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Hi Everyone,

As I prepare my next batch of minis and I am currently assessing my hobby closet materials and am, as always, returning to the question of which primer and how to prime.

I will hopefully update this thread with a few pictures this weekend, but am currently away from my workspace and wanted to get some thoughts down, nonetheless.

I have always used rattle cans. Perhaps one day when I have a small workspace in a garage/shed I will move onto an airbrush for priming/basecoating. However to be honest, I have my reservations...because I am getting older and as such more stubborn. My first-order gripe is the fact that I find the noise of the compressor quite irritating and it somewhat ruins the calming feeling of modelling and painting...especially with some nice music playing in the background, which I have found greatly helps steady my hand!

Back to the rattling cans.... *shake shake shake shake shake shake*

In the Toronto area we do have issues with climate vastly impacting the outcome of an attempt to prime minis. For this reason I have had every bad and good experience with priming possible. Krylon, Army Painter and GW have all performed good & bad for me (user error is of course always involved!). Consistently the largest issues I have with the above primers is the appearance of a bit too much grain/texture on the model.

However, what has never, ever let me down is Tamiya Fine Surface Primer....Freezing cold, muggy and humid, pouring rain...Any and all of Canada's vast range of weather conditions. Heading out into the garage and priming with Tamiya consistently yields the smoothest finish yet. Unfortunately, the cans are a bit pricey.

I am no expert on aerosol materials, but I assume this is because Tamiya is a lacquer, which coats quite differently in comparison to the other mentioned rattle cans.

Another quirk with Tamiya is that it can often appear a bit strange at first on the model... It sometimes appears as though its collecting oddly in certain recesses which can induce panic, but my experience is that it always dries just fine.

As a lacquer, it is also VERY easy to get it on too thick and I assume would be much more difficult to strip off a plastic mini than the above mentioned. This is an important consideration as I enjoy the deconstruction and renewal of minis as much as I enjoy having a "finished product." Especially when I can find an old mini somewhere and rescue it from obscurity and get it back onto the battlefield!

Anyone else developed a very idiosyncratic relationship with priming? It is one of those stages in hobby modelling where there are so many variables at play that it is difficult to have a one size fits all regimented process to ensure a good outcome.

Hopefully later I will post some different minis, all primed white, with the various brands as demonstration of the wild discrepancy in texture of coat that environmental conditions, priming technique, and content of the primer itself produce in the finished product.

I use grey rattlecan hardware shop primer. never had any issues. but then the uk weather is not usually extreme enough to affect it in any way. if its hot, I spray closer, if its cold, further away. I've never experienced any of the problems folks complain about personally.

I used to hate priming. I had so many issues with spray primer drying fuzzy, drying chalky, not covering well enough, covering too thickly, missing spots on complex models and on and on. Spray cans just aren't really precise tools. I switched to airbrush primer a few years ago and have never, ever looked back.

I currently use Badger Stynylrez, either grey or white. It dries within seconds to minutes depending on how quickly it's applied, but still dries as hard as spray primer. With a double-action airbrush I can get it much closer to the model than a spray can, and control the release of paint so that I can get every crevice without saturating the model. Humidity and temperature are completely irrelevant; it never goes fuzzy or grainy.

In particular, I used to really hate priming white. It tended to not cover well enough to produce a solid white, or filled in detail when applied heavily enough. I've switched to dusting on two quick layers of Stynylrez white, then two more light layers of VMA White, and it produces a solid titanium white without the headache. Each layer dries quickly enough that when priming a batch of minis, by the time the last one is done, the first is ready for the next layer.

Yeah, there's an up-front investment cost, the compressor makes noise (nowadays I usually switch on my pancake compressor and let it run for a few minutes- it's real loud, but then I can airbrush for ~20 mins before it has to kick back on again), and there is some maintenance involved, but IMO it is completely worth it.

 catbarf wrote:
I used to hate priming. I had so many issues with spray primer drying fuzzy, drying chalky, not covering well enough, covering too thickly, missing spots on complex models and on and on. Spray cans just aren't really precise tools. I switched to airbrush primer a few years ago and have never, ever looked back.

I currently use Badger Stynylrez, either grey or white. It dries within seconds to minutes depending on how quickly it's applied, but still dries as hard as spray primer. With a double-action airbrush I can get it much closer to the model than a spray can, and control the release of paint so that I can get every crevice without saturating the model. Humidity and temperature are completely irrelevant; it never goes fuzzy or grainy.

In particular, I used to really hate priming white. It tended to not cover well enough to produce a solid white, or filled in detail when applied heavily enough. I've switched to dusting on two quick layers of Stynylrez white, then two more light layers of VMA White, and it produces a solid titanium white without the headache. Each layer dries quickly enough that when priming a batch of minis, by the time the last one is done, the first is ready for the next layer.

Yeah, there's an up-front investment cost, the compressor makes noise (nowadays I usually switch on my pancake compressor and let it run for a few minutes- it's real loud, but then I can airbrush for ~20 mins before it has to kick back on again), and there is some maintenance involved, but IMO it is completely worth it.

Thanks for the reply!

Sometimes it is useful to get thoughts out on "paper" (virtual), as I was writing the post I did conclude that a small garage workspace with an airbrush would solve all of these headaches associated with priming and basecoating. I could then do the fine detail work back inside in my hobby-space-as-zen-garden and would no longer have the anxiety of "is this primer going to come out of the can all weird or what?"

I indeed discussed priming white as I too have found white to be the most difficult of colours to prime with! All black primers have always been much, much easier to get a silky smooth finish with.

I have not heard of the Badger product, so I will definitely check it out.....appreciate your insight, have checked out your 'nids before and as I am currently rebuilding an old nid army from time past, your work is excellent!!

Before I get the airbrush running I have to fix the garage up and so on and so on. Sigh, the work never ends, and getting to finally paint some models gets further down the chain!