Priming in preparation for white paint?

Any light color will generally have less "hide" than a darker color. Yellow and red seem to be particularly bad. Undercoating such colors with white helps greatly, because white, in a good quality paint, has or can have, very high hide. This is because both forms of titanium dioxide (the main pigment in white paint) is very fine, very white, and has a high reflectance. However, most white paint, especially when sufficiently thinned for airbrushing, still requires multiple coats compared to a darker color.

Flat whites have better hide than gloss whites, and are prefered for an undercoat of light colors. It is not necessary to achieve complete hide with the white undercoat. A "guesstimate" of 75 percent hide is often sufficient.

I would also recommend Floquil's Reefer White paint for your white, it is the best I have used.

Now that I have thinned my paint, how long will it last?  I seem to have mixed more than I needed.  I know that I will need one or two more coats within the next few days.  Will it last that long?

 

Thanks.

 

John

The paint should be fine for that time period.

Be sure to keep it in a tightly sealed container. An empty paint bottle is ideal.

I have a few basic primer techniques, easy to follow LOL

• Light Grey primer - for light colored finish coats (can also be used for all).
• Flat White over the light grey primer before really light color coats (white, yellow, light blue, etc...)
• Dark Grey  primer - for medium dark colored finish coats.
  
• Red Oxide primer - for dark colored finish coats.
• Silver or Gold as a primer for transparent finish coats (such as metallics), color used depends on the shade (light or dark) that I'm going for.

Experiment, sometimes it's fun to see what you end up with.