Primer

tominator........
imo.......it's all a personal choice and what works best for you.......trial, error and practice is gonna be the best teacher........
i fell for acrylics a while ago over enamals and all good LHS's will have both or at least a respectable choice of either.........
personally, i prime (AB) all large assemblies, a medium primer grey, tthat have a mating surface......fuselage halves, wings......etc....just so i can better detect all the flaws during assy.
someone jusr recently posted the 3 P's.......patience, practice & perseverence.....

A lot of people use Krylon primer, but I'm not real wild about it. I much prefer Tamiya primer. A rattle-can will prime a couple of 1/32 scale planes so it goes a long way. It dries very thing and does not cover much surface detail at all.

HEY,
Plasti-cote plastic primer is pretty good. I dont know how many models you can get out of a can because im still using the first can. So far i have 4 car bodies with various parts that come with the kit molded in black, and there is still a fair amount left in the can. Do about 3 coats and your good.

Randy

I use Rustoleum Automotive Primer, and being for real cars, it works awesome! It comes in a spray paint can, so it lasts a long time. I've done 5 models and its just about halfway. Its wetsandable, and turns out very smotth. One downside is that it is dark grey, almost black, so spotting flaws is a bit harder.

I just use testors spray primer and it works good for me. plus its a good grey for modern jets with the grey paint scheme.

i have 3 different primers, alclad grey primer, floquil gray, and krylon brown primer. i use all three, but when i have deep scratches or a tough seam, i decant the krylon brown into a container and load it into my airbrush. crank the pressure to about 12 psi or so and spray down the seem. i continue to add a coat until the seam goes away, wainting about 30 minutes in between coats. when i'm satisfied, i get some squadron sanding sticks and wet sand the seam...........wait a minute........what seam? it works that good. you have to be careful using krylon as it seems to dry on the outer fringes of you spray pattern and hit the model in little granules. they can be sanded easily if you spot them. i sometimes mask off each side of the seam and then blend in the primer by sanding after i remove the mask. i use the other 2 grey primers after i do light sanding to see if i need to do anymore filling and sanding, i also spray them over krylon brown to detect any flaws in the surface. as a side note, when you use krylon brown, you may have to rescribe some lost detail, but this has to be done anyway you go most of the time. later.

I use Floquil primer only.

Mike

ok, so primer isa not just a paint, but a special kind of paint that prepares the surface for 'real' paint? am i on the right lines?
and do all primers only come in a spray can? coz im gettin a AB so i could do wiuth a big tin to last me a while...
btw, thanks for all the help and tips!

HEY,
You got the basic idea. It would better for you to get a can it lasts forver and its cheap.

Randy

QUOTE: ok, so primer isa not just a paint, but a special kind of paint that prepares the surface for 'real' paint? am i on the right lines? and do all primers only come in a spray can? coz im gettin a AB so i could do wiuth a big tin to last me a while... btw, thanks for all the help and tips!

"True" primer is a very fine pigment paint. The pigment size is very small so that it doesn't cover up surface detail. It is usually designed to go on opaque with only a couple of coats, adhere very tightly, and dry quickly. These traits are not necessarily limited to primers though, so in effect any paint can be used as a primer coat and a lot of people do use just plain paint for priming. I've had real good luck with Tamiya's primer and I have just stuck with it because I know how it will behave and how to use it.

Not all primers come in a can, some come in bottles. Even if it does come in a can you can spray it out of the can into a bottle and airbrush it if desired, you don't even have to thin it at all. If you use Krylon that's what I'd recommend because it comes out of the can in a flood. I paint with acrylics almost exclusively but since Tamiya primer is an enamel I take it outside and spray it right out of the can.

I use Floquil Grey Primer applied with an Airbrush. It's the best primer available for model aircraft IMHO.

Regards, Rick

I use different color primers for different color finished paint jobs.. if the model is red or a maroon color, I will use a Rust color primer, if its a whiter or light color i will use gray or lighter primer, if the finish job is black I will use a black or flat black primer. I don't like using rattle cans for painting anything myself, can't control the spray of the paint as well as you can with an air brush.

rusty: yea ive heard thats good...make the colours brightwer yea?... cant wait 2 try it my self...
whats a good brand of primerthats not a rattlecan? does taimya sell primers in tins?

i cant wait 2 get my ab 2 try all these new things!

On the other hand, I use Testors spray can light grey enamel (regular paint, in other words) as a primer and have had good results. I let that primer dry completely, and then spray Testors MM acrylic paint over it.

Regards,