Global Scale Modeller

Can anybody think of a reason as to why you can't use Ultimate primer with MRP paints. As far as I'm aware, the MRP stuff Is acrylic paint suspended in lacquer and Ultimate is obviously an acrylic primer.

I recently tried the MRP paints on a land bomber and it was terrible. Dried really horrible, very patchy with very rough "sandy" patches. I was using an H&S Infinity at about 10psi and laid the paint down in thin coats over a mist coat. Tried the camp, but at a lower pressure and this was just the same. I put the bad finish down to me contaminating the model. The same day, I had been painting a bathroom and had been using a damp-seal paint. Plus I had rinsed the brushes out with th old blue brush cleaner and I just assumed that I had transferred some of this crap onto the model.

I've just sprayed the landing gear covers on a spitfire I'm doing and I've had exactly the same finish. Luckily it's only a small area and I used them on purpose as a test.

I've read such good things about these paints and that was why I just assumed that the problem was me. They are supposedly a very forgiving paint and are supposed to make airbrushing even simpler. To be honest, I've never really had a problem airbrushing - until now! And I have even sprayed Vallejo Model Colour without any major problems.

If it's the case that Ultimate primer isn't compatible, then you can poke the MRP stuff through a hole with a stick. I like the Ultimate primer too much to ditch it for some ink that masquerades as paint.

My conclusions on this stuff so far? It stinks!!! In every sense of the term!

Oh I feel your pain and frustration

My OCD disallows me to use MRP
How the hell can you call it MRP and its acronym is MrPaint?...makes no sense and confuses the hell out of everyone vs Gunze stuff
Paul formulated the Ultimate thinner not to work with MRP just for that reason
That might be a little white lie there, but sounds good

Hang in there

I use a lot of MRP paint and always use Ultimate primer and never had a problem. So they should work together. Not sure how the weather is in the UK at the moment but it could be that the paint is drying before it hits the surface. How far away are you from the model with the airbrush? I'm usually pretty close, probably around 3-4 cm when using MRP, that might help with the paint drying too fast.

Used MRp with Ultimate primer myself on my Javelin with no issues at all, must be some other issue

Twokidsnosleep wrote: Thu May 24, 2018 7:49 pm Oh I feel your pain and frustration

My OCD disallows me to use MRP
How the hell can you call it MRP and its acronym is MrPaint?...makes no sense and confuses the hell out of everyone vs Gunze stuff
Paul formulated the Ultimate thinner not to work with MRP just for that reason
That might be a little white lie there, but sounds good

Hang in there

Thanks Scott. Me, I suffer from CDO. It's like OCD but the letters are in the correct order!

JonMW wrote: Thu May 24, 2018 7:58 pm I use a lot of MRP paint and always use Ultimate primer and never had a problem. So they should work together. Not sure how the weather is in the UK at the moment but it could be that the paint is drying before it hits the surface. How far away are you from the model with the airbrush? I'm usually pretty close, probably around 3-4 cm when using MRP, that might help with the paint drying too fast.

Same here Jon, no more than 2" from the model (5cm at the most). Plus the the weather here in the UK is low 20's and rainy, so should be ideal spraying weather.

I'm confused, which in fairness is my default state!

Paul wrote: Thu May 24, 2018 8:16 pm Used MRp with Ultimate primer myself on my Javelin with no issues at all, must be some other issue

Got me beat mate. I didn't think for one minute it would be anything to do with the primer and I'd bin the paint in a heartbeat rather than ditch the primer.

Not used mine yet... but my recommendation came from someone who uses vynilStynil as his primer, and I heard recently it was the same as Ultimate, Will pattison. Videos on this subject, both the primer and the MRP paint, are lengthy and in depth.
I will be gutted if this is an issue.

I have been spraying a number of kits for about three hours a day over the last four days, Ultimate primer with MRP colours, without any issues at all. MRP lays down sublimely. I prefer to spray at higher pressures than most, 20 PSI. I can only conclude user error! A couple of tips with MRP. Shake the hell out the bottle before use and each time you fill the cup. Keep close to the surface of the model, 2-3 inches.
Temp has been around 23c, humidity 56%

Spraying enamel based paints in rainy weather is not good. It gets too much water mixed with the paint and stuffs the finish.

here is what someone else says due to high humidity.

