Perfect primer

Primer can serve many functions during the process of building your model. It can serve as a base color over the plastic to brighten shades that would otherwise be dulled or tinted by the underlying plastic. It can serve as a tooth for paints to grab on to around sharp edges. It may also serve as a check point during heavy filling to see how far you have left to go on that seam, or as a sealer to protect plastic against paints that may be too harsh and craze it. With so many different brands, colors, and types of primer on store shelves these days, just how do you pick the right one for your job?

To prime, or not to prime...that is the question

Personally I prime EVERYTHING no matter how small. I learned my lessons the hard way several times when paint either reacted badly with my plastic or pulled away from the edges and details because it had nothing to grab on to. I also was the victim of trying to paint yellow over black plastic (many years ago). Also when it comes to part preperation, sanding leaves scratches that may show through the paint, however primer is just thick enough to hide these supposing you didn't use anything coarser than 400 grit to start (there will be an article upcoming on part preperation next month).

Which primer should I use?

My personal stash consists of two basic types of primer:

1. General Purpose

2. Finishing

General purpose is exactly as it sounds. This is the primer I use for pretty much every part except the body or any other part I need to be exceptionally smooth. My primer of choice here is Dupli-Color light gray primer/sealer which can be found at any auto parts store or Wal-Mart for $2-3 in a 12oz can. This is also a great "blocking' primer base if you intend to use anything harsher than lacquers and enamels formulated specificly for plastic, as harsher auto touchup paints and nail polish will not eat through it. If you cannot find Dupli-Color, Plastikote T-235 sandable primer works just as well. These products (as any paint) should be used outdoors and with a respirator.

Finishing primer has an extremly smooth grain and can be sanded glass smooth as a basecoat for body work on model cars or natural metal finish aircraft. My preferance is Tamiya fine primer. This stuff is on the pricey side at $7 for a 4oz can but well worth it. Tamiya Primer is available in white or gray shades, however I use the white on most occasions as a base for bright reds, yellows, greens, and blues for model cars. Gray is used as a base under black or metallic colors only. I will often use this as a base for metallic aluminum finishes on auto engines or as a base for the gloss black coat to be used under Alclad metallic lacquers.

Metal PrimersPhotoetch parts and cast white metal or die cast car bodies require a slightly different primer. Metal can have problems with paint adhesion as well as metal can oxidize very quickly when exposed to moisture so a dedicated metal primer to act as a barrier is a must if your surface is one of these. There are several brands like Tamiya, Mr Hobby, Rustoleum experiment and find the brand that works right for you. Personally I like the Tamiya brand since it applies clear so I don't have to worry about covering any odd colored primers.

Colors of PrimerMost commercially available primers are gray, white, black, or red oxide, however they may also come in green, yellow, or other shades. Light gray and white are the best choices for most projects and colors. Red oxide is nice to have on hand in small amounts for 1960's era Ford undersides or as a base for some WWII era German armor. I rarely if ever have used a black primer for anything as it is far too dark to effectively paint anything over it except black and silver.

A note on other types of primers

No matter what anyone tells you, you do not need anything higher grade than standard Pep-Boys grade primer. Many model car builders, especially those in the custom or lowrider sects will tell you to use DuPont Variprime sealer or other types of  auto body shop sealers. These are industrial grade for 1:1 scale auto's used in a large paint booth with adequate protection. I do not recomend using these products as a modeling tool, If you choose to, do so at your own risk!

Keep in mind the products listed here are my own personal preferences. Feel free to experiment and find what works well for you.

All about glue

Glue, unquestionably the most important tool in our building arsenal. Without it there would be no construction in the first place, and with a bad choice in the type you use,  you will be left with a painted pile of parts in a number of years. I have no less than 5-6 different glues in stock at my bench at any given time, and each serves a different purpose depending on what I need to do. Here is a list of the popular types of glue, when you should use them, and why I prefer some over others.

Model Cement: This is the most common general glue you will find. The premise behind cement is that it will actually melt the plastic at the joint ant fuse it together permanently. Cement comes in two forms; a gel like substance in a tube (commonly called "tube glue") and a liquid form that is brushed on. I really like to avoid tube glue to be honest. Tube cement I have found will not weld the parts but rather leaves a skin in between them. This glue ends up deteriorating after some years and this is why if you find a partially assembled build at a swap or garage sale that falls apart easily with a flaky substance near the joints, chances are the builder used tube glue. Liquid cement doesn't deteriorate as tube glue does, but has a longer dry time. This is particularly good if you need to spend alot of time positioning a ill fitting part. Be extra careful to use liquid glue sparingly (don't use the included brush it's too big) as it will attack the plastic creating a large mess if you go overboard. Another note about cement type glues is any plating or paint must be scraped from the joining area. Cement cannot penetrate these surfaces and you will not achieve a true weld if they are not removed.

