About five years ago I knew that I had to give up spray painting. My lungs couldn't handle the fumes from drying paint, let alone any kind of aerosol. So I decided to go to extremes (as always) and ban any and all spray painting from my workshop. The idea is to have fun, so I just reasoned that it would be just as challenging to build a model without the airbrush as it would be to use the airbrush--maybe a little more challenging.
Future provides an excellent high gloss for decaling, but I have been looking for a way to get a "dead flat" finish with a BRUSH for years. Finally, today, I found what I've been looking for. It's not something that I invented--this has been around for a long time, but I had never tried it. It's Tamiya flat base and Future, mixed together. The exact ratio? I don't know exactly--but here's how I mixed it up. I took an old (large) Tamiya thinner bottle (empty) and poured the bottle of flat base into it (the flat base was the little, 10ml size). Then I tried to measure an equal portion of Future by pouring it into the (now nearly empty) flat base bottle up to the top of the label, stirred it to try to mix in the remaining flat base so that I wouldn't waste it--and poured the Future mix from the little bottle into the big one. Now I have what I would call a fifty/fifty mix, ration 1 to 1.
That was too much flat base. Turned the old "painting dummy" white. Looked like salt spray on a ship (mental note--remember this for ship modeling).
So I poured another "shot" of future into the little bottle, filling it to the top of the label. Stirred a little and poured it in to the larger bottle of Future/flat base mix. Now the "ratio" is 2 to 1 (maybe) Future to flat base.
Now I painted a coat on the "dummy" (an old Revell 1/72 P-39) and SHAZAM! Dead, stone cold FLAT. After more experimenting and testing, I can say that this is absolutely GREAT. It's too thick for spraying, but at this ratio it is fantastic for brushing. You might want to add more Future, but I have a feeling that it will always need more flat base for brush work than what is used for spraying.
The mix has another big advantage--as an experiment I brushed a coat of Future on a dummy, let it "just" dry--and put on a coat of the flattening mix. Wow! It showed none of the horror that would have occurred with Modelmaster Acryl flat or Polyscale flat. No weird tears or wrinkles. Since the mix is made of Future (mostly) there was no reaction, even on a coat of Future that wasn't entirely dry!
I just wanted to share that because it really, really solved a problem that must confront anybody who tries to paint by hand.