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 darrkespur wrote:

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

Bioptic wrote:
In the UK, the Army Painter price is almost exactly the same as the GW price, and the latter has never once screwed up a model. Army Painter has - it has left the finish being rough and powdery, in a way that shows through paint. Generic spray undercoat never seems to be as cheap as is apparently is in the US, either.

Some AP is great - the red primer-undercoat is absolutely fantastic. Bone is pretty good - not perfect for detail, but great for larger models like Carnifexes etc, considering the time it saves. The Daemonic Yellow is, as pointed out earlier, a disaster. Even as a second coat it's not great - I've just discovered Humbrol Trainer Yellow which is far superior for my Bad moonz.

I've tried Tamiya Primer, both kinds, and was underwhelmed. It's more expensive than GW and smells worse.

If I could find a better, cheaper primer than GW of course I'd use it. But the idea of some kind of poverty-contest of how little you spend on primer, saving 10p or so for a model that cost a minimum of £10, and which you'll spend 10s of hours painting, is bizarre to me.

I've had huge problems with the Army Painter Uniform Grey colour giving a rough finish, it messed up a whole bunch of my space wolves.

You need to be REALLY close to the models with AP sprays. If you do they work fine.

Mymearan wrote:

 darrkespur wrote:

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

Bioptic wrote:
In the UK, the Army Painter price is almost exactly the same as the GW price, and the latter has never once screwed up a model. Army Painter has - it has left the finish being rough and powdery, in a way that shows through paint. Generic spray undercoat never seems to be as cheap as is apparently is in the US, either.

Some AP is great - the red primer-undercoat is absolutely fantastic. Bone is pretty good - not perfect for detail, but great for larger models like Carnifexes etc, considering the time it saves. The Daemonic Yellow is, as pointed out earlier, a disaster. Even as a second coat it's not great - I've just discovered Humbrol Trainer Yellow which is far superior for my Bad moonz.

I've tried Tamiya Primer, both kinds, and was underwhelmed. It's more expensive than GW and smells worse.

If I could find a better, cheaper primer than GW of course I'd use it. But the idea of some kind of poverty-contest of how little you spend on primer, saving 10p or so for a model that cost a minimum of £10, and which you'll spend 10s of hours painting, is bizarre to me.

I've had huge problems with the Army Painter Uniform Grey colour giving a rough finish, it messed up a whole bunch of my space wolves.

You need to be REALLY close to the models with AP sprays. If you do they work fine.

Which, to be fair, is what it says on the can.

I haven't tried the yellow - but I am perfectly willing to believe that it has problems - yellow is a bastiche in general.

All the AP primers that I have actually tried worked just fine. (I have gone through appalling amounts of bone and necrotic flesh....)

The Auld Grump

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
For all the leftponders crowing about getting spraycans for a couple of bucks, over here Halfords' car primer sprays are £7.50 for 500ml (available in grey, white and red). That's 1.5p/ml, compared to 3.47p/ml for this new GW stuff (10.3oz ~300ml).

This.

Halfords all the way.

@TheAuldGrump - I painted most of my Dark Angels, a few space wolves and a couple of blood angels and ultramarines with their respective AP primers, and I agree, they work fine.

They are a bit thicker, though, and they leave a polished finish that causes most brands of hobby paint to slide off, on the first coat. On the other hand, fully cured, it feels bulletproof.

Not at all a bad solution made better with brush on color match and popular codex colors.

 Talys wrote:
I have taken photos before to demonstrate the thickness of Krylon compared to the thickness of P3 black. I primed a sprue with Krylon, AP tinted, P3 black, and black Gesso, and measured it with a micrometer; and primed a couple of models and photographed it. Krylon observably and measurably thicker than P3 black. Whether you can paint around that or not, or whether you care, is a whole other matter. I am NOT saying you can't paint up a Golden Demon with a Krylon job. Maybe it's happened, who knows. I'm just saying, if you measure it with a scientific instrument, it is thicker than P3 black.
To me, there is no reason to ever prime in any way other than airbrush unless (1) you're very casual at painting and aren't going to paint much anyways or (2) you're doing terrain tiles (3) you're on vacation and you don't have your airbrush with you But for yourself, use whatever you are happy with I am not trying to convince anyone to change.

I like that you performed a measureable approach to assessing coating thickness.

I would be a little daunted by taking into account all the variables.
- Distance from subject to nozzle.
- How long the paint burst is applied.

There would be a few unknowns like can pressure but I think the nozzle / orifice size / type would have the greatest impact.
Thickness could vary with some intended solids in it like a Gesso so the surface would have more "tooth" for the paint to strip from the brush.
That is why for the colored spray paints from Liquitex you can buy different nozzles for the cans as well.