That's called blushing. The evaporation of the paint solvents causes cooling below the dew point which in turn causes condensation of water on your new paint job. If you would have a source of warmth in your garage (??? Box with hair dryer ??? portable heater???) somehow warm dry air, placing your rocket in that should prevent blushing. Best not to paint in high humidity.

I had water contamination in my airbrush lines as well
SO I put an in line filter on it. One of these, super cheap on eBay or Amazon


I would suggest everyone have one

Huge thank you to everyone for your tips and suggestions, it is very much appreciated. The post was more of a rant, as I was at my wits end. I was confident that there was no problem with the primer and I was fairly sure that I was doing all of the right things as far as spraying was concerned. Thanks Scott for your suggestion, I have tried an in-line filter in the past, but find them too cumbersome as for me, they weight the hose too much. I have three hoses that I swap regularly and I make sure that each one I use is water free and dry before I connect it to the compressor (which is cleaned and drained regularly). I used to do a lot of car restoration many years ago and always did my own spraying. Sure there were plenty of mishaps and disasters in the early days, but by bitter experience, I managed to get a handle on it.

As far as weather conditions, I hear what everyone's is saying, but just before spraying MRP, I had been using VMA without any problems (I used a different airbrush for the MRP). Plus I have tried using MRP on four different days now and the weather varied on each day.

I concede that I do seem to be the only person that Is having problems with these paints, so the problem must be me, but when I have no problems with any other paint, Tamiya, Aqueous, VMA, Lifecolour, AK, Ammo etc., I'm starting to think that eBaying them is the best solution.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

I may be misinterpreting what you've said reference an in line filter as you're saying you change lines so that's telling me you don't have one. If you've not got a filter in the line somewhere it would be a good idea to get one, any compression of air will generate moisture to some degree and that won't help. I had similar issues using Zero Paint, Tamiya and Ultimate I also had the same issues with other primers. I found it to be the paint drying too quickly and in my case it was a combination of distance, trigger operation and needle setting, I was either too far away or too little trigger opening and the air drying the paint, too small needle opening which gives much the same for any given trigger setting and too far away or all of them.

Have a good play with all the above settings, I've not used MRP but the results you're getting are common to all paint and it's just mastering a new type of paint as they all apply slightly different. If you get no joy try a few drop of Mr Hobby Leveling Thinner which will help with the drying process.

Good luck mate.

Spray a bit on a different primer/ test piece.... or test piece with no primer.
Do you get the same result?
If your worry is in the relationship between primer and paint, thats the only way you can find out.
If it behaves the same over a different or no primer , you could have a bad paint batch.

digger303 wrote: Fri May 25, 2018 12:33 am Spraying enamel based paints in rainy weather is not good. It gets too much water mixed with the paint and stuffs the finish.

here is what someone else says due to high humidity.

That's called blushing. The evaporation of the paint solvents causes cooling below the dew point which in turn causes condensation of water on your new paint job. If you would have a source of warmth in your garage (??? Box with hair dryer ??? portable heater???) somehow warm dry air, placing your rocket in that should prevent blushing. Best not to paint in high humidity.

Mrp are lacquer based paints though

Paul wrote: Fri May 25, 2018 11:05 am

digger303 wrote: Fri May 25, 2018 12:33 am Spraying enamel based paints in rainy weather is not good. It gets too much water mixed with the paint and stuffs the finish.

here is what someone else says due to high humidity.

That's called blushing. The evaporation of the paint solvents causes cooling below the dew point which in turn causes condensation of water on your new paint job. If you would have a source of warmth in your garage (??? Box with hair dryer ??? portable heater???) somehow warm dry air, placing your rocket in that should prevent blushing. Best not to paint in high humidity.

Mrp are lacquer based paints though

Lacquer evaporates too so I thought it might have the same issue

Try spraying at a higher psi maybe 15-20. Sometimes low pressure can cause grainy finishes. Hope you can get it fixed soon

digger303 wrote: Fri May 25, 2018 11:29 am

Paul wrote: Fri May 25, 2018 11:05 am

digger303 wrote: Fri May 25, 2018 12:33 am Spraying enamel based paints in rainy weather is not good. It gets too much water mixed with the paint and stuffs the finish.

here is what someone else says due to high humidity.

That's called blushing. The evaporation of the paint solvents causes cooling below the dew point which in turn causes condensation of water on your new paint job. If you would have a source of warmth in your garage (??? Box with hair dryer ??? portable heater???) somehow warm dry air, placing your rocket in that should prevent blushing. Best not to paint in high humidity.

