Runs and Drips

I’m not going to elaborate any further than this, but I’m going to pretend that this weekend didn’t happen. Nothing particularly awful, just extremely unproductive and frustrating.

For the next week or two, as I get some long overdue paperwork and spring cleaning over and done with, the posts will be a bit on the short side, length-wise.

For example, today’s topic is about drips. Drips like this one, on an otherwise very nice Chalky Pacer:

While the general consensus seems to be that runs and drips are a clear indicator that a finish has either been tampered with, or falsified entirely, that’s simply not the case.

Although they are not common, they do show up from time to time usually – as is the case here – on Basecoated Chalkies.

Every once and a while you will also see runs and drips on early Glosses, too – particularly items from the 1950s and early 1960s. I’ve owned at least one Gloss Family Arabian Stallion with factory dripping, and I’ve seen a handful of Western Horses and Ponies suffering from similar painting malfunctions.

These are a little more controversial, because Glosses are pretty easy to fake, but identifying a genuine Gloss drip or run is like identifying a genuine Chalky finish: once you see one in person, it tends to become very obvious.

For the record, I don’t try to “fix” these kinds of factory flaws if I come across them, especially if the model is otherwise presentable. It’s part of the history of the model, and gentle reminder that those “Good Old Days” weren’t uniformly so.

Here’s a picture of the whole horse, if you’re curious:

A few marks and rubs, and a bit unstable (hence the crutch) but definitely a keeper.