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Monday, May 13, 2013

A Bad Priming Job - time to do some stripping

I have been painting miniatures for a long time now and you would think that I would, at least, have the priming part of the process down by now. I spent last week prepping a bunch of minis for my western town of Calamity. Most of these were Reaper minis that I brought back from ReaperCon but I also had some Dixon, Wargames Foundry and Black Scorpion mixed in there as well. Although I didn't intend to paint all of them at once I find its more efficient to prime as many miniatures as possible in one shot. So I did. Grabbed a can of Army Painter White Primer and noted that it was running low. That should have been the red flag right there. I happily proceeded to prime about 30 miniatures or so and without a second look left them to dry. The next day I grabbed some to take with me to paint at the CMPA's monthly, 2nd Saturday, workshop. There I discovered that my primer job was fuzzy. That is it was not a nice smooth coat, it was gritty, you could see little beads of paint on the surface, well not before I started to paint the skin on five miniatures anyway. So yea, I managed to both the priming on a bunch of miniatures that now need to be stripped down and re-primed. This time I'm going in with my airbrush and some nice acrylic Vallejo grey primer.

 So here is my process for stripping minis:
Although hard to see in this small thumb nail, click on the image to see a larger  picture and you  can see just how rough the surface is.

The fuzzy primer is more obvious on this miniature where I started to paint the skin. Again click on the picture to see a larger image.

My stripper of choice. Just think what it would do for kitchen floors!
The first victims about to be submerged

Covered in a nice blue layer of Pine Sol

Tub #2

And the soaking begins

I'll let these sit for a couple of hours and then break out the old toothbrush.

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12 comments:

  1. styxMay 13, 2013 at 11:26 AM

    I use Simple Green or Wesely's Bleach White (Tire cleaner) to stip models. I found pine sol to be very strong in odor and if you soak a plastic too long the plastic gets very soft. The two above has had a plastic and metal figure soaked for a month with no bad results.

    As for primer, there is so many factors with primer it is always an Xfactor in the hobby, same for using dull coat/finishes....I live in Florida so it can be too hot, too rainy, too windy....so we have windows to primer things. Near Empty cans can cause a problem, I have also had paint in a can so old that the stuff settled in the can and no matter how much you shook the can it would not mix back (old GW Camo green), a can of White I had sprayed out thick goo (I always test old or questionable cans before going straight to priming).

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    1. HeislerMay 13, 2013 at 12:55 PM

      I typically just use what ever is under the sink. Simple Green is not always available where I shop, but Pine Sol is. There are a number of different "flavors" now and the one I get doesn't smell nearly as strong as the regular stuff.

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  2. Andrew McCoryMay 13, 2013 at 11:38 AM

    I always feel bad when I give the poor fellas the bath. The previous one went well (those figs had to pass the procedure for the 4th time) but the ones before that had a very thick primer and the situation only got worse. I'll have a go at them again once I have enough time.

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    1. HeislerMay 13, 2013 at 12:56 PM

      I hate the time it takes from my painting more than anything else. If I had been paying attention I would have been able to save half of them since I primed in two batches on Friday.

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  3. UnknownMay 13, 2013 at 11:48 AM

    Oh Kris, those are gritty and there was no way to salvage them. I strip my mini's in exactly the same way. That should come as no surprise as you were the one who taught me how to do it:)

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    1. HeislerMay 13, 2013 at 12:57 PM

      If I had my steel wool with me I might have tried that to buff the surface down but I expected to be painting!

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  4. Ray RousellMay 13, 2013 at 2:26 PM

    Luckily I've never had to stip any figures.....yet? I I know there's plenty of gamers out there who have!

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    1. HeislerMay 13, 2013 at 4:30 PM

      Better knock on some wood there Ray! You never know when it will strike now. And will it be just a case of bad primer? Maybe you will pick up a nice can of black primer when you go to seal the next unit you complete. :-)

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    2. The Angry LurkerMay 13, 2013 at 11:10 PM

      I've heard that can happen:P

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    3. HeislerMay 14, 2013 at 8:10 AM

      I see you and Ray are in cahoots on this!

      Delete
  5. SeanMay 14, 2013 at 11:21 AM

    I've given up on spray priming. I'm too heavy on the trigger and I actually knocked the 1/72 plastics over when I sprayed them. So it's back to brush on priming for me. I also have never stripped a figure. I may need to soon.

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    1. HeislerMay 14, 2013 at 12:30 PM

      Yea, its hard to spray (or airbrush) prime any of the light weight plastic stuff without fastening it down to something.

      Delete