Re: priming

[Kevin Strong]

Generally, I'll use spray cans for most things. For 90% of the work we 
do in this scale, they're fine. Sometimes I'll warm the spray can by 
immersing it in hot water for a few minutes. This increases the pressure 
inside the can, and gives you a finer spray out of the nozzle. I also do 
a lot of brush painting. Any wood parts can be brush painted without any 
worries. I try not to brush paint things like the sides of tenders, but 
small details, tender frames, trucks, wheels, couplers... things like 
that are easy to paint with a brush.

I've just recently been getting reacquainted with my airbrush. I've 
found them rather troublesome in the past, but have discovered that most 
of the problems I encountered could be traced directly back to the 
rather weak compressor I was using. (Strange, since it was a Badger 
compressor.) I've finally upgraded to a real compressor, and have found 
that to work much better, especially for the acrylic paints I generally 
use (The 99¢ bottles you can get at Michael's or Hobby Lobby). They work 
great out of the bottle with a brush, and thinned between 50/50 and 
40/60, they work great through the airbrush, also. They come in almost 
every color under the rainbow, even something that matches that 
gawd-awful Penn Central green. I still prefer spray cans when possible, 
out of pure convenience.

In this scale, you're not going to obscure details the way one might in 
the smaller scales. The total paint coverage is maybe .002" at the 
thickest, and that's not going to hide anything (even little goofs you 
hope the paint would hide.)

Later,
K