CA Glue: AKA Superglue or Krazy Glue is my general assembly glue of choice. This has the advantage of being near instant set and can join almost anything. Where cement can only join plastic to plastic, CA can join plastic to wood, metal, resin, vinyl, anything except styrofoam type surfaces, or clear parts as it will eat the former and fog the latter. CA has other useful purposes as well beyond just joining parts. When combined with a "kicker" such as Zip, or Kwik-Set it dries in the blink of an eye and becomes almost as hard if not harder than plastic. When a bead is run over a seam and kicked it provides an instantly dry fill that wont crack or shrink and can be easily sanded. CA comes in a multitude of thicknesses from gel like to water thin and set times from slow to instant depending on what you need to do.

White Glue: Elmer's, Younameit brand school glue, is your basic been using it for arts and crafts since age 4 glue. White glue is water based which means it can be dissolved and cleaned with water and can also be reduced to a thinner viscosity with tap water. This type of glue serves two major purposes in my book: Number one clear parts installation. CA glue will fog these and cement has a high chance to mar them if you slip up. A mistake with Elmer's and a damp Q-Tip will fix it immediately. Number two is interior carpet. Flocking material needs a base to stick to and Elmer's does the trick perfectly. Other glues will dry too fast and the paint methods I have tried isn't sticky enough and leaves bald patches. White glue will stick to most any surface as well which can make it ideal in its diluted state for attaching photo etch latches and emblems to a model car body.

Epoxy: Epoxy standardly comes in a part A and part B bottle. When these are mixed it creates a chemical reaction to create a glue. Epoxies are listed by dry time such as 5 minute Epoxy. 5min epoxy is very good when it comes to areas such as chromed bumpers and door handles on a model car body.

Tenax 7r: Tenax to the best of my knowledge as of 1/2011 was discontinued. Tenax is essentially a intant dry weld similart to plastic cement. The active ingrediant in Tenax is Methylene Chloride which can be obtained from surplus plastic supply houses in one pint cans or larger under the name Caseway SC-125. Be extreemly cautious with these products as there is evidence that they can cause injury or death in these large quantities if not used with care. By care I mean a good ventilation system and preferably a organic vapor respirator. Personally anything I need to use for a hobby that I feel I need a Phd in chemistry to understand isn't worth using. I know alot of builders swear by these pro-weld type industrial glues, to me it's not worth it.

How to apply Bare Metal Foil

When it comes to applying chrome trim to a model car the accepted method for years was a steady hand, masking tape, and silver paint. When Bare Metal Foil came along, it all but eliminated the need for using silver paint to replicate trim lines with it's method of using an ultra thin adhesive backed metal foil that looks just like chrome because IT IS CHROME! It would seem this stuff is fairly self explanatory, just rub it on, trim the excess, and peel it off yet my fellow builders come in droves to forums, blogs, and model meets completely vexed by the stuff. This short thread hopefully will shed some light on how to use BMF.

These are the supplies you will need:
Bare Metal Foil
Q-tips
Pointed toothpocks
A ruler
A sharp hobby knife with spare #11 blades

 

 Our test subject will be the window trim of a 1972 Corvette.

 Using your ruler and hobby knife, trim a piece of foil to suit your needs. It's better to apply the foil in short bursts rather than large pieces. It's easier and wastes less in trimmed excess.

 Lay your trimmed piece of foil (sticky side down) onto the piece of trim you wish to foil.

Use a Q-tip to burnish the foil down over the trim. Flat and round toothpicks, fingernails, and even small scarps of styrene will help form the foil around the details.

 Use your hobby knife and #11 blade to trim away the excess foil. Always keep some spare blades on hand as this process dulls them quickly. Use light pressure to avoid marring the underlying surface.

 Use your Q-tip to fold the foil around the edge of the window to the inside of the body.

After the foil has been folded to the inside of the body, gently remove the excess foil. Work slowly and methodically to avoid tearing the foil. Once the excess has been removed, give all of the trim a light buffing with a soft cloth and you should have something that looks similar to the photo above. Using these steps it's simply a matter of working your way around the body shell since most if not all window openings, rocker panels, trim lines, etc.. are handled the same way.

