Greetings,
When airbrushing armour vehicles with lots of photoetched and metal parts, fenders, etc., what do you use to prime the metal? Does anyone use something different (i.e., “Mr. Metal Primer”) on metal parts than they do on plastic before airbrushing with acrylics? With what kind of results? Can one get away without priming metal parts? What about when painting with enamels as opposed to acrylics?
Thanks!
I paint with enamels all the time and don’t use a primer. Since all the parts are attached and there’s no real handling involved at that stage except for weathering (which is sealed with Future as well), the enamel adheres just fine and I’ve never had any problems with it coming off or flaking. Can’t say anything about acrylics though.
I use acrylics exclusively and never have a problem on PE parts. I’ll lightly sand them VERY CAREFULLY while they’re still on the “sprue” with a very fine sandpaper; this roughens the surface up juuuuust enough to “hold” the paint with no problems. You CAN prime them if you want, but I have yet to find a need to.
Before you start cutting PE parts from its sprue, you need to give them sand them a few times.
The idea is to make the surface rough enough, but not to completely sand down the details. With the rought surface it will give it a good grip for the glue, primer and paint.
With PE, I always give it a good spray of primer, and at the same time this will bring all parts into one color. Once the primer is dry, just proceed as usual.
Ben