I've been reading many things lately about Baking Soda turning yellow after sometime. Can anyone confirm this , and if so could you please provide a time frame. And is there any way to prevent this.

What i planned on doing was using baking soda, and then sealing it in with a clear coat, will this work, or not.......i dont want my hard work turning yellow after some years.

Thanks

I made a doi with marines in the Chosin and won a contest with it. After about 3 years of chain smoking in the same room with said dio I finally took it the bathroom and gave it a shower. (The baking soda snow turned brown) I don't know for sure but I don't think there is a good way to clean or dust a baking soda diorama. My advise: Cover it with something after you build it, even if you don't smoke. My looked great when it was done but it went down hill quick...

Ive used baking soda and its been a year since I finished the dio and its still white as snow.

Matrix, where do you live? You must not have gas forced air heat or a smoker in the house... LOL

I live in Oregon, and no there are no smokers here or gas forced heat.

Thanks for the reply guys. I just want to bump up this thread in order to get a larger consensus and input from others.

There was a thread on this subject back 1 page....in it I also stated that not only will baking soda turn yellow but it also can get bugs called weevles or weebles in it.....I had this problem when I did a German 1/2 track with the quad 20mm flak gun on it.....the damn thing moved across the room on it's own after a couple of years!!!
Microballoons are the only way to go for me now.....they are light....easy to use....stay white....and don't collect bugs!!! Another plus for microballoons is they kind of sparkle a bit too.

What are Microballoons and just where do you get them? Incidentally, how the heck did they get that name?

Nic

Microballons can be found at good plastic shops.....actually there is a model company selling small bags of it as "scale snow" for $10......go to the plastic store and you can get a whole tub of it for around $5.
If you have built and resin kits that weren't all that heavy....it's because microballoons have been mixed with the resin to cut down on the weight without cutting out any of the strength.....helps cut down the mailing costs. I'm not sure of it's original use before us model makers got a hold of it.
They got their name because they are really.....very tiny balls of plastic filled with air like a balloon.

Microballoons ? Never heard of those ! Only 10:20 am, and already Armorama taught me something new today !

I have never made a snow dio but I read quite a bit about making one. These microballons have surfaced quite a bit and the results are excellent and as well, having the advantages earlier mentioned of not going yellow or maggots.
I read somewhere that they are used a lot in model aircraft hobbies. So they should be available from there.

Most of the "big diorama gurus" use Microballoons. I've first encountered these in Shep Paine's book on dioramas, and since then everybody is talking that the most realistic snow is made of these thingies. I've never tried it myself, but have seen couple of dioramas with Microballoons and they look very realistic... and there is no way that they loose color in time like soda.

BTW, General I see you have moved to Bosnia... We should get together like good neighbours and have a pint or two

Mario M.

LOL ! Maki, I did not mean to put Bosnia in there. I thought now I'm a general I should live life more seriously and sport my own national flag : Belgium. But probably something went down. That happened to me before when using "drop down menus". I have one of those computer mice with a roll button on top, and that seems to change the choice when you don't watch your mouse tail. I'll repair that right now. BTW : those Bosnians have a very modern looking flag there !

Actually, it is a flag that was made by European advisors in Bosnia, because all the proposed solutions with the Bosnian flag (by the three nations living there) were not "suitable" to the EU... #:-)

Mario M.

Used it back about in 1982 when I was in germamy and made a dio of winter in my apartment it will without sealing get damp when it rains outside at least mine did. but looked great during the dry season. Posted pics of my old dio back in 1982 when I was in Germany by todays standard not up to par wrong color panzer gray I know but heck this was 1982 and I was away every week just about building roads for the Abrahams that wer just arriving so they could shoot at new advanced targets and the roads which could not handle the high speed of these things. So have a look at them
http://community.webshots.com/user/reef12

I`ve posted a same kind a message in another post

What I use is talcum powder. pour it over my dio then spray hair fixative on it
do this a couple of times because you`ll blow off the half of your talcum powder
repeat the steps a couple of times till you get the amount of snow you want

after years you still have snow that makes you cold when you look at it

I purchased Woodland Scenics product simply called "Snow". They make grass and rocks etc and the snow looks like a white flaky powdery stuff.

In my experience using Baking Soda, it will turn yellow in a year and a half to 2 years and, even worse, it will attract insects (as it is an organic substance) and mold will grow on it.
It's the worse damn stuff I've ever used for snow. I got the idea of using baking soda from an FSM article 13 years, but they never warned me of the side effects.
JC Hayes

I got it, MicroBalloons are the way to go for snow in a dio. Question, Where does one find microballoons? Can they be found at Craft stores such as Michael's or Hobby Lobby? What are some of their other uses so I may find somewheer that carries them? I need them for a Chosin resevoir dio w/ Tamiya M26 and a T-34/85 w/ DML Chosin Marines.