Retarder. Windy was right, again.

[kevin king]

Added 10 to 15% retarded to the clear then THIS happened. I tried to cheat the system instead of WAITING for a better, less humid day!  Your results may very but for my planes, it's not worth the RISK.The top photo is obvious, it looks like alligator skin. The 2nd picture not so obvious, but if you look close the red is showing through the black

[Brett Buck]

Did you use Windy's technique of letting the color settle out, then skimming off some of the clear? 

    Brett

[kevin king]

Hi Brett, I usually only decant silver and white. The red and black were not decanted at all. I also remember Windy saying red is easy to bleed through. Now I know what he meant.

[Rusty]

I found if you spray a very light coat and let that dry and then another to gradually build up the thickness, it won't wrinkle.  It usually happens when the bottom paint reacts to the top paint and light coats can keep that from happening.  I hope you can wet sand that out with 1K paper.  Nice work.  How did you make the graphics?

[kevin king]

@Rusty, I made the graphics from taking images off the internet and then cut masks using a vinyl cutter. Hard lesson learned. It was raining that day so I couldn't go flying, so that's why I decided to spray, and I found out. I should have waited for a better day

[Brett Buck]

Hi Brett, I usually only decant silver and white. The red and black were not decanted at all. I also remember Windy saying red is easy to bleed through. Now I know what he meant.

     Skimming off the clear is a very risky matter. It does make the paint more opaque, but it is extremely prone to bleeding through, particularly using dope clear and/or retarder. It works better with a non-solvent (2-part or 3-part) clear.

    Many people have come to grief trying to concentrate the pigment in dope. The ratio of carrier (clear) to pigment is about as high as it can be as it comes and still stay together reasonably well. Trying to add pigment or reduce the fraction of the carrier means that the almost any subsequent  solvent clear or thinner/retarder will melt it all into a big mess unless it is extremely dry. That's why Windy recommended a 2-part clear over it, instead of dope. He learned that the hard way, I think!

  Note that the same effect is why 2-part color, or basecoat, covers so much better, something like epoxy clear can have a far, far larger fraction of pigment than dope can handle. Also why you have to be so careful about spraying it *just enough* to cover.  Per unit uncured volume it is massively heavier because it has 3x the pigment. Spray it like dope an you are not going to be able to pick up the airplane. But you only need a little bit of it to cover.

     Brett

[Dave_Trible]

I airbrush just about everything which requires more coats because the dope is very thin and applied in very thin layers,  but doesn't have the tendency to do those things.   I'm not too worried about blushing until the last coat or two.   The blush rises to the top of each layer and is there for the killing in the last heavy coat or two which I apply with a brush since the airbrushed coats will protect underneath.   These are the coats I get more serious with the retarder.   For what I'm seeing in your photo I'd apply a few more light coats of clear to give some depth then wet sand your orange peel down smooth.   After that another light coat of clear or polish out your work and it should be repaired.

Dave