Foil under clear *rant*

[freakshow12]

I have never understood this. I see a few guys doing it but I never have. I like the crisp line foil leaves on trim work. Looks realistic when the line is left. Do you see real cars with chrome covered with clear? No! Does it cause handling problems if you don't do it? No! In all my years, and I have foiled models decades old that have never been an issue. Why am I ranting? I dunno, guys will complain about the accuracy of a kit but will create their own inaccuracy by doing this! Sweet double standard...

Edited September 7, 2014 by freakshow12

[High octane]

I agree with you Fred, as I only use BMF over the clear and never had any issues with this method. I have BMF jobs from the early 80's and they still look good.

[martinfan5]

Its kind of funny you posted this thread, someone posted a question about this on Model car group on Face Book , its the timing.

Can you spray Testors Wet Look clear over BMF without ruining the BMF??

Edited September 7, 2014 by martinfan5

[slusher]

Some really think it keeps the foil looking better. I never have cleared foil but some builds are different..

[Snake45]

One might want to foil before clear, for whatever reason (such as, detail or an emblem will be crisper if the bare plastic is foiled than if it's been covered with paint and clear, and so forth). But you can have your cake and eat it too in this case. Foil, trim, then cover the foil with a liquid mask (or tape, but liquid mask is easier to work with). Proceed with paint, clear, and rubout, then remove the masking. Looks fabulous! I've done this several times on special projects.

[freakshow12]

^^^^ but emblems are not cleared over on real subjects! I prefer all that work after clear as the are not supposed to look like part of the body unit. Any judges care to chime in? I'm too set in my ways to change my methods but I'm hopeful this will help new builders. I'm not grouchy about it but it is a pet peeve...

Oh I changed the title too as it's not a question lol

Edited September 7, 2014 by freakshow12

[Snake45]

If you do things as I described, there won't be any clear over your foil. Or under it, either.

[Tom Geiger]

I agree. I never clear over foil. As Fred said, the foil has it's own level of shine, that is different from that of the clear paint. The two side by side is the contrast of a 1:1 car.

Guys clear over decals on Nascar cars. Back in the day there was a guy at contests in our area whose Nascar cars always won, but had mile deep clear with the decals buried way down there. His models looked more like jewelry than model cars!

[Harry P.]

Ah yes, the "dipped in syrup" look...

[StevenGuthmiller]

I like to do my fine scripts with the foil under paint technique, in which case it's pretty hard to do without clear coating over the foil. All of the rest of my foiling I do after clear. This technique is the best I've found for foiling scripts & I can guarantee you one thing.......I'm not going back!! Steve

[freakshow12]

There you go Harry ! I even disagree with body stripes under clear! For instance, my twister mach 1 the stripes were not under clear on the real one. I trim my decals to the edge and apply. Always. No matter what car

[charlie8575]

Seeing that I can never get BMF to stay put (their new adhesive is horrid,) I'm actually planning on trying this for my next build to see how it all looks. There's clear to seal parts, then there's the glazed/dipped in syrup look. I'm sure that if you do it right, you can make it look very good, like other things, it takes practice.

Charlie Larkin

[Miatatom]

I like to do my fine scripts with the foil under paint technique, in which case it's pretty hard to do without clear coating over the foil. All of the rest of my foiling I do after clear. This technique is the best I've found for foiling scripts & I can guarantee you one thing.......I'm not going back!! Steve

DSCN3147.JPG

How do you prevent the edges of the foil from showing when you're doing fine scripts? If you or anyone has done a tutorial, I'd appreciate a link.

[StevenGuthmiller]

How do you prevent the edges of the foil from showing when you're doing fine scripts? If you or anyone has done a tutorial, I'd appreciate a link.

My trick is to try to foil your scripts as closely as possible. Just like as if you were doing them normally. They don't have to be perfect, but as close as you can get within reason. Then apply your last coat or 2 of color. I usually foil before my last coat. the less paint you have to remove from the script, the better. Then after the paint has dried enough to handle, remove the paint from the script with a fine pointed swab dipped in a little thinner. The less thinner the better. You don't want to damage the paint around it. Then I clear coat afterwards. Steve

[W-409]

I've had to foil before clear coating a couple of times. Usually I don't like to do this, but sometimes I have to. There are actually two reasons for that... The first one is that the chrome trim in the kit might get lost under paint and especially clear coats. After that it would be impossible to foil it, so I've had to do it before clear coating. And another thing is with Stock Cars if there are decals that should be installed over the chrome trim. I always clear coat over my decals so then the BMF gets some clear on it as well.

