thinly enough and left long enough to cure.

The maddening thing about it all is the price of the floor polishes that you can get – they are so much cheaper than 10ml bottles of varnish that you are forever being drawn to them for the coatings. So far they don’t look as good as the other varnishes but I keep thinking that it will all come good at some magic air pressure or with a special curing cycle. It’s the sort of hope that brings you back to buy Lotto tickets each week.