Can I spray acrylic lacquer clear varnishes over water based acrylics?

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Hello friends, this is a very common question I have from you and the answer is clearly “yes!! 

The most important thing to do is allow your water based acrylics to cure first. Not just touch dry which is usually after a few minutes or even a few hours but if we give them around 24 hours or at least overnight, they are fine to be sprayed over. 

Water based acrylics actually need to undergo a chemical transformation, that is to cure, before they reach their full strength, hardness and adhesion. This is necessary before they can resist having stronger solvents applied to them. This would be the number one reason we have problems at this stage, if the acrylics have not yet cured, they will craze, wrinkle and be ruined. Yes I have done it too and I feel your pain.

I do ask that you be careful and maybe test it on somewhere that is not as obvious if things go wrong and I do usually tell my friends to be careful but you can see here that I’ve sprayed it on pretty heavy and wet. In fact this was just one coat because I don’t have time to mess around! 

This is also one of my favourite spray clears, the Mr Superclear series from Mr Hobby.

Hope this is helpful and happy modelling friends! - Linc

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[SOLD OUT] MK44 The Ma.K Lincoln Report Vol.1

$49.50

Maschinen Krieger. Official. English. 40th Anniversary Limited Edition. 128pages.

Concept by Kow Yokoyama Sensei.

Straight from the Ma.K Studio in Tokyo, Lincoln Wright and Max Watanabe share their Hasegawa MK44 AMMOknight and Whiteknight variants.

Background, lore, build, paint and weathering.

Fall down the Ma.K Rabbit hole here!

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PRINTED IN AND SHIPPED FROM AUSTRALIA, THE LAND OF SF3D TO MA.K

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