Author Topic: Painting plastics  (Read 5157 times)

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Tim Child

  • Guest
Painting plastics
« on: May 06, 2008, 10:07:48 PM »
I've recently started painting some plastic medievals (lovely things from the Zvezda 100YW range).  I carefully washed them (actually, put them through the dishwasher) to get the stuff off the outside that stops the paint sticking.  Then I sprayed them with a special white undercoat that advertised itself as being good for plastic (for cars really, but much cheaper than specialist modelling paints).

Trouble is that every time one of the lances bends a little, a great flake of paint sloughs off.  Does anyone know any way of stopping this?  It has never been like this with my 15mm metals, despite the fact that their spears get spaghettied all the time!

Tim Child

vexillia

  • Guest
Re: Painting plastics
« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2008, 08:25:07 AM »

Trouble is that every time one of the lances bends a little, a great flake of paint sloughs off.  Does anyone know any way of stopping this?  It has never been like this with my 15mm metals, despite the fact that their spears get spaghettied all the time!

Tim Child

Undercoat with diluted PVA (white glue) that gives a flexible undercoat for the paint.

Tim Child

  • Guest
Re: Painting plastics
« Reply #2 on: May 07, 2008, 10:50:39 PM »
T V M!

Good job I'm only 4 elements in to the army so far.  Shame it's the CinC and his mates...   :(

Tim

Hammy

  • Guest
Re: Painting plastics
« Reply #3 on: May 08, 2008, 09:12:42 AM »
Tim,

For lots of good advice on painting plastics and such have a look at:

http://www.baueda.com/plastikornar/painting_guide.html

also the Yahoo group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DBLCHM

The ultimate plastic primer is something called rustoleum but I have not tracked down where you can get it in the UK :(

Priming with PVA, then undercoating then painting then varnishing with PVA and finally matt spraying does work though.

MikeCampbell

  • Guest
Re: Painting plastics
« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2008, 02:16:52 AM »
Rustolum works great - the agent in the UK is

Rust Oleum UK ltd
Unit 5D
Ashchurch business park
Ashchurch
Tewkesbury
Gloucestershire
GL20 8NB
England

44 7881 937635 Mobile
44 1684 273333 Phone
44 1704 879781 Fax


Steve Winrow
Sales Director Northern Europe
s.winrow@ro-m.com

ring them and ask who stocks the plastic primer - I rang the New Zealand agents to find out who stocked it here.

http://www.rustoleum.com/CBGProduct.asp?pid=119

One of the secrets to plastics is also the finish - a hard wearing varnish can be a great asset - some people use Miniwax and Plasti Dip in the US, I use a local floor stain - a light brown gives in-built shading too as it settles darker in folds and around things like the edges of belts, scabards, muscles, etc.

Eg per this pic showing "before" and "after" -



see http://www.geocities.com/dbplastic/plastic/painting.html for a whole raft of helpful hints.