Newboy needs some varnishing help please

[Squint]

Hi all,

Great site, glad to be aboard.

And typical for a newbie, I need some help please.

Some time back I converted a die-cast steam lorry to give my White Russians a bit of motor transport (OK, maybe not historically accurate....but hey...).
Anyway, the finished thing looks pretty cool to my dim eyes, but the final coat of matt went a bit weird. Turned all white in places. I guess this is a result of the varnish being a bit too thick
Since my ummm......mishap, I've left the thing alone in the hope that the problem would sort itself out - just wishful thinking.
Anyone got any idea how I can clear this up without having to do a major re-paint.


Cheers
Squint.

[Lowtardog]

now one tip whihc might or might not work is to put another coat of varnish over the model. However the length of time you have left it might make this difficult to resolve.

I am betting the low temperature of the Diecast metal was most likely a cause of the frosting

It is worth a try and if possible brish it on or test a small part of the vehicle

[Prof.Witchheimer]

really difficult. either try it with another dull varnish layer or you have to repaint  

[dominic]

I hate it when that happens! :x

It's caused either by high humidity or low temperature.
One solution I have heard of (but never tried) is to immediately varnish over again with gloss varnish.

The other solution is to strip the paint and do it all over again :x  :x

Good luck.

[matakishi]

When this happened to me I resprayed with dullcoat (several months later) and it cured the problem.

[WitchfinderGeneral]

You could try to polish it with some clear car (or wood) polish. Depends on the varnish and why it froze... BUT most likely this will end up glossy and then it's impossible to re-varnish.

Stripping and re-painting would be my choice.

[Squint]

Hi,

Thanks for the tips. I hadn't considered the temperature thing.....I like that thought as the room in which I paint does tend to be on the cold side.

To be fair, the "whitening" isn't extensive just several small patches, which makes me think that localised touching up might be worth a try before a major re-work, especially as stripping the paint would, in all probability, also result in damaging some of the conversion work I did as well.

Thanks again. I'll let you know how I get on.

Squint.

[Plynkes]

I've had the dreaded white frost before and (mostly) got rid of it by respraying with more varnish. The metalic parts of the figure (spear tips etc.) never got their lustre back though and so I repainted those parts. The other parts of the models were fine.

[Wallyocerous]

And for those of you with diecast cars - if they have window "glass", don't spray them with Gloss/Dull-Cote!!!  It leaves a frosting on the windows (that can be scraped off eventually).  

My pain is your knowledge....  

Although, it does give me a chance to make a wrecked car objective marker!   :wink: