Best practices for decals over Future

I'd be pretty concerned about decal silvering. Unless the bare plastic is glossy smooth, why not gloss coat it first?

Yeah, I'd still lay down a gloss coat, whether it's Future or some other product, just to make sure as much as possible that the surface is smooth, or as GM points out, you could get silvering (which is caused by air trapped in tiny pockets and voids on the surface under the decal film).

The decals will not frost on bare plastic, but if you are going to glosscoat it anyway, I'd glosscoat it both before and after.

Would polishing the bare plastic before applying decals work? Then topcoat decals?

How about a gloss black base coat?

Unfortunatly, styrene plastic is not totally opaque, and you can see a but into the plastic.  This effect can make the decal appear to float above the surface a bit.  Clearcoating helps, but the result still shows the translucence of the plastic.  I have sometimes glosscoated or dullcoated small parts right on top of the plastic, but i would not leave a large area with no base coat.

Since Bill and Don both touched on it, I've really wanted to say that over the years no matter how I've tried to clear coat, sand, polish, whatever styrene that matches the color I want, it always still somehow looks like molded plastic to me.

Beyond the scope of your question, I know.

Just my opinion, and I'm sure no expert on fine, shiny showroom model finishes.

Don Stauffer

Unfortunatly, styrene plastic is not totally opaque, and you can see a bit into the plastic.  This effect can make the decal appear to float above the surface a bit.  Clearcoating helps, but the result still shows the translucence of the plastic.  I have sometimes glosscoated or dullcoated small parts right on top of the plastic, but i would not leave a large area with no base coat.

 

Where possible, paint the interior side black. Whenever I do a model that requires a lighted interior (a spacecraft or something comparable) the black blocks out any transparency.

Alluminum, gold or silver are also very good for stopping light transmittance.

i havent been doing this long, but i havent ever put decals on bare plastic so i cant comment there.  I dont think ive read here it being done.  I can tell you that i have put them on painted acrlyic (not gloss) and i got bad silvering.  I recently has a little decal booboo and it was suggested to me to gloss, a few light coats or a good heavy coat - ive heard from here people doing both ways - lay the decals - and then i covered them with more gloss coat to protect them.   i used pfc.  

Hi,

I vaguely seem to recall once seeing a build of a warship, where the modeler did not paint the hull, but he did clear coat it.  I think it was the Revell Forrest Sherman or one of her sisters.  I thought it was on this site, but I haven't been able to find it, so I may have been mistaken, and it may have been posted elsewhere.  Anyway, I don't recall whether that modeler painted the inside of his hull or not, but it might be of interest to see what he did, if anyone else recalls the link.

Pat