Its been something like ten plus years since I had the ability to airbrush any kits & now I've finally gotten a nice spraybooth, I need to replenish my stock of paints due to loss & hardening over time. Its been a long while since I primed anything & was wondering what the general consensus of opinion would be on the best primer brand to use thru the airbrush nowadays. I'm mainly looking for something that'll go on thin without much thinning down out of the bottle & that won't attack the plastic & turn my kits to mush or cause surface deformations.
I used to use Testors grey enamel primer that came in the larger bottle but Im sure theres gotta be something better by now!
Any recommendations Ladies n Gents? Any and all pros n cons are welcome to be discussed so thanks in advance for any willing to share!
I can't help you as most of the time I spray styrene with the cheap stuff in the can from the Dollar General. It goes on very thin when used properly without hiding detail. For resin I use a hotter automotive primer.
Try some Dupli-color #1699 sealer gray. From the can or decant it. Very thin and covers as well. Use under any paint.....or I should say all I have tried.
I used to swear by Model Master paints - except the primer. I hated the adhesion of the primer. And most of their whites sucked too.
I only use Tamiya primer out of the rattle can now, and have come to love their paints through an airbrush. Little by little, I will be replacing all my MM paints with Tamiya.
For 15 francs more, I can put a can of sardines on your chest.
You have a great idea for a thread. When I reentered modeling I was obsessed with fillers and primers because I had so much trouble with seams.
Currently I use Gunze Sangyo's Mr. Surfacer 500 or Mr. Surfacer 1000 thinned with Mr. Color Thinner shot through an airbrush. I also apply it out-of-the-bottle with a toothpick to fill seams, scratches and small dimples and pinholes. I loved the old square bottles with the paint-well cap and lament their passing. I think I've used Mr. Surfacer for nearly a decade.
There are a number of reasons I like Mr. Surfacer. You can remove it with 91% or 99% isopropyl alcohol so you can finish some seams with little or no sanding. With some primers, problem areas you thought you sanded to perfection like sprue gates or the demarcation line between putty and plastic will will become glaringly obvious. I think people call this ghosting or etching. When you thin Mr. Surfacer with Mr. Thinner this doesn't happen. When you thin it with lacquer thinner it behaves a lot like automotive primer. Also Mr. Surfacer is an acceptable metal primer. With Aves and Mr. Surfacer you can fill and prime just about any model. Back when the dollar was strong and the yen was weak, buying it from Rainbow Ten was very affordable.
After spraying Mr. Surfacer I clean my airbrush with cheap lacquer thinner.
I airbrush primers because I lack the hand-eye coordination needed for spray cans. I could never achieve good repeatable results with a spray bomb. An airbrush limits the size of my mistakes.
So much for the Mr. Surfacer ad. Since opinions differ, here are other primers I've tried and primers people I know use.
Before Mr. Surfacer, I airbrushed automotive primer form the little touch up bottles (not the cans) and thinned with acetone. I used Plasti-kote Scratch Color Automotive Sanding Primmer and Dupli-Color Scratch Filler and Primer. These were good primers and airbrushed beautifully. Plasti-kote and Dupli-Color were so similar you could mix them. Wallmart sold both back when I used them. The main disadvantage is occasionally I'd get ghosting/etching. These are the best metal primers I've used.
Previously I used spray cans of automotive primer - usually Plasti-kote or Dupli-color but also other brands. In addition to the control problems, orange peel was frequent and there was more ghosting/etching. And when it goes on too thick it can obscure detail. I haven't bought any in years. They might have changed the formula. While spray cans of car primer were cheap many of them had nozzles intended to hose down car doors. On the small models I built about half the paint was overspray.
There's a case against priming. One of the most talented and productive aircraft modelers around here doesn't prime. When he's finished airbrushing a model he shoots whatever paint he has left along the seams and problem areas of another model he has under construction. For most of his 40+ years of modeling he used enamels from Testors, Model Master and Humbrol. He might be migrating to acrylics now. By eliminating a step he reduces the time spent on a build and the number of things that can go wrong. I might have tried this on a model when I got back into modeling. Since I didn't know what I was doing back then I didn't give it a fair chance.
Here's stuff I've never tried.
Here in Central Kentucky we have some very talented car modelers. Their work appears in national magazines and they bring medals home from regional contests. Some of them use two-part catalyzed polyurethane automotive primer. (Maybe Dupont VariPrime?) They shoot perfectly smooth flat coats with automotive touch-up guns. One of them uses a primer that produces thick ugly orange peel finishes that he apparently sands to perfection. Go figure.
Some modelers like primer from Floquil or gaming companies. Other modelers have their favorite brand of cheap department store spray paint.
Future or Pledge with Future or whatever they call it now is great on clear parts. Occasionally someone says they prime with it.