Vinyl roofs the easy way

There is a multitude of ways to simulate the vinyl texture commonly found on late 60's and early 70's muscle cars. There's spraying a textured medium like Mr. Surfacer or atextured paint. There is also the technique where you spray paint from a great distance letting it build in to a sort of grainy look, however there's an extremely simple technique and all you need is a roll of wide masking tape, some cotton swabs, a few round toothpicks, and a hobby knife.

Here we have a 1970 Dodge Coronet that I had originally installed a white top on. After years of storage in a smokers house it had become damaged and yellowed so I decided to replace it.

The first step is to pull off a section of wide masking tape and lay it on your roof pretty much centered. Use your cotton swabs to burnish it down and toothpicks to work it around the trim. When it's nice and snug, use your hobby knife to trim away the excess around the windows.

Now find the exact center line of your roof. The Coronet has a center ridge in the trunk which made this step easy using a length of striping tape laid down the center of the body shell. Using a pen mark the center line then measure an equal distance on either side and mark some lines. In this case it was 1/2" on either side of the center line.

With another piece of tape repeat step one for the sides of the roof. The edge of the tape on the roof should line up exactly with the off center lines you drew in step three. On this particular roof the tape fit perfectly around the curves, however this is not always the case. You may need to trim the corners a little and do a tuck to get it to settle down.

Repeat the previous step for the other side of the roof. Instead of messing with styrene strips to create the parallel seams on full scale vinyl roofs you notice the tape overlaps have created them and saved us a step.

Now you can paint the roof. Vinyl roofs commonly came in white or black, however some MoPar vehicles were known for some crazy 'mod top" designs in the 60's. Check your references. No need to mask and spray either unless you really want to. I just used Model Master flat black acrylic paint and a wide brush.

After the roof paint dries you can trim the roof with silver paint or Bare Metal Foil. The entire application minus paint drying time only took around 15 minutes.

How to apply non-skid surfaces

Many modern armored vehicles have sand textured upper surfaces to provide a non-slip grip for crews boots when mounting or working on the vehicle. There are several ways of modeling this type of surface including textured mediums, textured spray paints, white glue and silica sand, liquid model cement, and Mr. Surfacer 500 stippled on to the surface with a stiff brush. The easiest method I've found is very similar to applying flocking on a model car interior floor. The materials are very simple, all you need is a wide brush, a smaller brush for getting in to crevices, masking tape, acrylic paint (I prefer Model Master) and baking soda. Using your references mask off the areas that are not supposed to have the texture on them, then using your wide brush apply a layer of acrylic paint. While the paint is still wet sprinkle the baking soda on to it from a height of about 4" or so making sure to keep an even layer. It should be noted on the real vehicle this is a hastily applied medium much like the field applied zimmerit of WWII so you don't need to make it absolutely perfect, just even. After the paint dries (I give it about 2hrs) use a wide makeup brush to dust off any excess baking soda leaving you with a texture that looks something like this.

 Any bare or uneven spots can be lightly touched up with more paint and baking soda.

The final step is to paint over it with the proper color, add a wash, then dry brush to pop the texture. The entire application on the upper hull of the tutorial subject Academy M1A1 Abrams only took about an hour and really looks the part. Try it out on your next modern armor build, you won't be disappointed.

Spitfire Mk. II

About The Build

Manufacturer: Revell

Scale: 1/48

Subject: Spitfire Mk. II

Kit Number: 85-5239

Date Built: September 2012

Modifications:

• N/A built straight from box

  2012 marks the 70th anniversary of the year 1942, and as a tribute the forums at finescale.com hosted a group build to commemorate some of the vehicles and battles of 1942. I chose to model my P8088 as it appeared  at the 61 Operational Training Center in September of 1942. I built Revell's 1/48 Mk. II Spitfire straight from the box in about a week and a half, which is pretty fast for me. The kit only has 30 pieces or so which makes it a simple yet frustrating build but being an older release there are numerous problems with fit and detail as compared to modern kits. The raised panel lines are easily erased during the seam filling stage which requires you to rescribe the raised detail or create a new set of recessed panel lines. The decals have issues as well, I found them to be thick and difficult to apply even with applications of Micro Set and Micro Sol. I'd recommend this kit as a beginner aircraft to teach basic techniques and practice a three color camouflage scheme, however for veterans Tamiya and Hasegawa are far superior options for an early Spitfire.

Buildup

Completed Build

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U.S. Marine Khe Sahn Vietnam 1968

About The Build

Manufacturer: Dragon

Scale: 1/35

Subject: U.S. Marine Khe Sahn 1968

Kit Number: 3307

Date Built: May 2012

Modifications:

• Foil straps on the helmet and misc. other small details from styrene scraps.

