House of Kolor Pearl over Tamiya Gray Primer?

[Matt T.]

Over on the Spotlight Hobbies Board (gonna take a while to get used to writing that) David Dale posted pictures of his Revell Merc with HoK Cocoa and indicated he used Tamiya Gray primer.

Has anyone else had success putting a hot automotive lacquer over Tamiya primer? (I think Lyle might with DupliColor over Tamiya?)

I'm thinking that the hobby primer won't etch the styrene at all, and then just mist the color coats and let them gas out enough between coats. Does the Tamiya hold up to hot paint? Thoughts? Thanks in advance.

[patrol52]

I'm not sure about the primer issue, as I have never used that specific primer. Is it lacquer? I do know it should be safe to paint lacquer color over epoxy or lacquer primer. It might be possible to put the lacquer on in mist coats until covered if the primer is not lacquer or epoxy (definitely test on spare parts or scrap body first, as this sounds risky.)

If you plan on painting with lacquer paint, I would suggest getting lacquer primer just to be safe. I hate having to sand paint off. If you look at the automotive section at walmart, there used to be bottles of touch-up paint that have a brush-in-cap. These were lacquer based paint, so you could use just about any one of the colors as a primer coat for your finish color, just spray it on with an airbrush or spray gun. My local walmart stopped stocking stuff recently, as they are moving to a new building, so i have not been able to check, but I think they may have even had primer and flat colors at the touch up section.

Another option is to look at a hardware store, as you can find lacquer spray cans in several colors that may work.

[Marc @ MPC Motorsports]

It depends what kind of lacquer thinner you cut it with. I've had good luck with Gunze Mr. Color thinner, although I haven't used it on a newer Revell kit. Bob Downie perhaps can shed more light on this subject.

[Zoom Zoom]

My recent experience shooting Cobra Colors paint over one coat of Tamiya white primer on my '49 Merc resulted in some mild crazing in a few areas.

Other areas where I did more bodywork (removing mold lines which were much worse than the average Japanese kit ) and treated to Plastikote primer didn't show any signs of crazing when shooting the Cobra Colors paint. I used BIN sealer as a spot-sealer over the heavily-sanded styrene where I removed the mold lines, sanded/reshot the Plastikote primer. I honestly can't say that Plastikote itself blocks etching better than Tamiya, or if it was because the body itself got a lot more primer in general. The areas I sanded did ghost slightly w/ the reapplication of Plastikote over those areas before I used the sealer. There was no sanding on the underhood/chassis parts that I only shot w/Tamiya primer before shooting Cobra Colors paint. I always cut my Black Gold paint w/Gunze Mr. Thinner and have no problems there, but I spray Cobra Colors straight from the bottle as they flow well through my airbrush w/o thinning.

Therefore my results really don't say a whole lot other than a single coat of Tamiya primer wasn't enough to block Cobra Colors from mildly etching the plastic. I've had the same happen using MCW over a light coat of Tamiya primer on a Fujimi GT40. Had I not sanded those body areas on the Merc, or had I used Plastikote instead of Tamiya on the chassis/underhood areas, I don't know if I would have had the same crazing appear. Needless to say, it was easy enough to fix and avoid.