Overcoats: Gloss and Matte Sealers

First Let me name names:

• Future Floorwax
• Testor’s Dullcoat

It was hard for me to find the right products but there they are, and here’s why:

When I was first entering my modeling hobby, I heard about using lacquers and sealers to protect my models. I remember slaving over a Dungeons & Dragons paladin figure only to have it totally ruined when I hit it with a gloss sealer. Nothing says accuracy and detail more than a blinding shine.

I moved immediately to a matte finish. Although I heard that gloss was a better protector, I figured that having the model encased in steel was better still. One has to draw the line somewhere and I wanted my figures to look like I painted them and the gloss just didn’t cut it. Matte didn’t do much better. It wasn’t as glossy, but it was still obvious as I admired the glistening sweat on my tank.

I swore off all sealers for the longest time. None of my WH40K pieces were sealed. I just couldn’t bring myself to destroy the detail with a sealer. I’d rather repaint them. Then I got into starships.

Recently when I began working again in styrene and concentrated on practicing, learning and gaining experience, I decided to again experiment with sealers.

A Magic Bullet: Future Floor Wax

From videos, internet discussion boards and magazines, I learned that Future Floor Wax is a very good acrylic gloss sealer. I love acrylics and figured I'd give it a try. I picked some up and began shooting it through my airbrush. The results were immediate and excellent. It gave me a solid gloss coating. It was an easy to use solid shield of protection. It was gloss, so it had a shine, but the shine can be useful, such as on my AMT Alien figure.

Applying a gloss coat is practically a necessary step before applying decals. Decals slide right on and stay down without any silvering or edges. I always coat my models with Future before applying decals. When the decals are all set, I coat the model with another coat of Future for general protection and to seal the decals in place.

Then there’s clear parts. Clear parts are a real challenge. They’re hard to glue and hard to paint and generally hard to deal with - at least for me. Coating clear pieces in Future makes them much easier to deal with. First, it cleans up a lot of imperfections - it’s a wax, after all. Second, it coats the pieces in clear acrylic which is much more forgiving to glue clouding. Dipping clear pieces in a bath of Future Floor Wax right off the bat is a good move.

Future Floor Wax has become an indispensable tool on my workbench. I no longer worry about the gloss shine, because if I don't want it, I have finally found a solution.

Finally, the Answer: Testor’s Dullcoat

So I’ve found an easy to use effective gloss coat, but it still leaves a shine. I kept hearing about “matte lacquer” and “dull coat lacquer” from the usual sources. I saw on David Fisher’s videos that he uses something to protect his models that doesn’t glisten. I finally made a plea on a discussion board for a product name and the answer came back unanimously: “Testor’s Dullcoat.”

This stuff is expensive compared to other matte sealers available at automotive shops or Corporate-Mart, but it’s worth it. This stuff is magic. It seals strong and goes totally invisible. There’s no shine at all. It goes on wet and smelly and when it’s dry you have to remind yourself that you sprayed it.

Although I think Testor’s Dullcoat is good enough to seal and protect anything, if I’m in doubt, I’ll shoot Future Floor Wax over a model, let it dry and then coat it with Dullcoat. All the layers become invisible. Dullcoat completely removes the shine from gloss sealer (like Future Floorwax) - it’s still there, but you can’t see it.

A coat of Testor’s Dullcoat is the final step for all my models. I plan to go back and seal all my miniatures with Dullcoat when I have time and money. The only real flaw to this product is the price. You have to buy it in dinky 3 ounce cans which cost about $4 apiece. I’ve seen it in jars for use with an airbrush, but for sealing, I like the cans. I wish they’d make full size cans of the stuff.