Primer wood fins with brush primer not spray

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RodRocket

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With the weather lately, I decided to try to brush primer the wood fins on my various projects.

It is the White Rustoleum Clean Metal Primer in the 32 Fl oz can. Also got a 30 Fl oz bottle of odorless mineral spirits, and a set of wide, angle cut artists brushes.

Seems to fill the grain pretty good. Tried it on the DR1 Tri-Dekker balsa fins. Just kept the brush wet enough to cover but not run. Soaks in nice. By the time I had finished last fin, first ones were dry to the touch. But will let them dry longer before sanding.

This might get me farther along on the rocket projects that gotta get some color when the weather is too nasty to go outside and spray.

I will keep the finish colors a spray, but I'm hoping the brush primer will get me along far enough that when the weather does get better, I can get to shooting the finish color on all the rockets at once.

Sucks when I get to building faster than I can paint them. Hope to get a few done before Kloudburst at Argonia next month.
 
INCREDIBLE that I found this thread as I was about to start a thread on priming balsa fins to fill the grain :clap:
Last year when I became born again :) I was researching filling the grain and somewhere on the internet I found a technique of spraying primer on the fins before removing them from the sheet of balsa. I searched the web and can not find that article :confused:
Now my question is: do I need bare balsa wood at the root edge for fillets? Or do i need to sand off the primer where the fillits will be applied? I always create pin holes in the BT & root of fin to create glue/wood "rivets". Oh, this build is an Estes Big Bertha :facepalm: and I plan on using AT D10 :eyepop: after a few C6 flights.
Any help would be appreciated.
 
My 2 cents: stay away from that Rusto clean metal primer stuff. I have had it wrinkle under either lacquers OR enamels. We would expect it to wrinkle under lacquer, because it is an enamel-based primer. But it wrinkled under standard hardware store Rusto white enamel spray paint, and under Valspar black enamel paint. Throw the stuff in the hazardous waste disposal at the local dump, and get some Rustoleum automotive filler primer. Great stuff. Fills well in a few coats.
 
Can says to wait 24 hrs before re-coat. And I have been waiting that long before sanding, so guess I will try some on a scrap first and see the results. Shame if it won't work, seems to be working really well so far. And I haven't had to brave the cold or wind.
 
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