First Spray and a chain of terrible mistakes...

So, my model had been sealed, hopefully i would not see any grain through my first coat of paint. It was time to spray the first coat of primer. the model was placed in a small hand vice between some modelling foam to protect it from the metal jaws.

This was it, the moment of truth. I sprayed the top half of the model and left it in the vice for a few hours until it was touch try. The model was removed from the vice and placed on a piece of modelling foam so i could spray the underside and handle. Again it was sprayed and then removed from the spray booth and left in a safe place to dry.

The next day i was excited to see if the last 4 weeks of work had paid off....... It hadn't.

The paint had stuck to the modelling foam so the two were attached. once this was carefully removed it was obvious that the foam had also at some point had some black writing printed on it. This writing had decided to remove itself from the foam and make the surface of my model its new home.

To top it off the grain was more than slightly obvious through the primer. Total disaster. I decided to sand down the model to remove the black marks and try again this time being more careful about what i put it on to dry.

So second try, again sprayed, left to be touch dry and sprayed the other half. Came back the next day to be greeted with the picture below.

Still more grain, which would have to be filled and for some reason the paint was still tacky. Mmmmm perhaps its this plasticote rubbish i bought from a hardware store i cannot mention, Lets call them Q&B. So i decided to place the model on a radiator and come back the next day. Next morning and we still have the tackiness, not as bad but still tackiness. The next day still about the same, Day 4 and i'm getting annoyed with this so i blast it with a hot air gun for 20 mins. This doesn't do anything to the paint but does keep me warm for a bit. At the end of the day and after a long conversation with Mr Wooff we agree that the best thing will be to coat the entire model with a thin layer of filler as it is probably the sealing mixture reacting with the paint.