Tamiya Liquid Surface Primer questions

Mrchntmarine

Going to use this for the 1st time and have a few , most likely, redundant questions:

1)  i see its ok to thin w/ lacquer thinner? 

2)  can it also be thinned w/ Mr Color leveling Thinner 400?  If so, better than Tamiya LT?  Why, why not?

3)  clean up AB w/ LT or denatured alcohol?  I saw that denatured alcohol will work too.

 

Thanks for any tips / thoughts!

 

PS - ok to brush on small parts straight from bottle?

 

If its the same as their surface primer in spray cans, I would say that lacquer thinner would be just fine.  Personally, I use MEK to thin mine and clean the airbrush with afterward, but lacquer thinner should also work.  A solvent I found that has known compatibility issues with Tamiya Surface Primer is Isopropyl Alcohol...turns the primer into cottage cheese.

I would avoid brushing anything laquer or acetone based (Tamiya Surface Primer has a lot of acetone in it) directly onto anything plastic.  Brush painting puts the paint/primer on much thicker and wetter than an airbrush would, and can damage your parts.  For primering small parts, I typically use a hot glue gun to stick the small parts to a blunted toothpick.  I can usually find a section of the part, such as an attachment peg, that I wouldn't want to get paint on anyway and just use that as the point where I glue it to the toothpick.  Then I use the edges of cheap rolls of masking tape as kind of a dart board to poke the sharp end of the toothpick into to hold them, and just grab each toothpick off the roll, primer or paint, and then stick the toothpick back into the roll so the part can dry undisturbed.

Here's an example.  The individual exhaust petals from an F-35A project I've been working on.

Mrchntmarine

Going to use this for the 1st time and have a few , most likely, redundant questions:

1)  i see its ok to thin w/ lacquer thinner? 

2)  can it also be thinned w/ Mr Color leveling Thinner 400?  If so, better than Tamiya LT?  Why, why not?

3)  clean up AB w/ LT or denatured alcohol?  I saw that denatured alcohol will work too.

 

Thanks for any tips / thoughts!

 

PS - ok to brush on small parts straight from bottle?

 

This has been my go to primer for many years.

1, yes it thins well with lacquer thinner. I use Kleen Strip that I buy at the hardware store... nothing fancy

2, I havent tried any other thinners, because I get desired results with what I use. I tend to stick with known constants, unless given a solid reason to try something else.

3, I have cleaned my airbrushes with lacquer thinner after using Tamiya LSP, again for its known quialities. No pressing need to try something else.

I suppose it would be ok to hand brush on small parts, but you'll get a muich thicker application compared to airbrushing.