I’m fixing to get started on my first laser cut wood kit. I’ve read that first coating all wood surfaces with sanding sealer will make painting go a lot easier. My local hobby shop has it available in pint cans at $17. That would probably be several lifetime’s supply. Is there a smaller quantity product, at a lower price?
Smaller quantities, maybe not. Cheaper, yes. Try your local paint or hardware store.
Scalecoat 2 oz. bottle $4.79 from Walthers. Part no. 640 10532.
Jim
Just pick up some spray laquer at a home center or paint store. Deft is a fantastic but pricey product. For your needs any spray laquer would work fine. Spraying the sealer is a better choice than any brushed on product. The spray goes on evenly and dries in minutes. Brushing may go on too thick and could be too wet causing some warpage before drying.
Hardware store shellac is an excellent sanding sealer. Just check the expiration date on the bottom of the can. Shellac has a limited shelf life. Pick up a can of “shellac thinner” (denatured alcohol) for cleaning the brush.
Sealer does two things for you. It raises the grain, all the little soft and silky wood fibers get hard and nubbly, leaving a rough feel to the surface. If you sand AFTER sealing you get a surface that feels smooth to the touch. Then it fills the pores, so the following coat of paint won’t soak into the wood so deeply. For wood with marked difference between the hardwood and the softwood this prevents the grain from showing thru the paint. Without the sealer the paint soaks more deeply into the soft part of the wood grain, emphasing it. In real life, the basswood used in kits doesn’t have much grain so it doesn’t matter as much.
Or, use any one of the clear spray cans from the hardware store. Most of them are lacquer, which works much like shellac. Lacquer is a synthetic shellac, a plastic binder dissolved in lacquer thinner than hardens as the thinner evaporates.
I bought a 1 pint bottle of sanding sealer from the local craft store. I think Tole painters use it on the wood before they do their creative painting, so look near the bare wood doo-dads. It cost a couple of bucks, dries VERY quickly and cleans up with alcohol. The bottle makes it easy to get a little when I just need a little.
The “cleans up ith alcohol” makes the stuff probably shellac.