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How do you manage with priming and stuff during the winter? It's too cold to prime outside, you can't do it indoors... bursh on primer? Or do I just prime everything now and never need to do it again? I need to come up with a solution, because it'll get real cold at my place in about a month, and it won't go away until April...

Have you got any kind of outhouse or boiler room you can use?

Otherwise you could use brush-on primer, I actually think you get much better results with that than aerosol anyway - unless you are having to varnish hundreds of minis of course.

I know what used to work for me was, after coming home from work, the residual heat from my car's engine would warm the garage up after awhile, and then I would spray in there.

I usually do some big priming batches in September and October to see me through the winter. If anything takes my fancy during the mean time it's brush on primer time. I do prefer to spray, though.

I build and stash things away like an OCD squirrel before winter hits. I used to use brush on primer, but now I just make sure I have a backlog of projects long enough to carry me into spring.

Of course, at my projected rate of work, I have enough to last me until sometime in 2017, but it’s nice to have options.

Prime the things in a box, for example, Buy a flyttkartong (Moving karton?) place it on a table, And spray into it, If you dont like the smell/Fumes open a window real quick (Dont leave it open in the winter thou but a short air out is fine)

Use the garage?

Nah, I don't want to risk getting spray paint everywhere...

If you warm up the cans in a bucket of warm water then take them outside and spray them then bring them back inside and put them in a spare room with the door closed (to stop fumes getting through the rest of the house) you can spray in pretty cold weather....

...but I notice your flag says Sweden, I have no idea how cold it gets there, I imagine somewhere between "very" and "my testicles just fell off". The coldest place I've ever lived was eastern Pennsylvania, and I could get away with it there.

 Matthew wrote:
Nah, I don't want to risk getting spray paint everywhere...

Use a box. Set the box on its side, line the mini's up, and spray. Box will catch all the overspray.

 Matthew wrote:
Nah, I don't want to risk getting spray paint everywhere...

Just use duct tape to seal of all the corners etc and nothing will go outside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXInd6iTt3s For inspiration!


Btw where in Sweden do you live?

Stockholm, half an hour away from GW

 Peter Wiggin wrote:

 Matthew wrote:
Nah, I don't want to risk getting spray paint everywhere...

Use a box. Set the box on its side, line the mini's up, and spray. Box will catch all the overspray.

I wouldn't say it catches "all" the overspray. If you use an airbrush, a box can catch most of the overspray (but your room will still be full of fumes), but spray cans create a cloud of spray that won't easily be contained by a box.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Peter Wiggin wrote:

 Matthew wrote:
Nah, I don't want to risk getting spray paint everywhere...

Use a box. Set the box on its side, line the mini's up, and spray. Box will catch all the overspray.

I wouldn't say it catches "all" the overspray. If you use an airbrush, a box can catch most of the overspray (but your room will still be full of fumes), but spray cans create a cloud of spray that won't easily be contained by a box.

Get a bigger box and put a fan in the window?

I don't use an airbrush, but it works just fine for spraycans.

I build up a stash of stuff for painting over the year, I actually just finished spraying enough to keep me going yesterday so I have a nice mix of projects.

If I'm desperate I do have some brush on Vallejo black polyurethane primer but I only use it on plastics.

 Matthew wrote:
Stockholm, half an hour away from GW

Stockholm you say! To bad its to far away from me otherwise i could have airbrushed primer for you!

Gesso works wonderfully. Just bash it on with a brush and let it dry overnight =D
Cheap enough from Kell&co ^^

Don't spraypaint indoors unless you like the smell of paint fumes. I tried it once, and only once, and I regretted it. The only good part is that the box did contain the overspray nicely, so nothing got paint on it that shouldn't have, but my whole apartment smelled like paint for three days at least. This year I think I'm going to take a page from some other guys in this thread and prime as much stuff as possible before winter hits. I live in central Missouri, so I've probably got another month or so before it gets really cold.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
If you warm up the cans in a bucket of warm water then take them outside and spray them then bring them back inside and put them in a spare room with the door closed (to stop fumes getting through the rest of the house) you can spray in pretty cold weather....

...but I notice your flag says Sweden, I have no idea how cold it gets there, I imagine somewhere between "very" and "my testicles just fell off". The coldest place I've ever lived was eastern Pennsylvania, and I could get away with it there.

I do what AllSeeingSking did and it works great. I've primed in temperature in the range of -15 to -20C that way with good result. Do it in small batch and keep the miniature in your restroom with the exhaust fan "on" and the door closed and it shouldn't smell anywhere else in the house.

If you have a garage and cleanliness is your only concern, use a cheap drop cloth. Plastic sheeting, split open garbage bags, or a broad layer of old newspaper will keep anything the box doesn't catch from settling where you don't want it to.

As far as temperature is concerned, I doubt I've sprayed in Scandinavian levels of cold, but I've sprayed in sub-freezing temperatures without any ill effect. While ambient temperature has some effect on the process, the temperature of the paint/varnish in the can is far more important.

 oadie wrote:
If you have a garage and cleanliness is your only concern, use a cheap drop cloth. Plastic sheeting, split open garbage bags, or a broad layer of old newspaper will keep anything the box doesn't catch from settling where you don't want it to.

As far as temperature is concerned, I doubt I've sprayed in Scandinavian levels of cold, but I've sprayed in sub-freezing temperatures without any ill effect. While ambient temperature has some effect on the process, the temperature of the paint/varnish in the can is far more important.

Does it take a lot longer for the primer to dry? Ive sprayed in winter and thats the effect I get

And I am sadly at the same location as Cozzan so I can't help you prime either

Airbrush all the way