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Hey everyone,
I am just about to go pick up a scout squad with snipers for my Space Marine army and I had a question about priming.
I wanted to see if anyone has ever tried to prime models while still on the sprue?

I know I would have to file down the mold lines and such but the only problem I see if where you clip the bits out from.
After you prime the models it would leave a big edge of unprimed area but couldn't this be fixed easily with a small file and a quick coat of black or white or whatever colour I choose to prime with?

Meh, I did that with a whole CSM battleforce, and wasted a can of spray.. You're better off doing it squad by squad, mainly because painting on white leaves a different effect to spraying it on, so unless you wanna go over those mold lines and the places you've cut from again with the spray can, then just do it with squads :3

I've only ever primed on the sprue once. The biggest issue I've come into is getting paint into/onto the gluing surfaces, which can be a right pain when you get to assembly.

Take your time and do it right... Trim the parts off and clean up all the mold lines first before even thinking about putting any paint on it. You will have much nicer looking models in the long run.

The only thing I even consider doing on sprue was the old IG tank tread sprue.

For scouts, I would probably cut them off, clean up the mouldlines, mount the individual pieces and then prime.

 HisDivineShadow wrote:
The only thing I even consider doing on sprue was the old IG tank tread sprue.

Same here. Otherwise my crippling OCD compels me to always clip and trim flash off all parts, never priming on sprue. I primed some parts (aside from said treads) and it caused me more grief in the long run fixing everything.

As people have said above. it causes more hassle than it solves.

Now I'm airbrushing most of my Stuff. I clip everything off. and drill a tiny 1.2mm hole on the places that get glued. i then mount the bits onto cocktail stick. After trimming and cleaning, I poke these into a large piece of Polystyrene, like you get in an electrical item box. And i use that to hold the items wile i am under coating and base coating.

If you prime and paint stuff on the Sprue. you then have to repaint and clean up areas that where holding that piece.

The only time I ever did this was when I had some small bits for a commission. I've never done it with anything else.

Cut/clip the parts off the sprue, clean them up and test fit them before you start doing anything with them. Your miniatures will look better for it, and there should be fewer issues when it comes time to glue them all together.

A friend of mine paints all of his Dark Eldar while they're on the sprue.

The result of this is that his models are insanely fragile, because gluing paint to paint when you assemble is a pathetically weak bond. Between having to clean paint off surfaces to be glued and having to clean and tidy up mould lines and the areas where it was actually attached to the sprue, it's not really worth the effort. You're switching some necessary work at the start of a project into necessary work at the end of a project, and making even more work during the assembly stage.

I'm quite anal about mold lines as well. I often find myself cleaning them from impossible to see areas.

Only to realize it, and continue anyway.

I agree about the clipped areas and how it'll look like junk if I don't sand them and prime them at the same time now that I think of it.

I normally take everything off the sprue and sand down mold lines and everything but I find I miss areas on the model when I use the spray primer.

Is there some better way to set the bits up to be primed?

Certain components can be done like this, where one of the connections to the sprue is on a face that will be glued. Often this is legs attached by feet, heads by necks etc. I would hope that a sprue designer would endeavor to place these points as strategically as they can without compromising the mold quality.
I would still cut away and clean any connections that should be painted, and the mold lines before spraying though.

Can be handy to clip away the surrounding sprue, leaving a section to hold with most of the components free to work around and clean up, You could even build most of the model attached to the legs like this I suppose... much in the way many of use would pin to a cork by the feet I guess.

chiefbigredman wrote:
I normally take everything off the sprue and sand down mold lines and everything but I find I miss areas on the model when I use the spray primer. Is there some better way to set the bits up to be primed?

I always remove parts from the sprue before priming for the all the reasons previously stated, but "off the sprue" doesn't have to mean "fully assembled." Every piece will have to connect to the rest of the model, somehow, meaning there is an as-of-yet unjoined surface you don't want painted. That's a prime candidate for your handle or temporary attachment point. Hidden undersides of feet or bases can be stuck to corks or empty bottles with poster tack. Guns and pipes can have a toothpick shoved down the (drilled, obviously) barrel. Limbs can be drilled for pins (glued in for use during assembly , or simply jammed in there temporarily for painting), or held onto corks or dowel lengths with poster tack on the mating surface (which simultaneously acts as a mask). Any of those methods gives plenty of access to the part, allowing you to spray from all the necessary angles for perfect coverage. Some parts you can simply spread out flat on some scrap paper or cardboard to spray, then flip and repeat once dry. What I would consider the ideal method varies from part to part, but there's always a way. Usually more than one, actually.