This figure is a part of a four figure set that includes two infantry men, a wounded soldier, and another soldier using the portable phone. I intend to use the others in a small viganette one day. I built the figure straight from the box adding only foil straps to the helmet. His uniform is Model Master acrylics and shaded with artists oils while the skin tones were blended with artists oils.

Completed Model
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Fieldmarschall Erwin Rommel

About The Build

Manufacturer: Tamiya

Scale: 1/16

Subject: Fieldmarschall Erwin Rommel

Kit Number: 36305

Date Built: October 2008

Modifications:

• N/A

 Tamiya has made an excellent rendition of WW2 Germany's top field commander through the North African campaign. This was my first ever large scale figure (120mm scale is 1/16 which equates to about 4" tall). My only gripe is the butt joint for the hand to arm attachment which leaves them prone to breaking and I found that out the hard way when I lost a hand at a model show which never was recovered.
 
Completed Build
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Fokker Dr. I

About The Build

Manufacturer: Revell of Germany

Scale: 1/72

Subject: Fokker Dr. I

Kit Number: 85-4116

Date Built: July 2012

Modifications:

• N/A

Revell of Germany's Fokker Dr. I is a tiny model measuring in with a 2" long fuselage and 3" wing span. I had had this kit sitting around for several years finally deciding to build it as part of the Finescale.com "The Great War" group build. Rather than do the standard Red Barron scheme, I settled on a generic flat black plane from Jastas 11. The kit went together fairly quickly with only three days put in to assembly, however there were some areas I was disappointed with. Some weight bearing assemblies have small attachment points which are hard to align and prone to breakage primarily the landing gear. After the airframe was assembled, I sprayed it with Tamiya TS-6 flat black, then to simulate the brushed finish commonly seen on Dr.I's I mixed a black/gray color close to a dark gunship gray. Using a damp brush, wetter than a full dry brush, but not as damp as a full brush lightly brushed streaks across the frame and wings. The propeller was brushed with an acrylic base and given the wood grain effect with burnt umber artists oils.

Finished Build
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T-34/85 (January 1944)

About The Build

Manufacturer: Tamiya

Scale: 1/35

Subject: T-34/85 Soviet Medium Tank

Kit Number: 89569

Date Built: August 2012

Modifications:

• Styrene rod grab handles
• Mesh material to replace engine deck vent
• Hex rod bolts added

This was my first experience with Soviet WWII armor. I always liked the idea of doing a winter whitewash and the T34 is one of the best platforms for it. Despite the concessions made for motorization (this kit was initially released as a toy in 1985) it looks very nice when completed and with the addition of some aftermarket photo etch and some elbow grease could make a highly detailed show piece. Weathered tanks like this can be a fun challenge, however I found with this kit that I much prefer a cleaner style of build, more of a museum of various armor types versus 100% accuracy. My only issue with the finished product is through my own stupidity I managed to break off the front machine gun and drop it down the sink while washing it in preparation for the whitewash. Hopefully I can find an old glue bomb to scuttle out at a show one day, I can use the gun then turn the rest in to a diorama of a knocked out T-34 perhaps.

Buildup

Completed Build

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RMS Titanic Wreck Site

About The Build

Manufacturer: Revell

Scale: 1/570

Subject: R.M.S. Titanic wreck site

Kit Number: 85-0445

Date Built: August 2005

Modifications:

• Heavily modified from the Revell kit
• Stern is 90% new from .020 sheet styrene
• Bow section is 85% new from .020 sheet styrene
• Crumpled and torn plating made from embossed lead foil
• Deck houses made from Evergreen strip styrene
• Tom's Modelworks merchant ship railing set

 In 2004 I started with Revell's 1/570 R.M.S. Titanic as a base and combined it with heavy scratch building to create a model of the wreck site as it appeared on the 2004 expedition. The hull was cut in half and the bow modified using embossed foil to create the buckled hull plates and destroyed aft portion. All decks as well as the deck houses are various shapes of Plastruct sheet, tube, rod, and square styrene. The only kit items I used in construction were the deck fittings and cranes. The stern section is almost entirely built from sheet plastic and lead foil save for the overhang under the poop deck. Both sections were painted and weathered with various acrylic rust colors and pastel chalks. I plan to build another wreck site in the future based on the larger Revell 1/400 scale kit so I will be able to add much more detail than I was able to in this small scale.

Completed Build
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