So I can't use Mr. Surfacer to prime a vinyl figure?

TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan · Mon Mar 09, 2015 10:28 pm

I was just reading this article on the SSM site about building vinyl kits. It says that I must prime vinyl with acrylic in order for the kit to accept enamels and lacquer paints. I don't know of any acrylic-based primers. Primers made by Tamiya Mr. Hobby, and Gaia Notes are all lacquer-based.

It was my understanding that only enamels are not good on a vinyl kit. Is lacquer-based paint really no good for vinyl kits?

Natsu-Rokka · Post by **Natsu-Rokka** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 2:53 am

TVGM, it's a vexing problem that seems to have no 100% answer. There was a vinyl spray primer sold in Japan about 20 years ago that was specifically made for kits, but I can't recall the name. In the US there is Krylon Fusion, but I have not tried it. I once used Floquil primer and their railroad colors (lacquer) on a Halcyon Space Jockey, and it was fine for many years, but is now slightly sticky. I had an immediate bad reaction with the same paints with another vinyl kit, so I don't what went wrong. I have read about people using enamels over laqcuer or acrylic primers, but I always had the same sticky problem 100% of the time. I noticed my vinyl kits start to get sticky when the weather turns hot & humid. Maybe the plasticizer in the vinyl leaches out under those conditions, I don't know. Anyway, sorry I couldn't help. I'd be interested in an answer to your question as well.

TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan · Tue Mar 10, 2015 4:51 am

I had some Dirty Pair anime figures that would sweat stickiness. They were likely vinyl, but I don't know. I sold them. I didn't care for them anway, since their boobs were too big. On top of that, Yuri's boobs were bigger than Kei's, which is not how it's supposed to be.

ANYHOW, What I will do after trimming the excess is to see if I can prime the pieces with Mr. Base White to see if that works. I can try asking the guy at my local hobby shop and see what he recommends. We do indeed get stuff here in Japan that is either hard to find or unavailable in the West.

starmanmm · Post by **starmanmm** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 8:27 am

Maybe... for a primer, if you can't find something like Krylon (in a can, which is basically acrylic) I would just spray a base coat of an acrylic paint and go from there.

TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan · Tue Mar 10, 2015 8:43 am

starmanmm wrote:Maybe... for a primer, if you can't find something like Krylon (in a can, which is basically acrylic) I would just spray a base coat of an acrylic paint and go from there.

Krylon is certainly not available here in Japan. I suppose I could go with a base coat of Tamiya flat white or something for a first coat. If I give it enough time to cure, I suppose I can spray it with lacquer. First thing's first though, I will test out Base White on the scraps and see how it goes.

I think that it may be possible that vinyl models made in Japan vs. other countries may behave differently too.

Joseph Osborn · Post by **Joseph Osborn** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:16 am

Lacquer primer is fine for vinyl models. I've used Duplicolor lacquer spray primer from the auto parts store and Tamiya spray surface primer with no trouble whatsoever. Vallejo's excellent acrylic primer would probably work just fine (with somewhat diminished adhesion), but enamel is definitely a no-no on bare vinyl.

Just scrub the parts really clean first or no type of primer will stick!

Rocketeer · Post by **Rocketeer** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 1:15 pm

The wings I added to this demoness were from a vinyl craft-store figure. I primed them with Tamiya spray primer, and all seemed to be well; but I could not get the color coats (oil paints) to dry.

I then mixed up some Milliput, and added water until I had a slurry. I applied about five coats of that and tried again. Still no luck, although when I stripped off the oils using thinner I found that many areas had dried pretty well--so maybe ten coats of Milliput slurry would've done the trick.

After stripping, I bought myself some acrylic tube paints and brush painted her wings (using a lot of slow-dry so that I could do some blending). The acrylics dried fine and all is well.

Morals of the story:
1. Even though Tamiya primer dries fine, it doesn't appear to form an effective barrier against whatever it is in the vinyl that stops enamels and oils from drying;
2. Milliput slurry would have formed a barrier, had I had the patience of Job;
3. Acrylics dry just fine.

TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan · Tue Mar 10, 2015 4:50 pm

I've heard that about oil-based paints, actually. Even if you paint them on top of safe paints, the vinyl somehow still permeates and there is no real barrier.

