Do you prime small parts (superstructure)?

[Yevgeniy]

Hi all,

Would like again to ask for your expertise with the question I still have in my head: do you prime small parts, esp. superstructure when building? I am concerned with 1/350 scale as there will be always differences for 1/700.

I prefer painting during built - I still can not imagine how it is possible to paint everything after the ship is fully assembled and not to ruin anything.

So when working on superstructure I prepaint the lower deck (linoleum and grey) and then move to the next deck. Normally I shall prime each deck (and other parts) before painting - but I am tempted not to do it, esp. if I have very small parts to be painted separately - just paint them without priming to speed up. Also decks on superstructure are normally visible from top and from bottom - since they are hanging one over the other. So if I "follow the rules" both sides shall be primed which will take 1 extra day for each side to dry

How do you handle priming, esp. when building those IJN pagodas and the like.

Do some of you pre-prime parts when they are still on sprue and then sand out the areas which will be glued to have firm glue seams?

Thank you in advance.

Yevgeniy

[Anthony P]

Hi Yevgeniy!

Questions.. questions...

I think that this ties in with the previous discussions about airbrushing and acrylics vs enamels:
- In my experience, priming is not essential if you use enamels, as the paint has better "grip" and is less sensitive than the acrylic equivalent. I have found acrylics work better on primed surfaces.
- If it's a resin kit, it has to be primed. I also prime PE parts.
- I use Tamiya or Gunze primers from an aerosol bottle. No matter what you use, you have to experiment a little in finding the correct distance to spray from, in order not to get too much primer on the parts. In the same vein, a couple of light coats are better than a single heavy coat. Obviously, a primer coat should be either sprayed or airbrushed, and not hand-brushed if you are concerned about losing detail.
- If you prime parts on the sprue, when you remove them and sand the attachment points, you lose the primer in those areas. I therefore prefer to cut them off and prepare them before I prime.
- I believe it is better to prime superstructure parts and paint them separately where possible (and sand the paint from the gluing surfaces), as otherwise the necessarily limited angles you will have to use to spray the built superstructure will either make you miss areas or, in order to cover everything, you will prime too much and lose the detail. Yes, it takes much more time, but ...speed kills!

So, are you now building IJN? What happened to your Koenig?

Anthony

[Yevgeniy]

Anthony,

Thank you for taking time and answering this. Everything is 100% clear.

I will follow this approach you have suggested - I suspected it will be like this but hoped may be somebody will propose a good "shortcut".

I am not building an IJN (although interested in it very much) - and continue with my Grosser Kurfurst and as you understand I am with superstructure now. I just mentioned IJN superstructure as an extreme case of modelling supersctuctures as they are much more complex than that of Grosser Kurfurst.

Your pictures of Grosser Kurfurst are of much help for my paintjob - I often look at them to compare. Thank you again for your advice above.

Yevgeniy
P.S. I prefer "one model at a time" approach so I will not go in anything before finishing my current project. After it I will probably make a couple of subs to have several quick and rewarding projects where you can see the ready result in a month or so.