IWAZFRAMED

Finally finished my tank build and painted everything minus some detail work and decals. So my question is do I varnish then decals and detail work and final seal or what do most people do, I just need a few gas cans and ammo boxes and some rust and wash detail to go. Using Vallejo matte varnish through my airbrush. Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

Michal_Kaczorowski

Many prefer this order:
- paint
- gloss varnish where decals would be (to avoid silvering caused by matt paint)
- decals
- gloss varnish on whole tank (to impreve flow of wash and protect decals)
- washes
- matt/satin varnish.

IWAZFRAMED

Interesting ok I’ll try that thanks

Crius

I have seen guys skip the gloss coat before decals and apply the decals using microsol and microset. That stuff makes the decal snuggle right down, even on flat paint, with no silvering. Then you put a flat coat over it and it looks like it was painted on.

fuchstraumer

Yeah I personally use a satin varnish - somewhere between matte and gloss - for my filtering and weathering pre-pass after adding decals. Satin varnish seems to give me a nice good mixture of flow and paint binding, whereas gloss makes it harder for things like oil drop filtering and other more diffuse techniques to adhere well at all (it ALL just flows into crevices - whereas I think we want SOME flow into those areas and some general stickiness to add variation to the model's paint)

the final sealant coat is usually a matte one though, since at that point i don't want to affect how things look much at all and just want to seal in the work so far. most of my approach comes from 1/35 models though, and you will probably find less weathering is needed on larger scale models. especially at 1/16, you just end up needing a LOOTTT more of all your paints and products to get anywhere.

edit: as for manufacturers i was using all tamiya varnishes, but in the next few weeks i'm getting VMS satin varnish that i'm quite excited to try as it looks like exactly the kind of finish i want. i'm getting a ton of their other weathering products too, and i'm especially excited to play with their track painting pigment and steel pigment for burnishing / metal wear. also got a ton of mud/dirt pigments, but those are absolutely just for my 1/35 models - no need to throw fake dirt on a 1/16 rc model, haha

Crius

I came over from static aircraft modeling so I've been using future floor polish as a clear coat for decades. Stuff works great.

IWAZFRAMED

I saw people using floor polish but wasn’t sure of the exact one to use. I laid down a coat of varnish and model is still kinda rough in spots so I will try another coat to smooth things out before trying to apply decals. Do decal fix products make it easier as I have never used water slide style decals? By the way thanks in advance for all who answered the many questions I have posted. My only real gripe with the tank is how hard it is to remove upper hull and top turret! I don’t want to damage the tank but it is much easier to work on in parts to reach all the angles for paint, varnish and decals.

Crius

Personally, I won't put down decals without microsol and microset. The first time you use it you'll kind of freak out because the decal will get all wrinkled up and look like a piece of crap, but once it dries everything snuggles right down and looks just like paint. The trick is to not touch it when it looks all gunky. Just let it sit overnight and they will look great.

MAUS45

I agree Gary, Here is a photo of a 1/35 Panther A with zimmerit I built. The cross is a decal I laid down on the zimmerit with Microsol. No clearcoat or flat coat yet.

jarndice

Every Tank I build has an extended length set of cables between Tank Body and Hull this allows me to work on an open Tank without worry of pulling out or breaking cables,
.The extended cables are readily available on E-Bay or from the regular sites we all use such as IMEX/www.rctank.de etc,
.As to Future Floor Polish, as far as this European is concerned the formulae used is different from that found in the US version and it does not appear to work.
I get good results with "Micro-set/sol" but the best results I have achieved to date is with "Stencils". which I commission from
www.radindustries.wordpress.com
the work is of top quality and you have a choice of buying ready to order product or commissioning your own and the cost----- peanuts.

IWAZFRAMED

I only have access to one local hobby shop which I try to go first to help out the local business but they cater more to mainstream R/C than tank builders so choices for decal and paint and such are slim. Got my hands on some Pledge and gonna give that a try then just need to wait for Amazon to deliver the decal fix and then some finishing touches. Kinda sad to be almost finished since I have had the tank for almost a year now. Already looking for a possible next build but like many it won’t the my first priority with work and two teenaged kids, oh and a wife lol. I took a lot of pictures so when it’s complete I will post all.