Hi All

When I wrote the the blog entry 'Chagford - Building Homes for the Workers 2' entry I assumed that the acrylic, water based, paint I assumed that the paint would dry within hours. I have been surprised that weeks later the non diluted paint, which I used to paint the brick colour onto the base coat coloured the mortar colour, has not dyed.

My previous experience with acrylic paint has been on paper, card or foam-core card base. All of the above are water permeable, whereas high density styrene is not. Therefor the only way for water to leave the paint is through the layer of paint. As the paint dries it becomes increasing more non permeable, so the water has nowhere to escape, and thus the paint does not dry.

My experience in some ways flies against the above, since the most dilute paint dried more quickly and completely than the non diluted paint. I had to make a decision of what to do with a building that has remained tacky. My decision was to wash of the paint and start again. I applied a thinned coat coloured the mortar colour and then use a technique from an article in Model Rail, which used wax crayons to colour the bricks and then applied a varnish to protect the finish.

Lisa