primer

[hellonwheelz3]

ok i've noticed a lot of guys using grey primer for a base coat? is there a benefit to using flat grey instead of the white or many other primer colors? thanks guys (and any ladies) for all the help ya'll have been giving this newbie!

[Guest Davkin]

Part of it is just that gray is the most common, but it's probably the most common because it's a very nuetral color, it's unlikely to effect the color of the basecoat. There are instances where you want to use a specific color of primer however. For example, the Tamiya laquer sprays. Some of their colors are not very opaque, the reds and yellows for example and it can be very difficult to fully cover gray primer. In those cases I use white primer, it's covered very easily and makes the colors pop. Alternatively, if you want a darker shade of the color you spraying you might try using black primer, but the paint has to be reasonably opaque for that to work. I know, that sounds contradictory, but a paint can be pretty opaque and still be affected by the color of the primer. This is especially true of metallics.

David

[Art Anderson]

I've always looked at primers this way: First, they make great "guide coats" when doing bodywork, and second, with automotive lacquers, primer serves me as a "shock proofing" coating, in that the solvents in primer (same as in the color coat), while penetrating and swelling the styrene surface (which if unchecked, causes crazing) evaporate very quickly due to the porous, flat finish nature of primer. This makes the primer a very good interface, as subsequent color coats go down on it, the solvents penetrate primarily the primer, and not the styrene substrate (best observed if one uses an airbrush, rather than the "fire hose spray" of a rattle can).

That said, when I do body work on a model, and feel the need to use primer as a guide coat, for finding low spots and imperfections, I prefer to airbrush it ONLY on the areas where there is bodywork, NOT the entire body shell (Hey, I paid good money for all that surface detail, and if I added some myself, I worked hard to get it there, so why obliterate it with too much primer buildup?).

My rule of thumb has always been, when using automotive lacquers, to use the color of primer that the actual manufacturer did, as finish colors were formulated to come out, in mass production, based partly on the color of primer they used at the time. With hobby paints, however, some pigments used in 1:1 cannot be used in paints for models, due to consumer safety laws, so go with whatever primer that works with the hobby paint in question. It's good to remember that while whites, and darker colors cover very well, but yellows and oranges lack the opaqueness, so the primer used can affect the final outcomes of these colors.

Art

[Brizio]

For me it depend, which color I'll paint the model. If the final color is yellow or a lighter color, then I use a white primer...

[kustomkat1]

I agree, light colors, white, yellow, orange and some beiges, white primer. I sometimes tint the primer with the paint that I'm going to paint the car in, save excessive coats (works great on PLUM CRAZY) which takes forever to build up the right color.

[E St. Kruiser50]

  hellonwheelz3 said:

ok i've noticed a lot of guys using grey primer for a base coat? is there a benefit to using flat grey instead of the white or many other primer colors? thanks guys (and any ladies) for all the help ya'll have been giving this newbie!

Hi "Newbie"

For me, gray colored primer is a good color to see any imperfections in the styrene (Sink marks) or imperfections in my body work - for me the color gray is just "eyeball friendly" .

Usually I don't spray color over gray primer except for silver or a color I want to tone down, like a tan I use for interiors. Gray tends to soften colors, some more than others.

Remember, all paints are transparent. Some just have more pigment in them than others, and use better products, that's why they cover better.

A good test is to spray 3 or 4 different colors of primer side by side. Wait 'till the next day for drying, and spray your base color over the sample to see the differences. This'll help you choose and you'll see striking variations.

I normall spray color over white primer, that I have sprayed over the gray.

White primer base makes your colors "POP", and almost look like they are "Glowing" - pretty KOOL.

Some people here are pretty fussy over the number of coats of primer and paint - I never give it much thought, as prep and finish pretty much takes care of all that.

My more aggressive multi-color paint jobs usually average 30 - 40 coats of primer and paint (10 to 15 of primer), but doesn't seem to hurt anything much for me, but it does depend on what you're trying to accomplish.

Hope my 2cents worth helps - dave

Edited June 18, 2009 by Treehugger Dave

[Corvette.Jeff]

Its all great advice but the easiest way to rememmber it is this, if your using a dark color you can use any primer, if its a light color you want use either a nuetral color(gray) or white,if your doing a fade paintjob your gonna want to go with white, if you decide to lay down some bondo even if you already have primer on the rest of the body you need to put it on the bondo(itll bleed through trust me), i mostly use the light gray primer as it provides an excellent base for the base coat

[nascarfan]

I just used some older dupli color primer and it cracked............. Now I get to fill in each crack!!!

[Lownslow]

makes it easier on the eyes with bodywork. i use white paint as a base when doing light colors like yellow