Dark stains under decals - Microscale products at fault?

[goon]

Hi all,

Has anyone else seen this problem?

You can see the stains I am having problems with near the circular panels, and at the leading and trailing edge of the walkway lines. The stains are actually underneath the clear areas of decal. I have changed the brush I apply Micro set and sol with, and opened new bottles of each product, but I'm still getting the staining.

The paint underneath is Tamiya grey primer, Tamiya flat black pre-shading, Mr. Hobby H308 (thinned with cellulose thinners and a drop or two of flow improver in the colour cup) then Tamiya X-22 Clear, thinned with cellulose thinners, then allowed to dry for at least 24 hours.

Has anyone ever seen this and determined the cause? It even spreads out from the edge of the decal in to the surrounding paint work, and can not be cleaned off. It's like the microscale stuff is attacking the paint. I can't get rid of it, so will have to try and airbrush it out, or abandon the model. Just looking for some advice to avoid seeing this again.

Thanks for any help,

Gareth

[Pat C]

Strange - it seems to me there is some sort of residue on the paint in those places otherwise it would cause all the paint under the decal to change colour you would think? To be honest if you mist a bit of paint over the stains I think people will be congratulating you on your weathering technique!

Pat

[thx6667]

Weird, I'd have said it was either a dirty paint brush or the Microsol reacting with the Tamiya flat.

Have you tried it on some plain plastic sheet with a scrap decal?

[goon]

Good idea Jonathan. I'll try some spares from the sheet with various combinations of paint and setting solutions and try and isolate the culprit.

To be honest if you mist a bit of paint over the stains I think people will be congratulating you on your weathering technique!

Hahaha! I am hoping I can fade them a bit, but in accordance with Sod's law I can not find a single dirty example of the T-4, so it's going to look a little out of place.

Thanks for the replies,

Gareth