Painting Resin Model

[Vito]

I am working on a 1/43 resin kit from France of the 1988 Jaguar XJR9 and am having some difficulty getting primer and paint to adhere to the body. I've cleaned the body several time using everything from Dawn dish detergent to mineral spirits to lacquer thinner and each time the primer does the fish eyes routine. My most recent attempt at priming is with Dupont flexible acrylic primer; the stuff you'd use when doing a plastic bumper on a real car in a body shop. So far it seems to be fine. Any other suggestions? At this point I'm thinking of Dupli-Color Oxford White over the primer but I'll do the spoon test first. Thanks in advance for you assistance.

 

[Belugawrx]

I have read that etching primer after a thorough cleaning works well...do not use brake fluid to strip paint on resin, it will eat it.

 

[the Baron]

I am working on a 1/43 resin kit from France of the 1988 Jaguar XJR9 and am having some difficulty getting primer and paint to adhere to the body. I've cleaned the body several time using everything from Dawn dish detergent to mineral spirits to lacquer thinner and each time the primer does the fish eyes routine. My most recent attempt at priming is with Dupont flexible acrylic primer; the stuff you'd use when doing a plastic bumper on a real car in a body shop. So far it seems to be fine. Any other suggestions? At this point I'm thinking of Dupli-Color Oxford White over the primer but I'll do the spoon test first. Thanks in advance for you assistance.

How do you apply your primer, because depending on the method, there can be different preconditions to take care of.

For example, do you apply it with an airbrush? Then the air pressure, the size and setting of the tip, and the needle, and how close or how far from the subject you hold the brush, are all factors that will impact the result. Are you using a rattle can? You can't really control the pressure, then, but again, the distance to the piece is a factor, as well as the temperature and the humidity at the time, too.

I think you've cleaned the resin pretty well before starting, though. I use warm water and a de-greaser, myself, SuperClean. Dishwashing liquid is good, too. Most dishwashing liquids have de-greasing compounds of various kinds in their formulas.

 

[Eagle-1]

Even though you don't appear to have been back, here's what I believe is happening to you. I've worked my share of resin in the past and what it sounds like from your description is, you have tiny pinholes just under the surface of your resin. This happens when the resin is not pressurized. Even though the surface looks slick, these pinholes will and do hold mold release which will cause exactly what you said when you paint it. This sounds like a poorly molded piece.

The Baron and I seem to firmly agree on Superclean Degreaser. DAWN is good too, but Superclean will get this better. Soak it a few hours, but NOT for a couple days. Superclean will soften resin. It has always hardened back for me, but it is subject to scrapes and scratches while it's soft. Get you some Superclean ($8.00 at Walmart, NOT Purple Power, that stuff's crap) and let the resin soak for awhile and rinse it off several times during the soak with water, it should help a great deal. It may even help to fine grain sand the entire surface of your model to open these pinholes up ever so slightly before the Superclean soak, but be warned, this will cause a whole new problem when you paint it because THEN, you'll see all these tiny holes in your paint.

We're here for ya'. If you come back.

Rob.

 

[Vito]

Thank you all for the suggestions. I have routinely used hot water and Dawn detergent to wash models before commencing the builds. I'll try the SuperClean next time. I was able to get a good paint job after a couple of tries but I still don't know what caused the problem in the first place. At least now I have some tools to use should it occur again in the future with another build.

 

[Eagle-1]

You're welcome. Drop in more often.