"Varnish frosting & retarder" Topic

A couple of days ago I completed painting some figures and varnished them using my tried and tested method with Vallejo polyurethane through my airbrush, gloss first than matt. I've been doing this on or off for a number of years and was quite surprised to see almost instant frosting in the recesses.

To cut a long story short, the only thing I can think of that may have caused this is the use of retarder in some of the paints and ink washes I used on the figures.

Has anyone had any similar experiences?

Heh.

Do a search for "varnish frosting distaster" and similar and marvel at the vast array of threads that show up.

Even I have experienced it (with The Army Painter's Anti-Shine Matte Varnish). Most will suggest another coat of gloss coat, supple drying, and then matte varnishing again in a controlled environment (not too cold, not too hot, not too humid, not too dry).

Also: Test-spray before working on your miniatures ;)

Yeah thanks Cherno, over the years I've pretty much learnt what to avoid and how to rectify. Given that this varnishing was done indoors at room temperature and is something I have been doing this way successfully for quite some time I guess my point is that the only thing that might have caused it was the use of retarder underneath even though the figures were left overnight before varnishing.

I see. Well, I still believe that the humnidity in your room was 1% off so the painting gods were not pleased and punished you for your affront ;)

Maybe if I painted some Gods it would help?

A number of TMPer's have had this happen with Testors Dullcoat. It happened to me as well. Temperature and humidity were fine, just an old can of paint. Sometimes if it isn't mixed well it will frost. Possibly old paint?

Well I tried to narrow that down by using exactly the same stuff on an old figure Thomas and voilą! Perfect. This sort of thing can keep my mind far too busy.

I've had the frosting issue come up and it is a truly agonising experience to see all one's hard work covered in a a white haze. My heart goes out to you!

This may not be the look you are after, but I've never had a problem (knock on wood) with Testor's Semi-Gloss or Gloss varnishes. The Semi leaves a slight sheen but is pretty subtle. Of course, if you want dead flat this is no help, but I thought I'd mention it.

Love your screen name, by the way!

It is disconcerting Daryl. However, I think I may have worked out what happened. The figure in question had a dark ink wash applied and unusually I added a 5% solution of retarder to it. I think as it died the water obviously started to evaporate but the matt medium in the wash started to form a film trapping the ink and retarder underneath and thus prolonging the drying time even more. Essentially what I ended up doing was subjecting the figure to quite a hot environment and have since reapplied both gloss and matt varnishes successfully. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! The screen name is whole other story.

Seems plausible to me. More drying time then?

Essentially yes, I gave him a spell in front of an electric fan heater.