The Loose Association of Wargamers

I have three types of flags: commercially made, printed on a laser printer at work & Warflag ones, copied & printed at home on the inkjet.

The first two types have a rather pleasing sheen whilst the third, cheap jack option, are flatly dull.

I have some Vallejo Gloss acrylic varnish.....do any of you lot gloss varnish your flags?

I know I can (& probably will) experiment but I'd like to get some opinions frst.

donald

If it is inkjet printed, spray varnish, brush may well lift the ink. I would advise sealing inkjet anyway, as it is not as colourfast, unless a proffessional printers machine has done it.

I gloss varnished some Warflag offerings a few days ago without any problems.

It was Humbrol enamel varnish but I have no idea what sort of printer we have. Would the ink be different between a laser printer or ink jet?

Inkjets use a wet ink, that 'may' be water soluable. lasers use a toner powder that once heat fixed is not water soluable generally.

In this discussion for water mean any liquid....

Essex Boy wrote: ↑Sun May 17, 2020 10:25 am Would the ink be different between a laser printer or ink jet?

Yes because laser printers don't use ink! They use toner particles which are heat sealed onto the paper in the printer.

In my experience the quality of the paper is really important. Cheap copy paper is less than ideal and surprisingly high quality gloss coated paper is not a good choice either because the coating cracks if you bend flags to "drape" them round a model flag pole: especially in 15 mm scales.

ochoin wrote: ↑Sun May 17, 2020 9:38 am I have three types of flags: commercially made, printed on a laser printer at work & Warflag ones, copied & printed at home on the inkjet.

The first two types have a rather pleasing sheen whilst the third, cheap jack option, are flatly dull.

I have some Vallejo Gloss acrylic varnish.....do any of you lot gloss varnish your flags?

As to the original question: I have varnished laser printed flags with a spirit based varnish without any problems. It was Humbrol Matt Cote but as we all know, chemically, the matting agent makes no difference to the varnish's solvent properties.

I have also stuck laser printed flags together with water based PVA and the water has never penetrated the paper and caused caused the colours to run. So you should be OK with a water based varnish like Vallejo.

Be careful with inkjet prints as the inks are often water soluble. As always test, test & test.

Hope this helps?

I have been using warflags printed on my inkjet on standard copy paper for 8 years plus. After printing I lightly spray them with army painter anti shine varnish on both sides of the paper before cutting them out of the sheet. I use PVA binder to stick them to the pole and to curl them. Finally I give them a coat of the same brush matt acrylic varnish I use on the troops. Before I thought to spray them I did get some runs but never since using the spray.

I wondered why Andy was laughing at me.

Yes but he’s been doing that for over 10 years now

Well, we all have, to be honest. Quietly, of course, but never, never, when you're buying a round.

That’s quite a hypothetical situation though