"We want 8 - but we'll have to wait!"

I am not a happy bunny.

By the close of play Saturday evening the current batch of 8 Royal Navy battleships had been finished and but for the lack of any varnish would have only needed yours truly to finish the bases which was to have been the Sunday job. In fact, this post was to have been the photo shoot.

I should also point out that I had needed to make some very minor changes to 4 other battleships to bring them into line with the two additional models I had painted to complete the classes - basically I had 4 of the 6 Bellerophon/St. Vincent types and needed the other two for the project as all 6 were at Jutland. The shading/highlighting on the last two was slightly more noticeable so I fine tuned the other 4 models to bring them up to the same standard.

The varnish had dried up so I opened one of the two new tins I had (I was using Humbrol enamel). Being mindful of the potential problems with a new tin I took all manner of precautions - stirring and shaking the tin thoroughly - so was confident that all was well. To be even more sure I tested the varnish on an older model just to make sure. It dried perfectly....or so I thought.

The next morning, before we went out Christmas shopping, I made a point of varnishing the 8 new models and 4 touched up others after having checked the test sample - rather too quickly as it turned out.

Six hours later, upon our return, I came home to an absolute horror story.

The varnish had dried to a milky white in all the crevices - around the bases of the superstructure and funnels as well as between the gun barrels. Under close inspection the same thing had happened on my test sample only I had missed it. I was distraught. There was absolutely no way to amend the damage easily - remember my technique involves generous amounts of dry-brushing which is awkward to carry out locally on a specific part of the models without it looking out of place.

After having scrutinised the whole sorry batch the only conclusion I could make was that the 8 models will need repainting from the main deck upwards and to make matters worse, the 4 I was merely touching up will also need the same treatment.

I could not bring myself to tackle it last night - it was too painful to contemplate!

I know on the global scale of things this is small beer - after all no-one has died - but my painting time is really precious these days and so this this is a bitter, bitter blow to my timetable.

I have never had this happen before - my only varnish dramas were restricted to the odd matt coat coming out gloss which is easily rectified or the very occasional metallic paint lift although the latter was firmly exorcised when I adopted acrylic metal colours some years ago.

My mood is dark but hey ho, onwards and upwards and back in the saddle once again - I shall be tackling these later in the week.