More questions about Future/Klear floor polish, etc.

[kathrynloch]

Hey everyone - sorry about beating the dead horse (sorry for the pun too). But I've been searching the forums about the Future floor polish thing and I still have some questions I haven't found answers...yet.

Okay, back in the day on the GW forums when I first started painting, we put liquid dish soap in our ink washes to help reduce the surface tension of the water and the inks would "sink" better. But you had to be very careful for bubbles. With the soap, the bubbles could be really harsh and transfer to the wash on the mini and you'd get bubble spots when it dried. Still it worked reasonably well.

In the horsie world, we don't use a whole lot of washes, maybe some here and there, so my dish soap work just fine and I had pretty much hit a good balance for mix. Every once in awhile I might overdo it but for the most part I was trucking right along. Then I returned to the miniatures world and started hearing about Future floor polish, etc. From my searches, I gathered that it's more desirable because it's basically acrylic resin - the same main ingredient as our paint.

Well, I don't have Future, I've got Mop N Glo (that stuff kick's Future's butt on floors! lol!) so I did a quick search on the MSDS - turns out it has more acrylic resin in it than Future does. So if it's the acrylic resin we're after, then I'm good to go.

Now, I've got matte medium here, so I added that because of shine - between the shine of the ink and the floor polish - yeah, that's going to put some high gloss paints to shame. But distilled water - I don't have any so I had to use regular tap - I'll get some at the store the next time I'm there.

I'm testing with my Liquitex Inks. This is my first time using this particular brand of ink. I love my Winsor & Newton drawing inks but the store was out of stock. I picked up the Liquitex because I've had good luck with their mediums so I'm confident in their brand name and they come in eye-dropper bottles! The W&N doesn't so I either have to get droppers or try to measure with teaspoons and what not. Anyway, I really need to test these before I mix but put the cart before the horse and mixed anyway. They appear very matte in the first place, much more matte in the bottle than the W&N. If I hold the W&N up to the light, I can see through the inks. The Liquitex, I can't see through. On the Liquitex label, it has Acrylic Polymer Emulsion and the Pigment color.. On the W&N inks it just says may be thinned with distilled water and contains shellac. But they are safe for pens except white, gold, and silver. Also, only black and white are permanent to light. So I'm thinking, despite the fact that I love my W&N inks, I may be better off with the Liquitex. Maybe?


So basically - here are my questions:

• Is acrylic resin what's actually reducing the surface tension?
• Distilled water - I'm totally guessing here but is the reasoning is that any mineral content works against the tension reduction, right? But wouldn't mineral content help reduce shine?
• Is the Liquitex Polymer Emulsion what we're looking for or does it matter?
• Last question - what makes the Future floor polish or Mop N Glo different from my bottle of brush-on clear high gloss acrylic? They both look very similar and as soon as I find my goofy bottle of gloss, I'll check the label but I'm willing to bet it's got the same ingredients or very similar. If that's the case, considering volume pricing, would I be better off using the Mop N Glo as a gloss instead? I typically only use it for eyes, horse's hooves, and on the inside of the mouth and nose if the model is large enough to warrant it.

And I think that's about it...sorry to be such a PITA, but this is a big difference compared to the old liquid dish soap. Thanks!!!!!

 

[Chris S]

Hello

I went down this road a while back and got into all the what should I use which is the best, do I need distilled water
what about using flow enhancer and if so which one road.

Here is the simple recipe I came up recently and I feel it works a treat and comes up pretty much like GWs Devlan Mud but I am
sure other colours would work just as well.

First the recipe then a picture of the results.

5ml of flow enhancer - Windsor & Newton Artists Acylic Flow Enhance
25ml of floor polish/wax - UK version KLEAR Pledge Multi Surface Wax
5ml roughly a level medicine spoon of Liquitex Professional Acrylic Artist color SOFT BODY Burnt Umber
2.5ml roughly a level medicine spoon (small Version) of Liquitex Professional Acrylic Artist color SOFT BODY Paynes Gray
Mix/shake to mix.

I ended up using the tube type acrylics because the inks just stained everything in sight.

The result, my mix on the left, GWs Devlan Mud on the right.

View attachment 8184

 

[Einion]

[Liquitex Inks] appear very matte in the first place, much more matte in the bottle than the W&N. If I hold the W&N up to the light, I can see through the inks. The Liquitex, I can't see through. On the Liquitex label, it has Acrylic Polymer Emulsion and the Pigment color..

The Liquitex inks are "pigmented inks" (basically a very thin paint) while the W&N inks are true inks, i.e. a dye solution.