Ant · Post by **Ant** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 2:19 pm

Don't know if it's the same in Japan, but most car spray paints in the UK are acrylic based now, and work fine on vinyl.

Halfords is a chain of car parts stores here and their standard grey primer has been my staple kit primer for 20 + years.

Wug · Post by **Wug** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 5:37 am

You can't use enamels or oil based paints on a vinyl kit. Mr. Surfacer and many automotive primers are acrylic lacquers. They are safe for vinyl. I used Mr. Surfacer on the only vinyl kit I've built.

I've never tried but supposedly Future or whatever Pledge calls it now is a good primer for vinyl. It is engineered for vinyl floors.

Mike

TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan · Thu Mar 12, 2015 7:34 pm

Thanks, everyone, for the feedback. I still need to finish several other models before I get around to starting the vinyl kit I'd like to make this year. You'll probably see it eventually in the Figures subforum.

Reichardt, KoG · Post by **Reichardt, KoG** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 8:37 pm

Walmart sells an acrylic final coat in rattle cans PLAID brand name; blue& white label in the CRAFT section. They have gloss and flat, $5...m i g h t work...

TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan · Thu Mar 12, 2015 10:32 pm

Reichardt, KoG wrote:Walmart sells an acrylic final coat in rattle cans PLAID brand name; blue& white label in the CRAFT section. They have gloss and flat, $5...m i g h t work...

Heh. We actually have Walmart here in Japan. It's called Seiyu, but the store clerk uniforms still say "Walmart" on the back. It's basically like shopping at the grocery store section of Walmart, but minus the trailer trash customers.

Go Flight · Post by **Go Flight** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 11:09 pm

Vallejo has a number of colors of primer - acrylic IIRC

TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan · Thu Mar 12, 2015 11:36 pm

I'll stick with Mr. Surfacer. Here in Japan, it is widely available and there is no Krylon and other such brands available here. I have seen Vallejo only on a few occasions, in model shops in the Tokyo area. It is possible to get stuff like Vallejo, Alclad, Humbrol enamels, and Model Master acrylics here, but usually these are available through mail order. Over here, if it isn't Tamiya, GSI Creos, or Gaia Notes, it is difficult to find.

flyfort17 · Post by **flyfort17** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 9:08 am

I have a vinly stormtrooper kit I built years ago. I simply washed the vinly
and used Tamiya light gull gray as a primer and painted Tamiya white over that. I must have built that kit over ten years ago. It still looks good today.
Paint never chipped off.

SCI-FI · Post by **SCI-FI** » Thu Apr 02, 2015 1:23 pm

Fortuitous timing? I just asked my LHS guys about painting figures, and he recommended Duplicolor Adhesion Promoter (?) for use as a primer on any vinyl kit. Find it at local auto shops, comes in a large container that will last a typical modeler many years.

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » Sat May 30, 2015 4:10 am

On the two vinyl kits I've built over the years, I painted the first with Tamiya acrylics straight over the vinyl (after washing it), and the paint turned sticky some months after drying because the plasticizers in the vinyl leached through.

The second one (wanting to avoid the earlier problem...), I washed thoroughly with some sanding and filling of air bubbles and then primed it with Mr. Surfacer, sanded some more until I was happy, and primed it again with Mr. Surfacer. Then I painted it with Tamiya acrylics, and until now (five months later) it has had no problems.

dizzyfugu · Post by **dizzyfugu** » Tue Jun 02, 2015 8:25 am

Besides using ONLY acrylic primer (read the can - if it does not say acarylic just stay away in order to avoid any risks), give the parts a good and thorough wash in a mild detergent. There will certainly be silicone separator agents left on the parts, or, if you have poor vinyl material, it keeps oozing softener. If any of these is left before painting, you will receive a spotty finish, in the wort case the paint just pearls off...

The white Tamiya primer should be safe and also be a very good option - costly, but good material yields good results.

That also counts for vinyl material quality. I have seen/built shaggy recast kits of a material that came close to hard wax. A mess, a wonder how I got those things together at all, and most amazing is that the paint is still intact, after many years...

