Friday, August 25, 2023

The refusing to vanish varnish

First up thanks to all those who commented on my More Varnish Woes post.  These four limbers were affected to varying degrees.  Overpainting with a varnish lessened some of the damage, but the white mottling seems to be persistent.  The damage looks worse in these images, but they will still be serviceable on the table top.

While I am still continuing to investigate cause, I haven't reached a resolution.

Problems might be due to being too heavy handed when spraying, reaction with previous varnish and possibly even reacting with the paint I have been using (a mix of Vallejo and Jo Sonja).  I will be doing some more tests to cover this latter possible issue.

Overpainting with varnish certainly helps reduce the problem and for that I am grateful.

Some of these figures had been previously varnished, but not all of them.


These had certainly not been previously varnished.


 

4 comments:

  1. Hi Mark, would it be worth while doing some experiments with various combinations on some old figures to try and work out the issue? Time consuming but maybe better than experimenting on newly painted ones 😊 Best of luck with them.

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    1. Thanks. I'm preparing some test strips of different paints on a spare bit of metal base.

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  2. That sort of problem, especially with spray varnish is normally down to humidity and / or temperature; from what I understand, water vapour gets trapped in the varnish.
    I have only ever suffered something similar once. I have only ever used brush on varnish. I had run out of normal household or hobby varnish, but had some artists acrylic varnish. Slopped it on and it went on and stayed blotchy white with occasional clear patches not dissimilar to your problems.
    I later learned that it needed to be at a certain temperature and should have been warmed first.
    Neil

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    1. I've experienced the atmospheric problems before, but this last event has been in perfect conditions. Current thinking it is a reaction with the paints I have been using, although I am not convinced as it has not been a problem in the past. I think part of my problem was that I sprayed too much on - which if by "slopped it on" you mean the same it might be a cause. Testing continues.

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