Belizean Sea Hawk fail - clearcoat reaction

[Weaver]

I've been building a Sea Hawk of the Belize Defence Force for a GB over on BTS. Deadline was today, And here's what I ended up with at 2:30am.... 

The kit is the Hobbyboss Mk.100/Mk.101 German Navy version.

The top colour is Hu.30 Dark Green out of a rattle can. This is much better (i.e. closer to the RAF colour) than the Hu.30 in tinlets by the way, which is notoriously "bluey". Ironically, I wouldn't have minded the bluey version on this model since that would be quite like the real BDF colour. The underside grey is the car-shop rattle-can undercoat colour. I did consider overall green (like most of the real BDF aircraft) but there was a seam to conceal on the front fuselage, so the demarcation line "happened" to go along it.

BDF flags were printed on white decal paper using an image grabbed from the web. Serials and buzz numbers were from a Fantasy Printshop Luftwaffe multi-size lettering sheet (best "generic" lettering I've found) and the stencils were from the kit.




Weapons and pylons came from the spares box. I think the pylons were either Hawk or Harrier ones. The bombs are painted Hu.88 Deck Green (just 'cos I like it). The back story was going to be that this is how the aircraft looked at the 1978 Farnborough Air Show just after being refurbished, so the bombs would be fake anyway.




The grey and the green were acrylic so the whole thing got a light coat of Humbrol Acrylic Gloss Varnish before decalling. The self-print decals were also sealed with the same stuff. Surprisingly, a couple of the Fantasy Printshop decals didn't stick well and had to be stuck back down with a dab of varnish. Then the weapons and undercarriage were added, and it got a coat of Humbrol Acrylic Matt Varnish, which seemed to be going on okay, but then sagged unexpectedly on the right wing (the model was suspended nose down for spraying  so I could do all of it in one coat). I took it off the hook in the hope that the sag would self-level out, and that's when the bloom started at several places, spreading within minutes to the whole thing.




Here's the bloom close-up. It's actually cracked, not just misty, which makes me think it's not going away any time soon, certainly not in time for today's deadline:

[Captain Canada]

Maybe it's just my screen resolution, but it doesn't look all that bad to me. Give her some dirt and streaks and say she was not hangared 

[Weaver]

Maybe it's just my screen resolution, but it doesn't look all that bad to me. Give her some dirt and streaks and say she was not hangared 

Trust me, it's bad. You might get away with saying it's a coat of hard frost, but it's kind of hard to reconcile that with it being in Belize, isn't it?

[Martin H]

Hmm I had a similar reaction in some places on the Airfix swift useing Vallejo rattle can matt varnish a few weeks ago. I ended up repainting the effected areas and then using Vallejo airbrush applied varnish istead of the rattle can. I had put it down to a dodgey can.........................

[JayBee]

Maybe it's just my screen resolution, but it doesn't look all that bad to me. Give her some dirt and streaks and say she was not hangared 

Trust me, it's bad. You might get away with saying it's a coat of hard frost, but it's kind of hard to reconcile that with it being in Belize, isn't it?

Climate change? 

[Weaver]

Hmm I had a similar reaction in some places on the Airfix swift useing Vallejo rattle can matt varnish a few weeks ago. I ended up repainting the effected areas and then using Vallejo airbrush applied varnish istead of the rattle can. I had put it down to a dodgey can.........................

Exact same can I used on the Skyhawk...

[NARSES2]

I've had similar on a couple of occasions and put it down to a dodgy can at first. When it happened with another can (Humbrol by the way) as not having shaken the can enough ? I tend to put my cans in warm water for 10mins or so before giving it a good shake now.

[zenrat]

Bugger.  A bloom like that is IME a result of it being too cold or humid.

[Thorvic]

Looking at the cracking I guess the only way is to get it stripped back to the plastic and start again 

[Weaver]

The can was only about 1/3 full, so I'm wondering if the proportion of propellant to varnish got skewed somehow. I doubt it was humidity or temperature: I spray in the attic and at this time of year it retains loads of heat all night.

[major]

The can was only about 1/3 full, so I'm wondering if the proportion of propellant to varnish got skewed somehow. I doubt it was humidity or temperature: I spray in the attic and at this time of year it retains loads of heat all night.

And you hit the nail on the head!*

Same thing happened when i was painting a set of plastic motorcycle indicators! Propellant/paint ratio.

*Warning! Do not use aerosol cans to hit nails on the head! Came home one day to find the missus had driven half a dozen nails into the wall, with a deodorant aerosol, to hang pictures of the cats!

[Weaver]

The can was only about 1/3 full, so I'm wondering if the proportion of propellant to varnish got skewed somehow. I doubt it was humidity or temperature: I spray in the attic and at this time of year it retains loads of heat all night.

And you hit the nail on the head!*

Same thing happened when i was painting a set of plastic motorcycle indicators! Propellant/paint ratio.

*Warning! Do not use aerosol cans to hit nails on the head! Came home one day to find the missus had driven half a dozen nails into the wall, with a deodorant aerosol, to hang pictures of the cats!

Tell her to use her head in future----->  ....

If I have another go at this I'll be using a different shade of green that isn't available in a spray can, so if I'm breaking the airbrush out, I might as well use it for the varnish too. The colour is the same Hu.88 Deck Green you see on the bombs. I might darken it a bit, or I might just leave it, the inspiration being this Bell-212 than the British Army used in Belize:



According to a poster on PPrune is was known as "Kermit" or "Huey Green" in that paint job.   It eventually had the light grey cammo added over the green as per the other Belize Hueys.

[Weaver]

Here's what the cockpit and canopy look like on:

[sandiego89]

Well the cockpit and canopy look great- especially with the black trim on the canopy frames. 

-Dave

[KiwiZac]

Agreed - the whole nose area looks fantastic!

As I said at BTS, if it were me I'd make a couple of changes and present the finished model as a "gate guardian" or outdoor museum piece  Regardless of what you do, I'm sure you can salvage it.