Mrp are lacquer based paints though

Lacquer evaporates too so I thought it might have the same issue

I know , wasn’t disputing your advice just correcting to the correct type of paint

Sounds like you know what you are doing...which makes an unsolved problem even more irritating.
Airbrushing can be a bit of a B sometimes, so many factors to control that can go out of wack.

Laquer will not like any water contamination and would be more sensitive to it. That would be my thought as to why only that paint does it.
Ask me how I know first use of 2K clear and man it went south on me
I ran my little Grex compressor with an open line on it and sure enough moisture came out
Hence the second in line filter I posted above

Hope you get it sorted

Thanks everyone for your help with this one, it is very much appreciated. I've got a couple of old models that are crying put to be recycled, so I'm going to use these to have a play around with. I really want to get these paints to work for me as other people seem to get a great finish with them. I think the frustrating thing for me is not knowing what the problem is; if I knew that I could fix it. On reflection, I think the most likely cause is moisture getting in somewhere, so the first thing I'm going to try is to put my inline filter back on (thanks Scott for that suggestion ). That would answer a lot of questions and would also explain why the problem isn't replicating itself when I spray with water based acrylics.

Thanks again everyone!

PremiumHobbies wrote: Fri May 25, 2018 11:44 am Sorry that you're having issues with the paints.
Personly I've never had any problems with them using Ultimate primer or any other primer.

It sounds to me like either the primer hasn't fully cured or there is some contamination happing.

How long was the primer cure for?
Was it all the colours you were having issues with?
What do you mean by old blue brush cleaner?

I spray Mr. Paint at about 15/20 PSI and spray pretty much as close as I can get away with. As they dry very fast.
Mr. Paint is very thin and does have a tendency to show flaws in the surface of the model (as a result of this). So if the base coat is perfect there will be infections in the final finish.
I will be incredibly surprised if it has been a bad batch.
I will have a play with some of the colours you order and see what happens. And let you know.

If you still get problems please let me know. And I will contact MRP and see if they have any ideas on whats happening.

Huge thank you for taking the time to reply and I appreciate your help. It just exemplifies the excellent service I received when I ordered from your website.

To answer your questions, the primer had been left for almost three days when I sprayed the top coat. I have been guilty in the past of laying down the base coat too soon, but I didn't want to take any chances with lacquer based paints. I had problems with all the colours I have tried, that's is, black, dark earth, dark green and sky. And the blue brush cleaner is the Polycell spirit based cleaner that painters and decorators use.

I would definitely say that the problem is either me, or something that I am doing, as no one else seems to have had the same experience. I definitely don't think that there is anything wrong with the paint as each bottle was very well packed and tightly sealed. Also, bad paint just doesn't smell "right" and there was nothing wrong with any that I have used. I'm as confident as I can be that I'm spraying it the right way and if I got any closer to the model I'd be getting blow-back in my paInt cup

As I mentioned in my previous post, I can only conclude that there is moisture somewhere in my compressor/airbrush set-up. I've been wracking my brains and it seems the most likely answer.

Again, I really appreciate your help, but please don't waste any of your stock, as I say, I am sure the problem is me and not the paints. Also, I wouldn't want to put anyone off from trying these paints as a lot of people seem to be getting some very good results from them. The areas that it went down well, it dried to a beautiful finish. Very smooth with a slight satin sheen to it. So smooth, you can probably decal straight onto it without putting down a gloss coat first.

Thanks again.

Sorry, I should have explained, the Polycell was used to clean some brushes that I had been using to paint a bathroom. Even though I had thoroughly cleaned my hands, I was worried that some residue may have been left which had then transferred itself to the surface of the model. Typically, I would move the model by holding by the ends of the wings and this Is mostly where the dry patches occurred. Owever, I hadn't used the brush cleaner the second time I sprayed MRP paints and the dry patches still occurred. As far as cleaning my airbrush, I typically use Ultimate airbrush cleaner and thinner and when I want to give it a deeper clean, I'll use cellulose thinners.

As I say, I'm fairly certain that the contamination is due to water/moisture and I'm hoping to do another test spray in the next couple of days, but this time using an inline filter/water trap.

I'll let you know how it goes and fingers crossed, this will solve the problem.