Model Forum / General / Models / November 2007

About five years ago I knew that I had to give up spray painting.  My
lungs couldn't handle the fumes from drying paint, let alone any kind of
aerosol.  So I decided to go to extremes (as always) and ban any and all
spray painting from my workshop.  The idea is to have fun, so I just
reasoned that it would be just as challenging to build a model without
the airbrush as it would be to use the airbrush--maybe a little more
challenging.

Future provides an excellent high gloss for decaling, but I have been
looking for a way to get a "dead flat" finish with a BRUSH for years.
Finally, today, I found what I've been looking for.  It's not something
that I invented--this has been around for a long time, but I had never
tried it.  It's Tamiya flat base and Future, mixed together.  The exact
ratio?  I don't know exactly--but here's how I mixed it up.  I took an
old (large) Tamiya thinner bottle (empty) and poured the bottle of flat
base into it (the flat base was the little, 10ml size).  Then I tried to
measure an equal portion of Future by pouring it into the (now nearly
empty) flat base bottle up to the top of the label, stirred it to try to
mix in the remaining flat base so that I wouldn't waste it--and poured
the Future mix from the little bottle into the big one.  Now I have what
I would call a fifty/fifty mix, ration 1 to 1.

That was too much flat base.  Turned the old "painting dummy" white.
Looked like salt spray on a ship (mental note--remember this for ship
modeling).

So I poured another "shot" of future into the little bottle, filling it
to the top of the label.  Stirred a little and poured it in to the
larger bottle of Future/flat base mix.  Now the "ratio" is 2 to 1
(maybe) Future to flat base.

Now I painted a coat on the "dummy" (an old Revell 1/72 P-39) and
SHAZAM!  Dead, stone cold FLAT.  After more experimenting and testing, I
can say that this is absolutely GREAT.  It's too thick for spraying, but
at this ratio it is fantastic for brushing.  You might want to add more
Future, but I have a feeling that it will always need more flat base for
brush work than what is used for spraying.

The mix has another big advantage--as an experiment I brushed a coat of
Future on a dummy, let it "just" dry--and put on a coat of the
flattening mix.  Wow!  It showed none of the horror that would have
occurred with Modelmaster Acryl flat or Polyscale flat.  No weird tears
or wrinkles.  Since the mix is made of Future (mostly) there was no
reaction, even on a coat of Future that wasn't entirely dry!

I just wanted to share that because it really, really solved a problem
that must confront anybody who tries to paint by hand.