Hi everyone.
I recently started a build where I wanted to cover an entire aircraft in Aluminium foil. I was following the advice of an online tutorial which indicated that the aluminium foil should be sealed with Future.
The Future did not fog when I airbrushed it to the metal, but changed the reflective or refractive properties of the metal. I'm not sure which is the proper description. I've made some comparative pictures where the pre-Future photo will be on the left of the image, and the with-Future on the right.



As you can see, the sharp glaring patches have become muted and less sharply defined. Definitely not as I intended. The differences in shine and abrasion between the panels is also muted...as if the panels had all of a sudden changed into one painted color.
Unless coated, the foil is very delicate, and will eventually oxidize and show wherever it's been touched. And despite being glued to the plastic, it can still be torn and scraped off without too much effort.

Does anyone know about this kind of effect? Or have a solution? I want to do a fair amount of natural metal finish work in the future, but I fear that my effort will look painted. If anyone has any advice, I'd be very grateful.

Thank you for reading,

Gary

After further searching on the topic I found myself reading about polished aluminium wheel rims. Apparently many clear coatings have this effect. Some brands were recommended, but I'm not sure how they could be effectively applied to a fragile model...or if I want to pay for the experiment,

Thanks for reading.

Gary

Would you mind posting a link to the tutorial you were following? I'd like to check it out.

I can't help but think anytime you put any kind of coating on metal it will fundamentally change the appearance, which in 1:1 probably isn't very noticeable, but a t small scale would have a significant effect.

For what it's worth I think your end result still looks pretty darned good in the photos.

I believe AK has a line of wax metallics out.

Hi Mark,
http://www.finescale.com/~/media/import/files/pdf/6/7/d/foiledlightning1.pdf
Hope that comes out right.

Gary

Thanks for name of AK to look up. I did some googling and found where somebody had tried it on a Japanese seaplane. The best result he came up with looks like what some are achieving with Alclad.

Sadly, no matter what we do with liquids, or pastes, they just cannot look machined, rolled, or scratched the way metal can. But I will keep my mind open to newer methods and materials.

Best Wishes,
Gary