I just bought a can yesterday and I am going to give it a try because it says on the can “takes the shine away” I sprayed on squirt in the store on another can and it smelled very similar and dried clear. so is this the same as dullcote? It will give me the result I am looking for and that is just to seal each layer of weathering. I payd $4.89 for that Dullcote and if this is the official replacement I am glad but I wish this would have happened much sooner like 3 years ago. I just went thru 4 cans of Dullcote last week alone.
AND if this is the equivalant to Dullcote why is it not “talked about”? It should be “advertised” by model railroaders as the alternative to the expensive Dullcote. It was $3 for a casn three or four times the size of Dullcote. I also saw Polyurethene spray as well by minwax but that was $5.48 a can. How is that stuff too? I am sure there is an equivalant to every model railroading mix, glue, or paint that is cheaper. The may not be exact replacement but very close and/or better than the MR version. For example
WS cement in the bottle = 50/50 water and Elmers glue
WS tack glue = Joanns Fabrics tack glue
WS Smooth-It = drywall spackle
WS instant water = Enviortex lite
Then I question the main thing? testors Dullcote = Matte finish spray??? if it is so, I will never go back to Dullcote.
Please answer my questions and help me find all the equivalant to what is sold as a MR tool, mix, glue, paint, etc. Share the secrets.
Dullcoat is clear laquer with, I believe, talc powder mixed in. So, effectivly, any clear laquer “should” work. I would do a test on apiece of scrap material similar to what you are going to spray to see how it will work. some laquers are “hotter” (stronger solvent base) than others and can damage plastics. When I am painting engines or cars for my layout I use a can of automotive paint that I had mixed. I do this for all of the basic colors that I use a lot of. If memory servs me the can of white I use, 1 pint size, cost me about $12.00 from my auto paint supplier. I also have a can of D&H blue and D&H grey that they mixed for me about two years ago. There are several substitute supplies for a lot of the materials we use, we just need to be creative. One I like to use is Sand blasting sand for my yard ballast. it is black onyx glass (volcanic glass) and after I put it down I give it a coat of dull clear spray to take the gloss off. I bought a 25# bag for about the same price as a jar of ballast from the hobby shop.
Question: Why should I pay $6.50 for a small bottle of WS Scenic Cement when I can go to Lowe’s and pay $10 for a gallon of white glue and mix all the scenic cement I need at home? I look at the math this way. One gallon of white glue mixed 50/50 with water will make 256 ounces of scenic cement. $10 for 256 ounces vs $6.50 for 6 ounces. It doesn’t add up. I’ll stick with the white glue and water.
Question: Why should I pay $4.50+ for for a small (3-4 ounces?) can of Dull-Cote when I can go to Wal-Mart and purchase an 11 ounce can of Krylon Matte-Finish for about $3? I doesn’t make much sense unless I figure I just have to have the effect Dull-Cote gives. The Matte-Finish gives me the effect I want, it flattens the gloss on plastic and painted surfaces. It also does a good job of glazing windows which reduces the amount of light needed to light said windows.
Question: Why should I pay $16 for a small bottle of WS Realistic Water when I can get the effect I want with Gloss Medium for a fraction of the price?
$11 for a small bottle of WS Tack Glue for joining foam? I can get Tacky glue in the crafts dept of Wal-Mart for much less and accomplish the same thing.
Good questions Trainmanny. There are many things that can be substituted but there are somethings which can’t or shouldn’t be substituted because of inferior results.
Your request for some of these tricks is a good one. It reminds of a thing long, ong ago in Model RailroadING magazine where they would show step by step how to do a project ansd certain steps had a ‘star’ on them and where called “Modeler’s trick.” Sounds like an idea for a new thread - Modeler’s Tricks.
There are better substitutes for WS Scenic Cement than using white glue. White glue does not dry completely clear, especially then cheap ones. It also dries hard and brittle which can be bad when using it to glue clump foliage on trees, for example.
I believe WS scenic cement is actually matt medium diluted with water & not the same as white glue. White glue can be removed when dry by soaking it in water where as matt medium cannot. Both have thier place in the hobby.
If you want to replicate scenic cement, use your 40% off coupon & buy a bottle of matt medium from the craft store & dilute it to your liking…MUCH cheaper. While you are at the craft store, pick up some $1 bottles of craft paint. They can be used for painting structures,mixed with alcohol to make stains etc.
I have a wall in my hobby room that I’ve painted sky blue and added clouds, for my model photography. I was always running out of background when I wanted to shoot photos of models. I used semi gloss paint for the wall and it caused a lot of glare in the photos, with the photo lights reflecting off the surface. I bought a large can of “matte spray” and gave it a try, still a lot of glare. I had one of the small cans of Dull Cote and gave it a try - totally dead flat, no glare at all. So I bought several more cans and did the exposed area of the wall with it.
So all “matte” sprays are not necessarily equal to Dull Cote.
