I have a few G scale (1/24) brass tank cars to airbrush and I purchased some Scalecoat 1 paint for the job. Scalecoat 1 since I’m painting metal.
I typically paint plastic models and rarely have painted anything metal (brass). But I usually use a primer when painting.
However, Scalecoat 1 paint eats a little into the surface of metal to help it bond. So it probably would eat into any primer layer and might make a mess of things when drying.
What do experienced brass painters do when using Scalecoat 1? Prime? Or just airbrush with Scalecoat 1 without any primer?
Almost forgot. There’s no way my mom will let me use her ovens to bake the paint. Will air drying be fine, or do I have to bake this paint? Remember these are very large G scale brass models so using a small portable oven is not possible.
According to the Weaver Models web site, no primer is required for Scalecoat 1 paing. Nor did I find a listing for Scalecoat 1 primer. I’d say you are good to go. Good luck!
Make sure you give it a good washing with mild dish soap and warm water to remove any and all finger prints so the paint will bond better and give it a couple of dust coats, before final coat and you should be fine. The dust coats are important though on bare Metal of any kind, without sanding or scuffing first.
Not sure where you got the idea, but neither Scalecoat nor any other paint with which I’m familiar will eat into metal. Some lacquer-based paints will attack (craze) some plastics if applied too heavily, but that shouldn’t be a problem if you’re using an airbrush.
I often use primer to create a uniformly-coloured base for whatever paint is being applied over it - this is useful where different coloured materials were used in construction of the item being painted.
I’ve also airbrushed Floquil and PollyScale onto bare metal to no apparent detriment as long as the surface was clean.
Paint does not like to stick to metal. For brass cars you need the right surface preparation. Step one is hot and soapy water wash to degrease the cars. Rinse well in clean water. Follow with a good dry. Step two is pickling the surface with an acid etch. A mild acid, supermarket vinegar is enough, it just has to roughen up the surface a little bit to give some tooth for the primer to grab onto. Again, rinse well in clean water and dry well. Don’t touch the clean metal with your bare hands, they will leave finger prints. Use gloves.
First coat should be the best stick-to-metal paint you can buy. IMHO that is rattle can auto primer. Use light gray under light colors, dark gray under dark colors, and red under red. Let it dry well, over night minimum. Some time in the sun helps the dry.
With a good coat of primer, you can then apply just about any finish coat that strikes your fancy.
You might want to investigate if the SC1 will attack the primer since it’s a synthetic paint if I recall right. It doesn’t use regular thinner.
As for heat, you can always make a little aluminum-foil tent and shove a 75W lightbulb in with it for a few hours. Don’t try a pigtail bulb, it won’t work. A halogen work lamp would be pretty good. If it can cook a bug in 2 sec, it can cook a train.
The surface is not smooth brass. These tank cars were factory painted. I stripped them with Aircraft Paint Remover…my go to strippr for metal items. With the paint off, it appears the bare metal surfaces were lightly roughed for paint.
