Fixing Partially flacked Plastics

[Matt D]

I have a nicely painted (1/72 Plastic) roman General here who broke off his horse when he fell on the floor. He has had the paint ripped off of his crotch, and upper legs. I can't bear to remove the rest of his paint, but I can't paint over the bare plastic eather, can someone offer a sugestion on how to prime him without spraypaint, or something else requireing the removal of the paintjob?

[Andrew Ford]

If your spray primer doesn't dry instantly, spray a little onto a palette and apply it to the affected areas of bare plastic with a brush.

Andrew Ford

[imported_adsarf]

Touch up the affected areas with ordinary black acrylic using a brush. Once the paint (and any repainting on top of it) is dry, apply a layer of watered-down PVA glue. This dries clear (albeit slightly satin/glossy), and flexible. It will preserve your paint better in future. If you prefer a completely matt look to the final figure, you can apply matt varnish over the top.

IME, spray paint is actually not a very effective undercoat for plastic figures because it is very brittle and wo'n't flex well with the figure. I use it too, because it is easy, but I regard the undercoated figure as very fragile until the top coat and PVA coat are on. After that, most paint jobs are very tough.

I would always recommend pinning plastic figures to their horses. Soft plastic is so easy to drill with a pin vise that you can do this in much less than a minute per figure, and the results are almost indestructable.

Hope that helps

Andrew

[Snowtiger]

You can get a primer from a local hardware store, preferebly primer used on cars. Any other strong primer will probably do. I prefer spray-primers but if they are not available just use a can.

I don't like acrylic primers on Resin, but for metals and plastics they work. Spray primers however can damage plastics if you spray from too close.

So for a small damaged part just use a primer from a can.

[derek]

Hullo
Paint "flaking off" is one of the perennial problems of plastics. Depending on where on the figure it takes place I use a brush and paint on an undercoat of either Vallejo Foundation White or Coat d'arms grey primer or black. I then paint the entire area again with the colour I am using for that part of the figure. Acrylics dry fast and I then matt varnish a day or two later.
I use a gloss varnish on spear points, swords, some shields and some armour.
Kind Regards
Derek

[Matt D]

I've tried the PVA poast already, and It's working, also, I use Krylon Plastic's spraypant, and it works well enough that I don't have to put anything ontop of the finished product (I haven't had any flaking at all on the models I've used this on) Thanks to all of you for your help.

MD