I will agree that an airbrush will give the most control of applying the thinnest coat possible.
I lean on the primer cans because my bench is designed to deal with the acrylic solids and not for solvents so priming I do in the garage.

I use grey auto primer from my local cheap hardware store its £2 for a large can goes on great doesn't powder up and doesn't obscure any details . Job done

If i want a coloured primer / base coat i use valspa cans

@Talizvar -- You're right, of course. There are so many ways to "get it wrong" when priming. As I wrote way back, I don't think that any scientific analysis of the various factors is anything more than an academic study, because people will fall in love with different aspects of different primers.

At the end of the day, I try to prime according to the manufacturer's recommendations, and a little bit of experimentation. Mostly, though priming is a chore, not a joy, so what most people just want to know is after the model is primed --

1. How much detail is lost? No matter what you prime with, the recesses will unavoidably have a little more paint than the ridges.

2. How good is the painting surface? This is my biggest grump with some spray paints; the miniature afterwards is worse off to paint than just putting paint right onto the plastic.

3. How durable is the primer? Depending on the purpose of the model -- display case, game piece, or gaming terrain -- it may have to take more or less of a beating.

4. Any annoying deal-killers? Does it do weird stuff like fuzz up under average weather, or does the nozzle clog up between uses, or is the spray distance SO exact as to be unreasonable in tolerance?

Of course, at some point price is probably something of an issue, but I think that if a primer nails all 3 of the above, most people are wiling to pay a little more, just to have a leg before they to paint. On the other hand, some people don't even remove mold lines; for them, I doubt one primer versus another makes the least bit of difference.

Incidentally, this is why I like Acrylic Gesso (especially black) as a back-up option to airbrush. It shrinks amazingly so that detail remains largely intact, it's very gritty, but evenly so, and not at all rough, and once fully cured, is reasonably durable. Plus, you can brush it on, and it's super cheap.

 Talys wrote:
Incidentally, this is why I like Acrylic Gesso (especially black) as a back-up option to airbrush. It shrinks amazingly so that detail remains largely intact, it's very gritty, but evenly so, and not at all rough, and once fully cured, is reasonably durable. Plus, you can brush it on, and it's super cheap.

I saw some write-up of that a long time ago and it is a neat material.
I found it ideal for building / city terrain where it makes large brush dry brushing look awesome. The side benefit is it seals my hardboard real well.

Yes, I am careful with any primer and do test sprays first, the day I had "fuzzy" marines still gives me the shivers.

Mymearan wrote:
I was under the impression that most normal consumer goods are super cheap in the U.S. compared to Europe. So much space to put huge, low-rent supermarkets combined with a huge consumer base and really low sales tax.

Edit: pretty sure sales tax (VAT) in the UK is 20%? And over here it's 25%.

According to the world bank, the USA has a population density of 35 people per square km, while Sweden has but 24. I think your country (and Europe in general, apparently) has other issues driving the high prices of their consumer goods.

As for sprays, I love my airbrush, but 3$ bottles of Rustoleum pale grey auto primer have served me well for years, no problems. Hopefully I can use my airbrush more now for future projects.

We don't indeed! But population density doesn't really tell you much I thin, except that both countries have huge swathes of largely uninhabited land.

I stick to Tamiya spray can's they are smaller but for 17$ i can buy 3 of those

 Wehrkind wrote:

Mymearan wrote:
I was under the impression that most normal consumer goods are super cheap in the U.S. compared to Europe. So much space to put huge, low-rent supermarkets combined with a huge consumer base and really low sales tax.

Edit: pretty sure sales tax (VAT) in the UK is 20%? And over here it's 25%.

According to the world bank, the USA has a population density of 35 people per square km, while Sweden has but 24. I think your country (and Europe in general, apparently) has other issues driving the high prices of their consumer goods.

As for sprays, I love my airbrush, but 3$ bottles of Rustoleum pale grey auto primer have served me well for years, no problems. Hopefully I can use my airbrush more now for future projects.

It's a lot more complicated than that, though. The USA has a lot of stuff going for it: the US is one of the world's largest energy producers, it produces its most of its own food that are used to measure CPI, certain core CPI products are government subsidized (like dairy), and on and on. Of course, the big one: US Dollars are the world's reserve currency, so the US can mess with things to smooth out the effects of inflation to its population (for example, quantitative easing) -- no other country in the world has the ability to do this.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
For all the leftponders crowing about getting spraycans for a couple of bucks, over here Halfords' car primer sprays are £7.50 for 500ml (available in grey, white and red). That's 1.5p/ml, compared to 3.47p/ml for this new GW stuff (10.3oz ~300ml).