Other than the lightfastness issue which doesn't seem to bother most users the major differences will be in their colouring/tinting ability and their covering power.

Is acrylic resin what's actually reducing the surface tension?
There will be dispersants or surfactants in it as well I'm sure.

Distilled water - I'm totally guessing here but is the reasoning is that any mineral content works against the tension reduction, right? But wouldn't mineral content help reduce shine?
No, it's so you can make up a batch and be sure it's not going to go off in the container which is a definite possibility with tap water (although it might not happen quickly, years ago I transferred the tail end of a tube of paint that had split into a 35mm canister and it took a year or so to go funky after I'd added some water).

Last question - what makes the Future floor polish or Mop N Glo different from my bottle of brush-on clear high gloss acrylic?
They're made for floors. Seriously, they are cleaning agents as well as providing a surface coating afterwards.

There's also the issue of acrylic v. acrylic, like what is it exactly? It's a large family of things and there can be a huge difference between one and the next* just on the resin side, before other ingredients are factored in.

...would I be better off using the Mop N Glo as a gloss instead?
You could certainly use it for that - many people only use Future or its equivalent for gloss coating and it seems to be extremely reliable.

*Think of the difference between a dried film of standard acrylic medium and sheet acrylic like Perspex.

Einion

 

[kathrynloch]

5ml of flow enhancer - Windsor & Newton Artists Acylic Flow Enhance
25ml of floor polish/wax - UK version KLEAR Pledge Multi Surface Wax
5ml roughly a level medicine spoon of Liquitex Professional Acrylic Artist color SOFT BODY Burnt Umber
2.5ml roughly a level medicine spoon (small Version) of Liquitex Professional Acrylic Artist color SOFT BODY Paynes Gray
Mix/shake to mix.

I ended up using the tube type acrylics because the inks just stained everything in sight.

Thanks Chris! Interesting recipe! Nice results! I have some Liquitex Heavy Body acrylics. My soft body is older but it still works just great. I might give that one a shot.

The Liquitex inks are "pigmented inks" (basically a very thin paint) while the W&N inks are true inks, i.e. a dye solution.

Hi Einion! I was hoping you'd jump in. Okay, that makes sense, especially in regard to the difference just looking at them.

Other than the lightfastness issue which doesn't seem to bother most users the major differences will be in their colouring/tinting ability and their covering power.

Gotcha! So basically the inks would be like my different paint brands with varying pigment levels, I use certain ones for specific jobs depending on the coverage, color, and effect I want.

Is acrylic resin what's actually reducing the surface tension?

There will be dispersants or surfactants in it as well I'm sure.

Distilled water - I'm totally guessing here but is the reasoning is that any mineral content works against the tension reduction, right? But wouldn't mineral content help reduce shine?
No, it's so you can make up a batch and be sure it's not going to go off in the container which is a definite possibility with tap water (although it might not happen quickly, years ago I transferred the tail end of a tube of paint that had split into a 35mm canister and it took a year or so to go funky after I'd added some water).

Okay, that makes sense. DOH! Sorry no brainer on my part. :bulgy-eyes:

Last question - what makes the Future floor polish or Mop N Glo different from my bottle of brush-on clear high gloss acrylic?

They're made for floors. Seriously, they are cleaning agents as well as providing a surface coating afterwards.

There's also the issue of acrylic v. acrylic, like what is it exactly? It's a large family of things and there can be a huge difference between one and the next* just on the resin side, before other ingredients are factored in.

...would I be better off using the Mop N Glo as a gloss instead?
You could certainly use it for that - many people only use Future or its equivalent for gloss coating and it seems to be extremely reliable.

*Think of the difference between a dried film of standard acrylic medium and sheet acrylic like Perspex.

Einion

Ah! I see said the blind man! Okay, I didn't snap to the fact there was so much variation in acrylics. I should have. lol! I'm blaming it on the sinus meds. Yeah, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Thanks Einion, I appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions.

The good news is my little experiment turned out reasonably well. The red Liquitex came out sort of this mauve color, so I added a touch of their brown ink to the mix - actually they call it Raw Umber and the color came out just great for the red armor on my Arch Angel mini. Adding the Matte Medium worked wonderfully too as there is very little shine if any. I think with the Liquitex being pigmented inks, the shine would just come from the Mop N Glo. Anyways, I'll play around with other color mixes as I get the chance.

Thanks again Chris and Einion!!!

 

[Kalidane]

And don't forget them cheap little pippettes are great for measured ummm <verb>. I keep waiting for the plastic to split on them but they've stuck around for years and at essentially no cost they are too handy to pass up on.