No secret that many WS products are just repackaging. That also goes for their steel pins, their spray bottles for scenic cement, and a bunch of other stuff. For that matter, compare what they charge for turf foam versus buying a chunk of foam rubber and putting it in a $2 Goodwill store blender with some cheap green paint.
The answer: you are in the hobby shop and you see the product and you want it now, not tomorrow or after you drive to the other places which are not hobby shops, and you have the money. It is that simple. You are paying for convenience and easy availability.
Go to the frozen food section of the local store – compare the price for frozen peas and for frozen buttered peas and see how much people are willing to pay to have someone else butter their peas for them. Ditto when comparing frozen Texas Toast and frozen buttered Texas Toast.
Most of my matirials aren’t the overpriced hobby stuff, more the good deals you can find at craft stores and such. All ny scenery is glued down with a mixture of Elmer’s Glue and water, and my weathering washes are simply regular house paint thinned greatly with water. (oh, and before I get bashed for that, it works very well, I haven’t had any problems with it.)
In the olden days of model railroading we got by without WS pretty well (John Allen’s scenery looked pretty good by anyone’s standards). There are times that I’ll pay for the convenience of their packaging, and/or the consistency of their colors, but I make my own scenery glue. Their little boxes of T pins make me smile - does anyone really buy them?
One caution… I’ve painted a lot of my WM diesels with regular gloss black spray paint from the big 94 cent can from Wally World. I tried using acrylic matte spray to finish it, and it caused the paint to craze. Dullcote provides a better finish. I haven’t tried the Krylon stuff, though… might give that a whirl…
I buy my spray bottles at Wal-Mart for 99 cents.My airbrush cost me a whooping $19.99 because its a Testors.It does the same job as the higher price air brushes.I could go on with a lot of deals that is far better then you find in hobby shops.I cut corners on things I need and not buy the tools I feel is unnecessary for several reasons to include they are not really needed to get the job done based on my past experiences.
As far as WS products you can find them cheaper in some craft stores then you will hobby shops…
Dave,I disagree to a point…On those rare occasions I go to either hobby shop in Mansfield I pass at least 2 craft stores and I know one carries WS products…So,needless to say I stop and buy my WS needs there because the price is about 15% lower then either hobby shop and it is on the way.
Why pass this craft store and pay more for convenience because I am going to a hobby shop?
[#ditto] A couple of days ago, I was getting ready to paint a passenger car roof that I had removed details and had sanded. In the past I had found my Floquil solvent paint had moderately crazed the raw plastic, so I usually spray a coat of Glosscote as a barrier. This time I was out of Glosscote, so I used Krylon Acrylic Gloss spray. I figured “Acrylic”, it should be mild. Guess what?? It crazed the plastic, so back to the sandpaper. [#oops]
There has been a trend in certain publications lately to prominently feature Woodland Scenics products. Videos and tutorials always seem to have their products not just used but displayed even when there is a MUCH cheaper off the shelf equivelent. I think this has been an unfortunate trend and has soured me to a company that is probably otherwise just fine… but I go out of my way not to use their products now if I can find an equivelent.
I have used the Krylon clear matte finish for a long time now. It is not as dull as I would normally like.
I used it for a set of box cars that I had done the base with the acrylic Badger ModelFlex brand. They did not like each other at all. The base paint really cracked and crazed badly. At first I thought I just had not waited long enough to let the acrylic dry all the way, so I waited for two weeks. It was the same if not worse.
I tried using a Dutch Boy clearcoat once (paid 99 cents for it or so) as a substitute for the Testors and it caused paint to craze. The only less-expensive substitute that’s been safe for me (so far) is the Crafts Etc. brand sold at Hobby Lobby. A can costs about $4, but it’s the same size as a can of Krylon, so it ends up being a lot cheaper.
Here’s another cheap substitute. Instead of buying styrene cement like Tenax, you can use either lacquer thinner or MEK from a paint store or the paint section of a hardware store. A quart of it costs as much as the small 2 oz bottles of Tenax.
One more comment from me about Woodland Scenics and its generic and cheaper equivalents and then I’ll shut up and enjoy the thread.
Making decent scenery is nothing new – I’m looking at the cover of the November 1940 The Model Railroader and the guy’s scenery was excellent. But that was an exception. Most layouts had NO scenery, right into the 1960s. Nowadays we modelers know Life Like as the source of some very high quality freight cars and locomotives. Back when I started they made scenery material of the most crude variety. Nobody took Life Like seriously yet they were about it when it came to scenery materials you could buy at the hobby shop.
Give WS its due. By making a very complete line of good quality scenery materials convenient and easy to buy at the hobby shop, together with excellent instructional books, videos, and live demonstrations at train shows, WS I think really has upgraded the scenery on even the average layout. Believe me, going on a layout tour some 40 years ago you saw pretty marginal attempts at scenery, mostly sawdust scattered on green paint with the plywood wood grain showing through, and bottle brush trees. And those guys were praised for even trying! The average has risen dramatically and I give almost all the credit to WS.