Dave G.

That's a great cream for Model A wheels, if building stock. Sticky plungers were a terrible problem with Rustoleum and Lawson Products ( I believe they were the same product) white and semigloss black, back about 15 years ago, it would empty an entire new can. Fortunately this was at work where there were bins to toss the cans into while they did their thing. But even with brisk shaking, the first thing out of the nozzle was a kind of resin, then you knew you had a sticker.

Mr Thinner and the retarder are everywhere. I'm thinking I could make my own MLT that way.

Has anyone bought Mr Leveling Thinner recently ? If so and in the US, where from ? I'm getting low and it seems everywhere online its out of stock. Even the Mr site itself wasn't showing it. I see it at Ebay but don't really trust ebay/.

I don't use enamel primers for anything. And Rustoleum primer is enamel. I bought exactly one can with stipulation if it wasn't lacquer, as the store employee said it was, I could return it. I shot one little spritz of paint and returned it. I know the smell of enamel primer from years ago, Got my money back. I'll use enamel color coats but not primer.

Welcome ! I have the Minicraft Model A roadster. You could say in progress, but it hasn't progressed in two years. The hinges are on the doors ( that's your tricky bit, then they aren't scale anyway). My chassis is also assembled. And paint is complete. Been sitting in the box since paint completion. I simply haven't gotten back to it. Mine has warped fender assembly, be sure to check yours. The chassis is a ladder glue up, be sure the curved rails end up square at each end, basically the rails need to come out each rail equal length to one another. A template for the chassis would be a nice inclusion to the kit but if I did it, you can too ! Also, I'd like to have a sedan kit along the way. Good luck with your build !!

The next time your wife is ready to toss out a bottle of OPI or ESSIE nail polish, grab the brush from it. These brushes brush smooth and have a great flare to them if pressed on a bit. The Revlon brushes are quite good too. Sally Hanson brushes not so much, at least not for broader areas, though probably good for small parts. If nothing else, these will give a feel for how a brush should behave with solvent paints.

Despite my lengthy post further up the list, I never addressed the actual topic at hand, grey primer and the word necessary. To that the answer is no to how the question is presented. You don't have to use grey primer or any other primer at all. In fact you don't have to do anything, hobby paint, no. Auto paint, no, spray, no. You can dip the thing in house paint if you like, or build it no paint at all, or just collect kits and never build them. For that matter, walk away. it's your model, your hobby, your way. And the bottom line is many folks just do as they please and are happy doing it that way. And it matters 0 to them if it's practical or not. Some folks for that matter, enjoy living in the infancy of the hobby, they like it right there. Maybe it's nostalgia or whatever that attracts them.

I prime the whole kit minus the body first thing, only Mr Surfacer or Stynylrez. The body is a treatment in itself, and will get either Mr Primer Surfacer, Mr Surfacer or Stynylrez primer, depending what paint the body will be shot in. Painting on the sprue you need to at least scrape any flash off the parts. Then touch up later nipped sections. This all started for me decades ago just to get the plastic glow off the parts. Then grew from their.

Beyond everything that was mentioned above, I've done scratch tests with waterborne acrylics, alcohol based acrylics, lacquer and enamel paints. The tests, taken over a couple of months time, were done with the various paints airbrushed directly to plastic and then sprayed over two light coats of primered surface. Two different primers were used, Mr Primer Surfacer ( a lacquer), and Stynylrez poly acrylic. In all cases the paint sprayed directly to plastic scratched easier in the samples with no primer. In the case of Testors enamel, was the surprise product, it scratched only slightly harder than alcohol acrylics. I was very taken back by that fact. Also the fact that waterborne acrylic shot on primer did amazing well, especially on the Stynylrez. Not surprising in one way, lacquer did pretty well upon initial scratch testing on bare plastic, but once breaking the surface the scratch continued pretty easily. Waterborne on bare plastic ( craft paints in particular, were horrible). But surprisingly resilient when put on Stynylrez primer. Quite good really, better than Testors enamel sprayed direct to smooth unprepped plastic. I conducted another test as well. This was kit plastic vs various household plastics shot with a coat Mr Surfacer. Mr surfacer far out tested scratch testing to AMT kit plastic, than it did any household plastic, including my infamous prescription bottles. It really did not do well on any plastic but the kit plastic, confirming to me that product is truly model based and worth owning for only that purpose. But well worth owning for it. These tests are far from fully comprehensive, I'm not claiming that. There are many combos not tested, and while I did test hot lacquer as well, I didn't include that because I would never spray that directly to plastic. The tests were for my own satisfaction, to help understand what paints work best in what combo. But thought I'd share it here. No pressure measuring tools were used and scratch tools were simple, my untrimmed thumb nail ( yes some scratched that easy) or a pocket screw driver, to which with the screw driver any of them could be scratched, just a matter of how easy or even if entire areas scraped off in the process... And if you've read this far, God bless you, you must be as crazy as I am !

Reminds me of a 58 Chevy I owned in metallic blue. It's a beautiful finish, Steve. It will be nice to see with the bright work added.

I find that taklon synthetic brushes work well on models for both acrylics ( water borne or alcohol based). As well as for enamels. And I agree with the poster above, that paint prep and application outweigh brush selection, assuming you don't have a totally bogus brush for the job of course.

Locally the NAPA auto parts stores will mix 2oz bottles of touch up paints. Acrylic enamel I believe, as they no longer sell lacquer. We got a bottle for my wife's Ford Escape a couple of years ago. As I recall it was $10.00 then. Edit: In thinking about this, I primed a prescription bottle, mixed up a little of that paint and airbrushed it. It dried semigloss or almost semi matt really ( I don't recall what thinner I used but knowing me, probably lacquer thinner). I polished that up to a really nice finish. It's a pretty kind of metallic aqua, the flakes are very fine. I wouldn't hesitate to use that kind of paint on a 60's Ford or Chrysler model in the right match. It sprayed very well, nice and smooth. I just polished with finishing polish. No heavy cut polish used.

That is beautiful ! And with the quintessential looking lacquer finish.

Something took place between the primer and color coat. That's unfortunate since if I recall, they are the same brand. This isn't speaking very well of Splash formulation. It's hard to believe within their own system, things would get that screwed up. Somehow this looks familiar to me, but I don't recall where from ( I shot 1/1 for 35 years, various paints and also 60 years models. So lots of paint real-estate in that time). But I'm thinking it was thinner related in some way. Or maybe surface moisture content. Did you wet sand the primer ?

I'm curious if that is primer showing where the maroon pulled back or plastic ? Hard to tell on screen.