This.

Halfords all the way.

People bitch about GW prices and then go and basically praise the GW of the UK Auto industry, Halfords. Go to an ordinary auto shop and buy either Simoniz primer 500mil for about £4 a can or Autotek primer £4 or Hycote primer 400mil £2.38 (amazon) (Hycote also do a Plastic Primer which is a bit better in my opinion £4) all these primers come in White, Black, Gray and Red Oxide, there is also U-POL primer and Car Plan primer you can get in the bigger supermarkets. Halfords primer is made by an outside source it says so on the can and as there are only a couple of car paint factories in the UK its probably made by one of them I suspect its James Briggs who make Hycote and Autotek. I personally like Simoniz as its a satin finish, its a little thick so I only use it on larger models (on stadard troops I use Tamiya Fine Surface primer) when I tried Halfords it was chalky and matt and needed to be shaken for ages.

If you cannot get to an Auto shop Amazon and Ebay have the stuff.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=auto%20primer&sprefix=auto+pr%2Caps




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talys wrote:

 Wehrkind wrote:

Mymearan wrote:
I was under the impression that most normal consumer goods are super cheap in the U.S. compared to Europe. So much space to put huge, low-rent supermarkets combined with a huge consumer base and really low sales tax.

Edit: pretty sure sales tax (VAT) in the UK is 20%? And over here it's 25%.

According to the world bank, the USA has a population density of 35 people per square km, while Sweden has but 24. I think your country (and Europe in general, apparently) has other issues driving the high prices of their consumer goods.

As for sprays, I love my airbrush, but 3$ bottles of Rustoleum pale grey auto primer have served me well for years, no problems. Hopefully I can use my airbrush more now for future projects.

It's a lot more complicated than that, though. The USA has a lot of stuff going for it: the US is one of the world's largest energy producers, it produces its most of its own food that are used to measure CPI, certain core CPI products are government subsidized (like dairy), and on and on. Of course, the big one: US Dollars are the world's reserve currency, so the US can mess with things to smooth out the effects of inflation to its population (for example, quantitative easing) -- no other country in the world has the ability to do this.

The EU has just started a quantative easing initiative and here in the UK we've just lifted our version, also we have North Sea gas and oil, a gak load of coal estimated and 300 years worth (though thats a no-no these days) up until a few years ago we were self sufficient for energy. One of the largest energy companies in the world is British the clues in the name, BP . The US has higher income tax than the EU and no state medical provision and we have a fairer tax system, VAT, the more you buy the more tax you pay, so I'm not sure what you are saying there Talys. Goods are cheaper in the US but Americans pay else where in the system, I did read that the US government is looking into a country wide VAT system.

 Talys wrote:

 Wehrkind wrote:

Mymearan wrote:
I was under the impression that most normal consumer goods are super cheap in the U.S. compared to Europe. So much space to put huge, low-rent supermarkets combined with a huge consumer base and really low sales tax.

Edit: pretty sure sales tax (VAT) in the UK is 20%? And over here it's 25%.

According to the world bank, the USA has a population density of 35 people per square km, while Sweden has but 24. I think your country (and Europe in general, apparently) has other issues driving the high prices of their consumer goods.

As for sprays, I love my airbrush, but 3$ bottles of Rustoleum pale grey auto primer have served me well for years, no problems. Hopefully I can use my airbrush more now for future projects.

It's a lot more complicated than that, though. The USA has a lot of stuff going for it: the US is one of the world's largest energy producers, it produces its most of its own food that are used to measure CPI, certain core CPI products are government subsidized (like dairy), and on and on. Of course, the big one: US Dollars are the world's reserve currency, so the US can mess with things to smooth out the effects of inflation to its population (for example, quantitative easing) -- no other country in the world has the ability to do this.

I was referring to the bolded part. The US has no more space per person than most places in Europe. The cost of goods in the EU is not due to non-governmental factors for the most part, and certainly not due to the cost of land. (Or energy, which is ~9% of the economy in the US, and 8% for the rest of the world.)

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
I stick to Tamiya spray can's they are smaller but for 17$ i can buy 3 of those

I found the Tamiya ones in a hobbycraft today, they were £7.99 here, for a small can. So the price seems about right for the GW one over here.

I picked up this new undercoat the other day (my local store didn't have any Army Painter white and I got it at the old price).

It seems to work pretty well, good coverage, quite surprising spray ferocity. Looks pretty white but will hopefully be a bit darker than my Vallejo white so I can highlight it.

Nothing particularly exciting, but it seems fine. Would I pay more for it than Army Painter? Probably not.