QUESTION ABOUT PRIMER

Lonnie: I use Tamiya acrylics as well. If I'm going to prime, I use Tamiya acrylics - yep, the same ones I'm finishing with - XF53 is what I usually use (grey). I have overpainted with every conceivable kind of finish including Alclad2 and have always had excellent results. The key to acrylics IMO is to make sure they are cured, not just dried. You can easily handle acrylics within hours of painting, but it's not cured. That takes at least a couple of days. Once acrylic is cured, you can apply any kind of finish on top. Of course, if you're finishing with acrylics, you don't need to wait for it to cure, just dry is good enough.

Rich

I'm mostly an airplane/airliner modeller but have used primer coats for a couple of reasons. First I use it to pick up any imperfections in the construction, ie. seams, dips, and blemishes I may have missed during initial construction. Next it provides a solid base for the paint to adhere to. I 'm not sure if mixing laquer based against enamel on acrylics will harm the subsequent base/main coats. I use Tamiya Fine surface primer, White and Light grey on my airliners followed by the gloss coats,(they are laquers) and I use a can of grey primer, purchased at Wal Mart for about $3.00 for any enamels that I work with. Some folks use silver primer. Seeing as your doing a ship I suspect you'll be priming the hull and the decks? I would suggest buying several different primer mediums and try them on scrap plastic and test the adhesion properties of your ultimate coats to see how they react. I hope this helps. Practice and trial and error will ultimately dictate what you find works for you. That's going to be a BIG ship. Post pics if you can. 

Neil