Vinyl plus acrylic plus enamel paint = disaster?!?

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
1

Hi all,

First off thanks for taking the time to answer my modeling questions, this site is the best for that! I have an old (almost 20 years now) 1/6 scale Horizon Boba Fett vinyl figure that I am finally getting to - wonderful detail, with just a few fixes to make. I know from past mistakes NOT to paint vinyl with enamel paint, I have had some sticky never dried messes as a result. learning from this, I bought some AK Interactive acrylic primer and sprayed the model with it (worked great, other than the typical super fast drying and clogging my airbrush) So my question is can I put enamel paint over the now sealed vinyl? I am not a fan of acrylic paint and would rather go to my tried and true Humbrol and artist tube enamel. any issues I need to be concerned with? I did some test runs on scraps and it seemed ok but don’t know what the effect would be over time. Thanks again for the help!

2

I would let it cure for several days just to make certain that no bad reaction occurs. Krylon makes a primer for plastics that I use on soft rubber tank tracks that works pretty good for me. I wonder if it will be ok on your figure?

3

Many of us hate kit mfgs who include vinyl parts. Virtually every method I have used to paint it ruins it. I have heard oil paints plus turpentine will be okay, but since I thin enamel with turpentine and enamel ruins it, I am skeptical. In another forum there is a discussion of painting vinyl tracks on armor. One post claims Krylon primer works and protects it, but I have had Krylon primer goo up vinyl.

4

Thanks gents, I appreciate the info. At this point I think I will just primer it with a good coat of water based primer and then try to use as much acrylic on it as possible - weathering and details will be in oils though, only way to do it for me