Tamiya metal primer. What´s it good for?

The other day i made my weekly visit to my local Polystyrenedealer. Bought some stuff and the asked for Tamiya primer. Sorry, it´s sold out the dealer replied. -But i see cans of metalprimer , what´s the difference, i asked as a minded consumer . To cut it shortly, my dealer is nice, he stuck a can in my hand and said i could try it( didn´t pay..) and then report to him what it was/how it was ! He could not tell me the difference..

I tried it on a scrap piece the other day. `-hm, only some clear sh*t sprayed out`. Shok a few more minutes. Same thing.. clear.

Is Tamiya metal primer supposed to be clear? Eh..why? And can anyone tell me what my dealer could not; What´s the difference between the two? Can it be used on good ol` `styrene?

Must be some kind of metal sealer I reckon, for die-cast and other metal parts.

If you think about it, primer doesn't necessarily HAVE to have a color to do it's primary job, which is give the ensuing paint something to grab on to and to protect the base material from the paint: It's only colored because of any effect it might have on the eventual paint top coats.

Metal primer is exactly that, a primer for metal parts. It's purpose is to etch into the metal so the subsequent layers will hold, not flake off. Try painting metal with normal paint and see how easy it lifts off. Then you will inderstand the importance of it. For some reason a lot of metal primers are clear, athough you can get automotive etch primers that are a more normal grey.

If I'm spraying over metal parts I use Games Workshop Citadel Primer. Its great, very tough and shrinks alot while drying so detail is always preserved. It comes in Black aswell as white, so any PE parts can just be sprayed with primer.

Edit:Forgot to mention its relevance to this thread. The Citadel primer is designed to stick to GW's metal miniatures so it is very tough and bites into the metal (or plastic).

Cheers

Farrokh

You'll notice that Tamiya white spray primer is also labeled as being a "metal" primer....but, it does NOT etch into the metal like the clear metal-only primer does. It's great for PE stuff and white metal/ally parts...not so good for styrene.

hth,
Bill

okey, so i will save it for the day i will incorporate metal parts:) Thanks!