Bush-On Flat Coat Gone Horribly Wrong...

[Curryman]

The latest in an ongoing series of reprints of articles originally written by Kyun for his late, lamented Wee Toy Soldiers site documents an experiment with using Tamiya Flat Agent as a brush-on flat coat to replace the likes of Testor's Dullcote. The results are... not good. I offer it to the community as a bit of encouragement showing even talented guys like Kyun have projects blow up in their faces sometimes.

http://thescreamingalpha.com/2009/05/12/brush-on-flat-coating-goes-horribly-wrong/

[Westfalia Chris]

I wonder why one should consider a Flat Medium for use as a dullcote in the first place. I´d expect it to have microscopic particles inside which need a colour tone to cover them, so I´d think this reaction was to be kind of expected.

I consider actual varnishes which fail to dry up clearly (usually murky water or dust in the air, but sometimes it´s due to the formula) more of a hassle.

[Hitman]

Am I ever glad that I can still buy Testor's Dullcoat Spray. I purchased about a 12 cans and then another 6 afterwards...I figure I will use most of it up this summer if I can get off my butt and start painting again.

[Curryman]

I'm with you on that one, Hitman. I'd be lost without Dullcote. It's annoyingly hard to find at retail around here for some reason, so I usually end up ordering it by the multipack when I need other hobby supplies. If you can kill 18 cans of the stuff you must have quite a lead mountain to get through, huh? Hope you'll share pics...

[redzed]

My experiment was to see if I could achieve a clear flat coat by applying this Flat Agent, mixed and thinned with distilled water.

distilled water is the problem.


use Klear/Future as the medium

[Gluteus Maximus]

I'm down to my last can of Dullcote   

However, the new Army Painter range has a very good alternative and these are freely available in the UK   

I think I'll stick to these, rsather than experiment and face a potential catastrophe like this one.

[Plynkes]

Glutes, Antenociti's sells Dullcote (spray and brush-on) if you want it. I bought some recently. The ban is no longer in effect. As far as I can tell the new stuff behaves no differently to the old formula.

[Remington]

If you wanna go Brush-On then Daler-Rowney Soluble Matt Varnish is a great product.

Thank you for the little pie charts, redzed. That was interesting.

[Gluteus Maximus]

Glutes, Antenociti's sells Dullcote (spray and brush-on) if you want it. I bought some recently. The ban is no longer in effect. As far as I can tell the new stuff behaves no differently to the old formula.

Aha! Thanks very much for that. I assumed the ban was still in force and hadn't realised they had changed the ingredients. I got my last supplies from Antenociti, so I shall definitely return for more. 

[Verderer]

The result is about what you'd expect, isn't it? That stuff was never meant to be used alone (even diluted), if I am not mistaken. It's mean't to be mixed with paint to turn the paint from gloss into matte. So it MIGHT work mixed with glossy varnish, but I wouldn't try even that. If you read the tin, it say Flat BASE, so it's like matte medium, not varnish.

So why not just use good brush on varnish. I use Vallejo GAME colour varnishes, they're brilliant. Much better than Vallejo Model Colour, which were pretty bad the last time I tried them out.

So I heartily recommend trying out Game Colour varnishes, they brush on nicely and work well enough with airbrushes as well.

[Malebolgia]

Yes, but the VGC matte brush-on still doesn't give the same supermatt effect Dullcote gives (if it's behaving well, that is ). I use it for my friend's army I'm painting as a cheap alternative to Dullcote. Biggest advantage of VGC Matte Varnish is it's almost impossible to ruin the effect. I think I have varnished about 100 or so miniatures with it and no miniature fogged over, cracked, etc. Of course it doesn't protect the paintjob very well, but that's where the car spray gloss varnish is for . That combination works very well and gives a very hard and protective layer.

[Verderer]

Hm, I haven't haven't tried out the legendary Dullcote, so I will take your word for it. If I am concerned about wear (which I usually am not), I brush first a coat of glossy varnish and then matte. It's pretty durable.

[Malebolgia]

Dullcote is really awesome...if it works well. And that's my biggest gripe with it. It reacts a lot to the weather. So cold and high humidity have a huge impact on dullcote. I had several paintjobs that got all foggy with dullcote. Luckily there is a great solution that often works well if this happens:

http://www.privateerpressforums.com/index.php?showtopic=49296

But unfortunately this does not always have effect. Two months ago I painted Red Box Games' Sigurd and after I Dullcoted him, he was covered in weird whitish specks (probably because the spray was too cold). So I had to repaint lots of surfaces...I wasn't happy with Dullcote that evening!

One way of spraying I really like is to spray outdoors and then quickly take the miniatures indoors so the weather has minimum influence. Downside is the stuff stinks *enormously* and you really need to ventilate the room. It smells terrible and could not possibly be well for your health.

So you could say I have a real love-hate relationship with Dullcote

[Verderer]

Yeah, sprays stink horrible. I try to avoid them as much as possible. Luckily I got an airbrush.

[Cheeky Monkey]

Dull-coat has long been one of the things to use - and if you're concerned about clouding and white specks the old trick of putting the can in a bowl of hot water for awhile before spraying really helps eliminate a lot of problems with it. It helps build the pressure in the can so the paint atomizes more thoroughly and also seems to get the paint to mix more completely when shaking the can. Whenever spraying any Testors paint I always do this - but especially with the clear coats, both gloss and flat.