British Tank Destroyer M10 IIC Achilles 1/35

[Tworrs]

Looking very good so far Mike, enjoy your build.

[Mini Me]

Press on Mike it all looks good from here. Rick H.

[Valeron]

I've had a bit of a backward step today. I'd previously attached lots of parts I'd handpainted and all was looking good.

I was still working on the tracks but thought I'd apply a gloss coat to protect progress so far.

I used Veloji gloss and hand brushed it neat.

It's all looking a bit of a mess to be honest. Streaky and blotchy bits. I'm going to have to think about what to do before I hand paint further details and apply decals.

To be honest I was expecting the application of a gloss coat to be a formality. I was wrong.

[Tim Marlow]

Don’t give up on it Mike. Gloss shows all the flaws, it’s a difficult coat to get spot on. The subsequent matt cost will dull it all back down nicely.

[Valeron]

Don’t give up on it Mike. Gloss shows all the flaws, it’s a difficult coat to get spot on. The subsequent matt cost will dull it all back down nicely.

Thanks Tim.

I'm not giving up. I'm a bit disappointed but I have to keep telling myself that I'm not an expert like I was at work, and just a trainee and need to take my time and continue to learn.

I'm still having loads of fun though. The hours seem to pass very quickly when I'm at the bench.

[Guest]

If I’m honest, then I must say that IMHO your mistake was applying varnish in the first place. There is generally no need for it at all, is my experience, unless you specifically want to alter how glossy or matt the model is. For example, if something needs to be glossy but you’ve painted it with matt paint (because that’s what you have, for instance), then gloss varnish is a good choice. But a general gloss coat for protection of what’s underneath? I don’t see the point — if you do anything afterwards that you want to take off again, you’ll probably just end up taking the gloss varnish (and what’s below) with it anyway. Simpler to repaint over the top than strip and repaint, if you ask me

[Valeron]

If I’m honest, then I must say that IMHO your mistake was applying varnish in the first place. There is generally no need for it at all, is my experience, unless you specifically want to alter how glossy or matt the model is. For example, if something needs to be glossy but you’ve painted it with matt paint (because that’s what you have, for instance), then gloss varnish is a good choice. But a general gloss coat for protection of what’s underneath? I don’t see the point — if you do anything afterwards that you want to take off again, you’ll probably just end up taking the gloss varnish (and what’s below) with it anyway. Simpler to repaint over the top than strip and repaint, if you ask me :smiling3:

I see your point Jakko and you have mentioned in this thread earlier that you don't do an overall gloss coat. I guess I should have listened and looked into it more.

It's just that most people and other websites say to do a gloss coat before you wash and weather etc.

So do you apply your washes and weathering directly to the paintwork?

[Valeron]

I see your point Jakko and you have mentioned in this thread earlier that you don't do an overall gloss coat. I guess I should have listened and looked into it more.

It's just that most people and other websites say to do a gloss coat before you wash and weather etc.

So do you apply your washes and weathering directly to the paintwork?

Actually that wasn't you Jacko but someone else raised the point. Same point though, just different people.

[Tim Marlow]

In my experience if you put a wash onto matt paint you are risking tidemarks or coffee staining effects on the paint. There are ways to avoid this, but they involve wetting the surface with whatever thinner you are using so you don’t get a tide mark effect. This is difficult to control. For a pin wash or decal work I also think gloss varnish makes life far easier because surface tension makes the wash flows where you want it and the decals settle down better with less chance of trapping air.
As always in this game though, what works for you is what works….and the only way you’ll get a handle on that is to try different things until you find a process that suits your working style.

[Guest]

most people and other websites say to do a gloss coat before you wash and weather etc.

As Tim says as well: do what works for you. What other people do may or may not work for you, but of course, discovering that is largely a matter of trying it and seeing what happens when you do it that way. In other words: reading or seeing someone else’s techniques is good, because it may give you ideas you hadn’t had yourself, but it’s far from guaranteed that you will get the same results as the other person. You will probably need to adapt any technique to your way of working to get the most out of it.

So do you apply your washes and weathering directly to the paintwork?

Yes, I’ve never done anything else and it works for me, so I don’t see why I would add another step that would probably change the outcome in unpredictable ways If something were to go wrong, then like I said, I would just repaint the area and start again if fixing the problem doesn’t work. Not that this has ever happened, as far as I can remember

Something else that just occurred to me: you painted this model mostly with Tamiya spray cans. From having used them sometimes long ago, the paint in those is very tough, as I recall; if you had to strip subsequent paint off with something like plain alcohol, you can probably do that without affecting the base coat anyway (This would be easy enough to test too: spray some leftover sprue with it, then once it’s dried, try rubbing it away with some alcohol, paint thinner or whatever you might use to remove paint.)

[Jim R]

Hi Mike
I try to avoid gloss varnish. If I feel a varnish is needed I would much rather mist over a satin coat. What is clear is that to find out what works for you you have to try a few things as Tim and Jakko say.

Jim