Worked purely with acrylics, though, primer as well as final coats, and those were glossy and flexible.

Anyway, a good and original vinyl kit can be just as crisp and easy to handle like a resin kit - I have a vintage original Belldandy figure somewhere in the stash, and if it was not hollow I'd thought it was a resin kit, also due to a relatively dark/brownish material, much different from the white-ish cheap stuff (Elfin/Phantom recasts). I'd still only use acrylics, just to avoid any risk of long-term reaction.

TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan · Thu Jul 09, 2015 12:05 am

To give an update, I have used Mr. Surfacer as well as Gaia Notes white primer on the vinyl kit and I have had no problems at all so far. I'm nearly ready to start painting the kit.

Andy_USA · Post by **Andy_USA** » Thu Jul 09, 2015 2:40 pm

If you use anything other than an acrylic primer of some type on vinyl all I can say is that you have been very lucky. You had to have applied it in light coats scattered over long dry times. You also may have been lucky and gotten some high grade vinyl that is not very soft. In general unless You like sticky gooy surfaces it is best to avoid using enamel or lacquer based products on vinyl.

TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan · Fri Jul 10, 2015 1:41 am

Gaia Notes is 100% compatible with GSI Mr. Color products, which are acrylic lacquers. These are made especially for modeling, and they target the figure modelers too. People earlier in this thread said that they'd work well on my vinyl figure, and I am not surprised. With others talking about using automotive primers and such---because I assume they are cheaper in their countries---I chose to stay away from that entirely. I live in Japan, Japanese companies don't make crap, and the stuff they make for modeling is widely available and high quality. I can imagine people elsewhere turning to hardware stores for stuff that would destroy their models because they cannot obtain any decent modeling equivalents for a decent price. That is not my case.

But yes, I did allow for some pretty long drying times. Mostly because I have a kid who requires help with her homework and I often work evenings. it takes a while for me to complete models.

Salamander · Post by **Salamander** » Wed Aug 05, 2015 5:09 pm

TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan wrote:Gaia Notes is 100% compatible with GSI Mr. Color products, which are acrylic lacquers. These are made especially for modeling, and they target the figure modelers too. People earlier in this thread said that they'd work well on my vinyl figure, and I am not surprised. With others talking about using automotive primers and such---because I assume they are cheaper in their countries---I chose to stay away from that entirely. I live in Japan, Japanese companies don't make crap, and the stuff they make for modeling is widely available and high quality. I can imagine people elsewhere turning to hardware stores for stuff that would destroy their models because they cannot obtain any decent modeling equivalents for a decent price. That is not my case.

You must not have much experience with older kits.

It's pretty easy to find awful Japanese modelling goods, e.g. many model kits by Imai, Arii, Fujimi's SF offerings, Bandai's early 1980s Gundam kits or their self-destructing 1/60 Patlabor kits or their modern kits with awful decals, some of Wave's iffy 1990s and early 00s kits, I could go on for a long while...

It's true that many Japanese products are of better quality than let's say Revell or Monogram's stuff and many small European manufacturers, but saying no crap exists in Japan sounds a bit condescending.

But yes, I did allow for some pretty long drying times. Mostly because I have a kid who requires help with her homework and I often work evenings. it takes a while for me to complete models.

Interestingly, the Tamiya acrylic paint on the second vinyl kit I posted about in this thread (a Kaiyodo 1/35 Brocken Labor) has turned slightly sticky and shiny now that the weather here has become hotter than 25 degree Celsius with a fairly high amount of moisture in the air.

TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan · Mon Aug 17, 2015 11:29 pm

Salamander wrote:It's true that many Japanese products are of better quality than let's say Revell or Monogram's stuff and many small European manufacturers, but saying no crap exists in Japan sounds a bit condescending.

I wasn't talking about models. Certainly crappy models are made in Japan, and I have built some. What I was talking about was the quality of primers and paints that are made specifically for the hobby, and how I would rather use these than resorting to automotive or hardware store varieties.

It's interesting what you mentioned about Tamiya paints on a vinyl figure, though. Unfortunate, too. You sealed the paint, right? I've learned that their gloss acrylic paints are rather sensitive, too. I have no experience with using it.