"Contrasts restore some frosted British colors..." Topic

So I found another use for Citadel Contrasts. Turns out they can be an aid in restoring flags that have been frosted by spray varnish.

This afternoon, I was spray varnishing a few more AWI regiments.

I usually spray varnish the regiments after the flags have been attached to the poles. I did this both with my AWI and ACW armies and used Dullcote matte spray over mostly GMB flags. There was no problem, the flags came out fine.

However, today I was trying a new varnish, AK Interactive brand and it badly frosted the flags. Strange thing is that the miniatures themselves were totally fine, no frosting at all.

So I attempted the method of brusing a gloss varnish over the flags and then brushing on a matte varnish. It got rid of some of it, but alot of the frosting persisted.

So I thought I would then try to actually paint the colors back in and see if that made a difference.

I used three Citadel Contrast colors:

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They weren't totally restored, but they are a long way from how they looked right after they got frosted. I basically used the lines of the flags to sort of fill in the shapes with the Contrast colors as carefully as I could. While some of the edges are still somewhat rough, it at least brought back the vividness of the colors in the blue and red wider and narrow bars as well as the field of the yellow regimental flag.

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Like I said, they didn't come out perfect, but I feel like I got back enough of the colors to make serviceable for the tabletop.

But I did post in other threads that from now on the best policy for me is to use a brush on varnish for my command stands and to only varnish the models. And then only use spray varnish on the ordinary infantry stands. That way the flags never get touched by varnish of any kind and they are left in their orignal unmeddled with condition.

Truly beautiful work. Truly!

If you hadn't told us about the frosting problem, I wouldn't have been able to tell just from the pictures you posted. The flags look great to me.

Jim

Great idea!
A question.
Have you thought about attaching the flags after sealing/varnishing the figures?

Is it straight paper you are using or a light cardstock or what for the flags?

Thanks folks, much appreciated!

@Murphy,

The flags are GMB Designs.

There are several other extensive threads about the issue, which I read through pretty thoroughly.

You are quite correct, the easiest solution would be to simply glue the flags to the poles and then wait to glue the poles to the bearers after the models are varnished.

I guess for me it's an OCD thing, I like seeing everything put together and do the varnishing last. I don't mind doing a brush on varnish for the command stand models only to avoid getting varnish on the flags.

What I learned from the other threads is that like book pages, greeting cards, and calendars, etc….GMB's flags like most other hobby flags are printed on paper that is coated with some sort of laminate. So in terms of varnish, there's no need to add additional varnish to them since they are already protected for gaming purposes.

I'm guessing that what's happening is that the spray varnish is interacting with the laminate and the two are chemically combining which creates the white frosting and crackling.

So the best thing is to never varnish flags in the first place.

However, ONE safe way to add additional protection for flags, if you want to, to help prevent UV fading, etc. is to use a BRUSH ON GLOSS varnish over the flags first. From what I read from those who have experience doing it, it is then safe to do either a spray matte or a brush on matte varnish over that.

Apparently a brush on varnish doesn't interact with the paper's laminate like an aerosol spray does.

Many things to consider! But for my simply hobby brain, I choose to avoid getting any varnish on the flags at all and then take my chances with fading!