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so I got some Vallejo Polyurethane Primer for airbrushing. I ordered what I thought was grey, figuring it would match my VMA Grey Primer. What I have is damn near white primer but the bottle says Grey. Is the grey primer just the whitest shade of grey they could find or did I get a mislabled bottle?

Yeah, I was bummed about that too - the "grey" primer is more white than anything else - too light for my taste, but I still got 2/3 thirds of my bottle left :-).

Cheers,


IK-Painter

Mine is just a medium grey

This is how stark a difference there is(skippy let me know if your grey is this light).

On the left we have the PU "Grey" Primer, on the right we have Vallejo Model Air Grey Primer. Worlds of difference.

That's the exact same thing I discovered. I was also surprised compared to the gma grey primer I was already using. I ended up filling a 1oz dropper bottle with the pu grey about 2/3 and adding black primer until I got close to the vma grey. The end result was a much closer match. I feel bad though hat I bought this and white prImer, kind of a waste.

Adding in the black PU primer sounds like an ace idea to get the shade I want in the volume I need(a 17ml bottle isn't enough bang for my buck).

Mine is that same very light grey as well.

But what I dont quite understand is, why it matters.

Its a primer, not a base coat, or have I missed something?

Well for me I am used to the VMA dark grey color for my primer. This gives a very neutral base for the colors going over it. A white or super light grey(like this new one I have) will give me much brighter colors over it, which in some cases can be good(Bretonnians) but in my current case(Beastmen) it is a negative.

The entire reason for me getting the PU primers is volume per dollar. I was trying to stretch out a buck but my specific needs are greater than my tightwad ways.

I'll end up using the PU grey for anything that needs to be white, perhaps my future Empire or something.

how does the model air grey work out?? I have only used tamiya's grey primer for my stuff, I wouldnt mind a airbrush primer instead of the cans..

I absolutely adore the stuff. The only real qualm with it is that it's more or less the same color as GW plastic, which makes it a little hard to tell what is already primed.

might give it a shot and see how i like it.. Seeing i am having problems find the Grey PU Primer from Vallejo..

Here you go the warstore has all the VA primers not just grey and in the 200ml bottles as well as the 60ml.

http://www.thewarstore.com/VallejoAuxiliaryProducts.html

Maybe the panzer grey would be closer to the color you are looking for.

The confusion here is that you think the paint called Gray Primer is actually a primer. It's not, its a name for the paint but not a descriptor. It's silly but that Gray Primer Vallejo Air is not the same thing as the actual primer produced by Vallejo.

Aerethan wrote:I absolutely adore the stuff. The only real qualm with it is that it's more or less the same color as GW plastic, which makes it a little hard to tell what is already primed.

I've got the same problem. The PU Grey primer is almost the exact shade of the new Privateer Press plastic-resin kits - makes spotting where you already primed very difficult.

Bavius wrote:The confusion here is that you think the paint called Gray Primer is actually a primer. It's not, its a name for the paint but not a descriptor. It's silly but that Gray Primer Vallejo Air is not the same thing as the actual primer produced by Vallejo.

and you are basing that assumption off what information?

Yeah I notice this when first buying it and went with a bottle of black and one of white, what hue I want is at my discretion.

That said there is no reason to believe that simply adding a drop of black paint to the grey primer would do any harm.

Bavius wrote:The confusion here is that you think the paint called Gray Primer is actually a primer. It's not, its a name for the paint but not a descriptor. It's silly but that Gray Primer Vallejo Air is not the same thing as the actual primer produced by Vallejo.

Because of all the different names for a shade of grey they could come up with the best they could do is "gray primer" and they never thought that it might confuse people ?

You are right that The vma grey primer is not the same formula as the VPU primers, but it is in fact a prImer, not just a poorly named shade of grey.

If you have evidence to the contrary I'm sure we'd all be happy to see/hear it.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

heavybolter wrote:

Bavius wrote:The confusion here is that you think the paint called Gray Primer is actually a primer. It's not, its a name for the paint but not a descriptor. It's silly but that Gray Primer Vallejo Air is not the same thing as the actual primer produced by Vallejo.

Because of all the different names for a shade of grey they could come up with the best they could do is "gray primer" and they never thought that it might confuse people ?

You are right that The vma grey primer is not the same formula as the VPU primers, but it is in fact a prImer, not just a poorly named shade of grey.

If you have evidence to the contrary I'm sure we'd all be happy to see/hear it.

I stand corrected. A google search came back with the following post on Heresy Online. Bavius is right, I was very surprised by this, Sorry Bavius . Thanks for setting us straight.

http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/archive/index.php?t-70408.html


09-05-10, 09:08 PM
I recently got an airbrush and I wondered if there was a way I could use it to prime models. I've searched around on forums and google and in most of the results I found it seems like people don't know the difference between basecoats and priming.


