Duplicolor clear drying totally flat???

[Fantom]

I just bought a can of Duplicolor clear that is drying absolutely dead flat…humidity is 58% …could I have gotten a bad can???

[stitchdup]

try some cutting compound on it. duplicolour is pretty forgiving if it dries flat. I've had black dry flat grey but a quick rub with compound brought it right back. I used the fine tamiya compound on it

[Fantom]

1 minute ago, stitchdup said:

try some cutting compound on it. duplicolour is pretty forgiving if it dries flat. I've had black dry flat grey but a quick rub with compound brought it right back. I used the fine tamiya compound on it

This is clear, I am getting absolutely no shime at all. It’s as dull as Testors dull coat. Seems wrong to me.

[stitchdup]

4 minutes ago, Fantom said:

This is clear, I am getting absolutely no shime at all. It’s as dull as Testors dull coat. Seems wrong to me.

it does this sometimes. it does polish up still. its just taken a little of the moisture while it was drying. I've used the 3 tamiya compounds to polish matt black duplicolour and primer up to a gloss shine but that was using pads up to 3500 first

[JollySipper]

What are you spraying it over? I've had this happen trying to clear a Tamiya color coat. I had to wait like two weeks before the clear would hold it's shine....... I believe the color coat gassing out was causing it to go flat.

[Fantom]

Spraying over duplicolor paint. I tried warming the clear in warm water and that definitely helped.

[Can-Con]

1 hour ago, Fantom said:

I just bought a can of Duplicolor clear that is drying absolutely dead flat…humidity is 58% …could I have gotten a bad can???

Yes, that's kinda high for the humidity. It could cause it. Try another coat and hitting it immediately with a hair dryer to see if that helps. Don't get the model too hot though, of course, you just want to heat the paint up a bit after it hits the model to keep the humidity from collecting on the paint. 

[peteski]

That is weird!

Clear lacquer dries glossy by default.  Flat clear is achieved by adding a flattening agent to gloss clear.   Can't be done the other way around. If your had your clear lacquer in a glass container, it it was glossy, the liquid would be water-clear.  If the lacquer was a clear flat (or any non glossy finish like semi-gloss or satin), the liquid would be cloudy, and in a day or two the flattening agent would settle to the bottom of the bottle with the rest of liquid appearing clear.  Just like what you see when looking at bottles of Testors Glosscote and Dullcote.

If yours is a spray can and it dries flat, I think it is mislabeled.  I just can't see any excessive humidity causing a clear lacquer to dry totally and evenly flat. But does Duplicolor does even make a similar lacquer in flat finish?

Also just using relative humidify (RH) as a sole determination of whether it will affect the painting is not really useful.  58% humidity when the ambient air temperature is in the 60's Fahrenheit is perfectly safe for spray painting. But if the ambient air is in the 90s, then 58% humidity will likely cause issues like blushing. 

The dew point temperature is what you need to consider.  That is a combination of RH and the ambient air temperature.  Dew point of 50 or lower should be safe to spray paint, but higher than 50's should be avoided.  If you local weather does not provide dew point temperature there are online calculators which will give you dew point based on RH and ambient temperature.

Can you decant some of that clear into a glass container and see if it is cloudy or clear?  That should  answer the question of whether it is a mislabeled flat clear, or there is something else strange going on.

[Fantom]

It was the weather. I was able to get to gloss up by warming the clear in hot water. Thanks for all the help!!