Sealing journey (and a discovery!)

I did a lot of experimenting with dipping over the past months.

Part of my motivation was to free my hobby from the aerosol can, and all the evil that entails - dullcote is smelly and expensive.
This led to miracle dip. If you dip, you get to handle shading and sealing with a single process.

So I found Pledge One Go which is the Australian version of Future floor wax. Shocking stink. I persisted a bit, but it seemed to make the figure a bit milky to my eye, so I gave it away. Anyhow it's very shiny - the figure still needs to be dulled down, and I had no dullcote. I tried the Vallejo matt varnish and ...

Deeko matt varnish I found at the art supplier. It made a very clear dip and a dull surface, but it just didn't go very hard. I would dip the figure and double seal it, but a week later the paint would still rub off.

I tried pretty much every matt varnish I could lay my hands on - Revell, Humbrol, GW.

Hard to get Dullcote in Australia right now. Change of ownership of Testors has made distribution unsteady down here. I bought a bottle of it neat - no aerosol. As a dip it doesn't work well. Pigment doesn't run well. I guess I needed to give the figure a shiny surface before I started with a gloss varnish.

By now, dipping seemed like something less than a miracle to me (If I could settle on a process, it'd be a miracle ha ha)

In the Big Smoke over Christmas, someone suggested I use a can of furniture spray varnish. Over here that's called Estapol. It comes in matt. For cheaper than a can of Dullcote, I got 20 times as much.

My painting production has skyrocketed. I slosh about a bit of black wash after painting, take the little darlings outside, and BANG! sealed, safe, finished.

So I failed to break my aerosol habit, but I found out a lot about varnish, and discovered Estapol I like making furniture, so the Estapol story has a strange congruence.

Cheers,
Richard.

[ February 20, 2005, 18:36: Message edited by: Cremorn ]