best primer for metal figures

Hi, one of those fibreglass scratch pens (use wet, cuts down on the nasty stuff) is good for cleaning up soldered seams, etc.

and/or a small fine brass suade shoe cleaning brush?

You need to clean any & all residue, solder, dust, and any trace of grease, first.

I have heard of Humbrol semi gloss or acrylic varnish used as a primer, esp if you are planning to use the metal figures 'shiny bits'.

Hannants (UK) or similar,  used to sell a tin of etch primer in Humbrol sized tins, but it ate it's way out of the tin(!) and hasn't been on sale for decades...

Otherwise your favourite automotive or lacquer primer in a rattlecan, used lightly.

I'm not sure if it's the best but what I use and have been using for years are Tamiya Sky Grey/airbrushed or Vallejo Grey Surface primer.

Joe

I have used Mr Surfacer 1200 in the rattlecan,or Tamiya Fine

I used to use automotive primer, and Rustoleum primer, in rattle-cans, on my metal figures, as well as on styrene and resin.  I switched to using Tamiya's fine surface primer.  For one thing, the quality of the spray cans seemed to get worse, and they tended to clog more frequently, leaving me with a can half-full but generally useless.  That was with Rustoleum as well as with the automotive primer (Walmart's house brand).  Both covered well, though.

I tried Tamiya's surface primer, because I use a lot of Tamiya acrylics, and I found that their primer gives a good surface, finely-grained for good tooth, but not too rough.  And even though it's more expensive, I found that I got as much mileage from one can as I did from the larger cans.  I recommend it highly.

Best regards,

Brad