Someone might wonder why I clear coat over the decals. Well, there is a simple reason. They just look so much better when they are under a clear coat. It makes them look like painted on, which is usually the look I'm looking for. I know they might be decals in real life and it's not realistic and so on. To me, it just looks a lot better like that.

But honestly. When looking at the models that have BMF under clear coat or BMF without a clear coat, I can't tell the difference. I don't know if I'm blind or not, but to me they look the same.

[Guest]

No clear over foil.

[Dragline]

I always considered foil "The last step".. That means after clear and polishing have taken place. It has never occured to me to clear over it

As is stated... Last Step.

But that's me. What is great about models is you can do things how YOU WISH, not how others think you should do things.

Bob

[Snake45]

For a very brief period about 20 or 25 years ago, I got the bright idea to do all my trim detailing (with silver paint, not foil) before the final clearcoat. Did a couple models that way and I thought they looked good and then one day I laid the clear on just a little heavy and it attacked the silver, which then promptly ran--under the clearcoat. That model went onto the Shelf of Doom and I never did it that way again.

Oh, but the story gets even worse. Over time, the clearcoat yellowed on the "good" models I did that way. One in particular is painted lime green so the yellowing isn't apparent on the paint, but it now looks like all the chrome trim is gold-plated. Which might be kinda cool if it were a custom, but sadly, it's a factory stocker. Ah shucks oh well.

[David G.]

Why should it matter how another builder chooses to finish his or her models?

I often use Alclad to replicate "chrome" trim on my cars and I use BMF as a mask when doing so. That's also very inaccurate, but in some situations, it's the best option to achieve the results I want.

Sometimes I don't even use clear coat. If the paint already looks the way I want it to, why mess with it?

When building a model, I don't like to limit my options. To say, "I always do this, and I never do that!" is to me, just plain silly.

David G.

[AC Norton]

clear coat, usually,,,,over foil,,,never. if a paint job with no clear has even the slightest ripple or orange peel to it,,,the foiling can show a pebbled or rippled look. if your clear goes on nicely, your foil will look perfect if applied correctly. clear looks fake and like a syrup coating over foil imo................the ace..........

[Snake45]

if a paint job with no clear has even the slightest ripple or orange peel to it,,,the foiling can show a pebbled or rippled look. if your clear goes on nicely, your foil will look perfect if applied correctly.

Clear can get "ripply" and "pebbly" too, especially if applied over rough paint. Here's yet another advantage to foiling the bare plastic, masking it off, and proceeding with the rest of the paint and clear.

(Let the record show that I don't do this every time, only on "special" builds. More often than not these days, I do chrome trim with a silver Sharpie, which gives a surprisingly satisfactory look for an absolute minimum of cost and effort.)

[DynoMight]

I am relatively new to the whole BMF thing, I've only done BMF on 2 cars, my 64 Thunderbolt and my Road Runner. Currently I am foiling 2 cars, 1/12 Camaro and a 40 Ford Delivery. On my Thunderbolt, that BMF is cleared over. And in my opinion, that looks best. But on my Road Runner, the paint has no clear, and no clear over the BMF. And that one looks good too.

Personally, I do my BMF after paint and before clear. I was also taught, whatever you put on the model, be it decals, paint etc etc, you should clear over it. Most of my cars, I'm not going for complete accuracy. I am going for them to look good. And for them to look good in my book, they are usually cleared and polished.

The only reason I cleared over the BMF on my Thunderbolt (and that was my first BMF job) is because I thought the BMF had a dull type sheen to it, and not really shiny. So I cleared over it and, I think it looks better. It is more shinier than what it looked like when it first was on the model.

[Snake45]

If you have trouble with BMF sticking, it might very well be the fault of the BMF, not with the paint, the plastic, or your application method. Apparently (both from my own experience and reading the comments of others), they've let out a number of "bad batches" of the stuff over the years, and even the good batches seem to have a shelf life. Between the cost, the low availability in my area, and the problems I've had with it, I've pretty much given up on BMF.

These days when I want to foil something, I just use common (generic, thin) kitchen foil, with Microscale Metal Foil Adhesive for the stickum. This works at least as well as BMF 90% or more of the time, though I concede there are certain cases where BMF would do a better job. I just foiled most of the emblems on a body this way Friday, no problems at all (at least none not caused by my own eyes and/or hands).

[SteveG]

I say if you found a system that works for you, go with it. Here's one of my finished builds with lots of foil trim. Can you tell if I foiled it last or did I clear over it ?

I'll post the answer after some guesses ..... for those that know my technique don't give it away

[Snake45]

No, I can't tell from the picture, but however you did it, it looks darned good!