The Vallejo Model Air range has a paint color called "Gray Primer". I sent an email to Vallejo and got this reply:

Hi Keith,
It's not a real primer,just a color that matchs the grey color used in many
primers.
We developed a new acrlic poliurethane primer,
http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/gb/primers-gb.html
Regards
Alex

----- Original Message -----
From: ---------------------
To: <vallejo@acrylicosvallejo.com>
Sent: Friday, September 03, 2010 9:49 AM
Subject: Model Air Gray Primer


>I wondered if the Gray Primer from the Model Air line of paints is an
>actual primer, or if that is just the name of a paint made to match the
>color of primer used on, for example, military vehicles for modeling
>purposes.
> In other words, is Vallejo Model Air Gray Primer formulated differently in
> some way than the other colors in the series to stick to the bare surface
> of a miniature or model better?



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Well I found this on the Vallejo Faqs page of there website. Looks like it really isn't a primer at all. Again, Bavius is right on about this:

page 8 of the online faq:

http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/pdf_web/CC001-rev02.pdf

7.4. is your Model Air color 71.097 the same product as
the new primers?
No, this is simply a grey color, created years ago in the Model Air Line. We are changing the name to Basecoat Grey
(primer grey) precisely in order to avoid misunderstanding

Well I guess that answers that.

Idea: would adding some acrylic black ink to the PU primer work to shade it down or should I just stick to adding paint?

I wish I saw this about five days ago before I ordered a 60mL bottle of it. I was looking for a really neutral tone, but white is not neutral in my opinion. Well.... I guess I am sticking with it and am going to add some black to my base coat. Going to end up with 3 bottles of custom mix paint now. Argh. Not ideal. Thanks for the info.

From the looks of things, the Panzer Grey is a lot closer to a true neutral grey. Though I think it's still a bit dark.

Here's an example of Panzer Grey for you.

The Panzer Grey looks kind of like VGC Heavy Grey from the picture. Has a green tinge. Have we come to a consensus as to whether or not we can add color to this to change the tint? Or are we stuck with it lol?

I'll give a go of adding some VMA black to it tomorrow to prime up the last minotaurs for my commission and I'll post results.

Aren't you worried, that adding VMA Black will impact negatively on the adhesive qualities of the primer? Or won't the few drops you'll need mattter?

My thoughts exactly IK. Just want to be sure. I'm tempted to just order some Black as well. Is it good enough to justify buying a 600mL bottle of? I'm going to be airbrushing it btw (hopefully un-thinned).

I have a bottle of the Black PU Primer, and it's fantastic in my opinion. Really nice coverage, touches up fantastically (I may have accidentally scratched it while it was still curing) and once it cures is pretty robust, within reason.



Here's a pic of my test subject, an old plastic Cold One.

EDIT: Oh, and it's been formulated for airbrushing - but an important note that Vallejo have said is do not thin, apparently that ruins its shrink-wrap drying properties and you won't get the same kind of detail on the finished product.

As LC says, its pretty good stuff.

I'm willing to bet that a few drops of black paint to darken the grey primer will do no harm to the overall finish since the solution will still be very much the original.

I do on occasion use some Vallejo AB acrylic thinners (say 4-5 drops in 10ml) in my Black PU Primer to get a really thin undercoat for FoW models. I have noticed no change in the finished properties of the primer.

C'mon Aerethan, airbrushing is all about experimentation - get mixing!

Living Still wrote:My thoughts exactly IK. Just want to be sure. I'm tempted to just order some Black as well. Is it good enough to justify buying a 600mL bottle of? I'm going to be airbrushing it btw (hopefully un-thinned).

sure it's worth it just to have the black on hand when you need it. That way there's no question about altering properties. I have added color to the PU primer ( even craft paint ) and it hasn't altered the adhesion for me. I do think the black primer seems to be a bit more durable than the grey for some reason though, not sure why. The 600ml bottle will last you a long, long time and you should be able to mix up a few different shades of grey for any of your applications.

Experiment complete!

Here are the results(I hope the photos convey the difference in shade).

First up is the pure Grey Primer, which as you can see is near white.



Next up I added about 15 drops of VMA Black to the 60ml bottle of primer to shade it down a bit.



And lastly I then took the shaded down primer, and added about 4 drops of VMA black to about 12-15 drops of primer.




And here's a group photo(from right to left oddly) of all 3 side by side.




I'm quite happy with the last result as it is quite close to what I've been using.

that's a much better looking shade. You can see the progression in the last pic.

Even the second shade(which the pics don't really show well) is a huge improvement as it is a nice light grey and not white.