A Replacement For Pledge? Here It Is!

A replacement for Pledge (or Future) has been on my mind ever since SC Johnson announced they were no longer going to be making the acrylic floor polish in January 2022. It’s been a favorite of mine for years. Not just as an acrylic gloss coat, but also as a decal setting solution, gluing on photoetch and clear parts, as a canopy dip, a thinning agent, and so much more. It’s cheap, effective, and reliable.

A few years ago I’d heard a rumor that they were discontinuing the product, so I immediately went out and purchased five more bottles. At the time, the rumor was not true – so I ended up with a huge supply. And I’ve still got three bottles left.

Unfortunately, when the product was actually discontinued in January 2022, I somehow missed the memo. By the time I found out, it had reached Unobtanium status. But now that I no longer do aircraft modeling, I wasn’t too worried about it. My rate of consumption had dropped dramatically, so I figured that by the time I ran out, a replacement would have emerged.

A Replacement For Pledge Emerges

Over the course of 2022, I heard a few suggestions for possible replacements for Pledge. More and more, one name kept coming up: Holloway House Quick Shine. I decided to take a wait-and-see approach to trying it though, figuring some sort of consensus would emerge. And after a few months it did. The stuff basically works like Pledge.

I headed over to my local Walmart and picked up a bottle. My testing methodology was simple. Treat it like it was Pledge. I knew how the old product behaved inside and out, having applied it to hundreds of models. I figured if I used it like Pledge, I’d see very quickly if it was a suitable replacement. Additionally, it would be easy to note any differences.

You can watch the video for the details, but I’m happy to say it works just fine. If you used Pledge, you’ll adapt to this immediately. And if you’ve not used Pledge, you can still use my old guides as a primer on the uses of floor polish in modeling. This one covers general use, and this one is specific to airbrushing.