Spray Painting

[Mystar]

Over the past couple of years I've been building a TopFlite Sea Fury (I'm a very slow builder) this is the first proper kit I've done (always been an ARTF man in the past) ive very nearly finished the airframe. i needed to make a decision on how i would cover it, now i know all the scale boys would say glass cloth and spray, but ive never done this before and was also worried about the weight. i decided in the end to go with film covering. i sourced some flat Dove Gray and Insignia Blue Monokote from a UK supplier. i also tried to get hold of the matching spray paint but no one in this country stocks it.

i had a think and remember reading somewhere about using colour matched tester pots from B&Q, so took some of the covering along and got two perfectly matched pots of matt emulsion paint.

Now this is the question:-

i have a fibre glass cowl and various ABS parts that will need painting, and again i read somewhere that when spraying with this paint it will need thinning. the thinning agent it suggests was either Halfords screen wash or window cleaner. but what proportion? also could you recommend a good primer for the job

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

I would have thought an etching primer for the plastic parts Mystar and then thinning would be experimental ie enough to get it to flow through airgun correctly

John

[Chris Barlow]

Halfords do a "plastic filler primer" which is a yellow high build primer for plastics and glass fibre.

Alternatively have a look at boat and marine paints for glass fibre and plastics.

[Bob Cotsford]

+1 on the hi-build plastics primer, I've also used a non-fill clear plastics primer that I was sure came from Halfords too. I've not had any flaking paint with either of these, even on motorcycle panniers which suffered a fair bit of abuse.

[Denis Watkins]

There are many water based thinning brews on the interweb, but, the glass cleaner mix was 2 fold. 1st you mix 50\50 the glass cleaner to water, then add one drop of glycerine to the water mix, then add this thinner to the approximate amount of paint required to produce a "milky" consistency. Keep track of your mix, for example by the cap full, then after success on the test piece, just repeat your mix in future.