Flat finish decal jobs

Good information, Quincy, and I stand corrected. I appreciate your pointing that out, and please feel free to disagree any time I say something stupid. I appreciate the information as much as anyone.

QUOTE: And there is a perfectly good reason why the military prefers flat paint (or semigloss which turns flat in an amazingly short time in the field). Glossy paint reflects sunlight. Reflected sunlight will attract the attention of the bad guys. Who will generally decide to place a large amount of bullets, shells and bombs in the general area they noticed the reflection. Which can ruin your whole day if you happen to be in that area or at least very unhappy with the person with the shiny equipment.

Now that part caused me to go back and read my original post to see where I messed up. And find it I did ...

What I said was, "In a perfect world all paints would be gloss" and what I should have said was, "In a perfect world all MODEL paints would be gloss"

Another mistake on my part, and I did know better. Sorry about that. I should never post messages before I have enough coffee to be coherent. Thanks for catching my mistakes and clearing them up.

Scott, I beg to disagree with you. The military doesn't "agree" with the FS 595 paint standards which are maintained by the General Services Administration (GSA). The GSA does the purchasing for governmental agencies (the military, the USDA, the FAA etc). If the military decides it wants a new color in large amounts, it chooses the color and then gives a sample to the GSA along with what reflectance it wants (.ie Gloss, Semigloss or Flat). The GSA then gives the color an FS 595 number (using the 1,2, or 3 system) and produces paint chips. When a bid for paint is let, the mfgrs buy the paint chips and decide whether or not they can match it, and bid accordingly. When the bid is awarded, the GSA assigns a Federal Stock Number (FSN). That FSN is a code that gives you the color, the reflectance, the paint base (laquer, enamel, acrylic, dope etc) and the container size (pint, gallon, 5-gallon or 55 gallon).
So the guy who has to touch up his assigned piece of equipment doesn't go to his supply sgt and ask him for a quart of flat green, FS 595B 3XXXXX. If he does he's going to get a strange look and told to go do something impossible to his body, because the supply sgt has no idea what he is talking about. Instead, he'll look in the back of the -10 (operators manual) and find the FSN for "Enamel, dull, OD, quart" and give the FSN to the supply sgt and get a pat on the head. 99.9% of the people in the military have no idea what FS 595 is (unless they're a modeler) and could care less as long as they get what they want or need with an FSN.
And there is a perfectly good reason why the military prefers flat paint (or semigloss which turns flat in an amazingly short time in the field). Glossy paint reflects sunlight. Reflected sunlight will attract the attention of the bad guys. Who will generally decide to place a large amount of bullets, shells and bombs in the general area they noticed the reflection. Which can ruin your whole day if you happen to be in that area or at least very unhappy with the person with the shiny equipment.

The problem with making flat paint glossy is that by the time you added enough 'glossy' to the paint, its way to thin to cover properly. At that point, might as well just use glossy paint in the first place, but then you can't find proper military colors in glossy.

hey is there any way to make a flat paint glossy? maybe adding future to it?
and how do decals bond over semigloss paints? is it the same a on flat paints?
cheers!

hey is there any way to make a flat paint glossy? maybe adding future to it?
and how do decals bond over semigloss paints? is it the same a on flat paints?
cheers!

Precisely, what he said.

In a perfect world all paints would be gloss and eliminate the need for a coat of clear gloss between the paint and decals. Unfortunately most of the military model paints are flat so that they agree with the "FS" (Federal Standard) numbers. An FS number beginning with a "3" (i.e. FS-36375) denotes a flat finish. A "1" denotes a gloss finish and a "2" a semi-gloss finish. I don't think any of the model paint makers make a "1" series.

The decals looking like "stuck-on-tape" is also known as silvering. This happens because the decal is not getting a good seal, or is not conforming to, the surface it was placed on. To get your decals to lay right, you need to know about paints.
Here's how glossy vs. flat paint works (simplified):
Glossy paints are shiny because they have a very smooth finish when they dry. A decal will lay down flat on the surface without much trouble with silvering.
Flat paints, on the other hand, are very rough (on the microscopic level). This rough texture is what gives the coat it's flat appearance. Putting a decal on this surface allows all kinds of air to get underneath it, and that is what you see with silvering.
Here's a simple fix. After painting with flat colors, spray the model with a gloss coat or Future so that your decals have a smooth surface to adhere to. After all your decaling is done, you can spray on a coat of clear flat to dull your model again.