I know that there are about a million posts about roughing food on here, but I believe I found something new! I know plenty of people have said that they use to use, but can't find, the liquid dullcote. I was running about town today, pricingthe different roughing fluids (krylon and testors) at my local retailers. I walked in to Joann's and was looking by their acrylic paints and I found "liquitex matte medium" on the side of which says "increases adhesion". I bought it and brought it home. I just finished testing it out and I had to share. This stuff works like a dream! It's about 12 dollars for an 8 oz bottle. It seems pricey but if you consider that a 3/4 oz liquid dullcote is 3.50. It's more than 11 times the liquid at less than 4 times the price. A bargain in my book!

Hi sounds great.. guess I should start looking for it.

Anyway.. how did you apply the liquid to the cards?

I've always preferred liquid roughing fluid. I'll have to check it out.

I applied the fluid with a q-tip, though you could use a cotton ball or a paint brush if you were so inclined. I didn't need much. And make sure you apply it evenly!

I'll bet Michael's sells this and they always have 40% or 50% off coupons.
This is something normally used by painters of the art kind.

the best way to apply the fluid evenly is to use a rubber roller, they are available from art supply shops pretty cheaply, for tips on how to coat the card see the 'Coating cards' section from Chris Wasshuber's excellent article on making cards here..

http://www.lybrary.com/make-your-playing-cards-a-11.html

Wow thanks for sharing. While I don't do much with cards I have a few that use R&S . I wonder if one of those cheap foam brushes would work?

I've always just used a cotton ball and it worked fine.

I picked this up today at Michaels using a 50% off coupon and got it for $6.

Nice, Motown. Thanks for the hot tip.

I had the best luck using lint-free cheesecloth for applying roughing fluid. With cotton, I would sometimes get fuzzies stuck on the card. The lint-free cheesecloth worked good for me.

As a cabinet maker I should have know ! Thanks.

I got a Quick Fix Roughing by Aldini since last year. But I have problems in applying it onto the cards. Any tips I can use?