Primer Question

I have seen older rocket books and plans that mention nothing about priming a rocket before painting. I see this was back in the day and was wondering why primer was not used back then? Was the make up of gloss enamel paint different back then?

No... It's just that back then, everyone's rocket looked just okay, but because everyone's looked the same, no one complained. Then one day, some dude used primer and made his rocket look great. Then everyone had to match that, and so on and so on until now we all look at our rockets and only see flaws. The guy that started it all? His last name was Primer. Middle name of Krylon. It was all just a marketing scam, much like make-up for women. But now we live in a culture where average looking rockets feel inferior. It's a shame.
;-)

I was thinking that builders wanted their rockets to look like catalog builds.......I started the bulk of my rocket building in the early 80s and I think I used primer but I don't remember. All I know is my rockets never looked liked catalog models. Estes catalogs had great pictures of built models.

I only prime when the paint won't otherwise stick. Sure, my rockets don't always look the greatest, but they are still visually acceptable, and defects in painting are more due to dripping and poor applications of painter tape than anything else.

Since I usually have to mask for different colors, priming is a must. Glassine wont hold paint well and primer keeps the paint in place when I pull the tape off. Forget Krylon primer. It's toast these days. Rusto makes a great auto primer that works exceptionally well. It's even good enough when I use auto colors. My finishing jobs aren't as good as some of these perfectionist around here, but they are way better now than years ago. Even I get kudos on a good finish job now and then.....(oh dear, that Satanic Spiral is bound to cut me short on that note."

Gary Byrum said:

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That's kind'a creepy and very weird.

Well, back in the day, we mostly only had smaller motors. Primer was heavy and we all wanted our rockets to fly high, so we built light. In fact, enamel was considered too heavy by many. We used lightweight butyrate dope (man, the fumes).

If you wanted a nice smooth finish, you used sanding sealer followed by countless coats of balsa fillercoat (ah, more fumes) and sanded, and sanded. Dope stuck to that just fine, no primer needed. It was a royal pain, so no one objected to a spiral now and then.

Nowadays, if a rocket is heavy, you go up the alphabet a level, no big deal. They do look purdy now, though.

Don

bradycros said:

That's kind'a creepy and very weird.

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Oh? Do tell. Angry Launch Lug is merely a spokesman. Me, talking in the 3rd party, so to speak. And it tries to lend itself to a simple cartoon with an attitude. How is that "creepy?" We'll just let weird fall where it may, eh?

bradycros said:

That's kind'a creepy and very weird.

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Yep. Yes it is.

If you go back far enough, may have also been painting with a brush (which can be good for primer, actually). I don't think real primer is needed to adhere to paper anyway, it just sands better.

When I started Building Model rockets back in the mid 60's We didn't normally use Primer. Instead we used Balsa Filler (not Sanding sealer which is much thinner and has far less filler solids) as our conversion coating.
The stuff was a Brush-on Pactra Product made with lacquer thinner and other stuff that made is Stink to high heaven. But pretty quickly filled Balsa and Tube Spirals so we put up with the headaches and smell. The stuff sands very well and IMHO is lighter then todays auto primers. I still have a pretty good supply of the material but rarely use it due to the Smell as the better 2/3rds really notices it even used in the basement with the Paint chamber blowers on.

Today it is simply quicker,easier and with a good bit less smell to use Rattle Can spray primers to do the same job. It's really not a matter of did we use a primer-like product but rather the difference in time spent on a particular model.

Some of my very first models we built in this manor and frankly look pretty much like the models I build today. The finish just took a lot longer to produce back then.

I do agree with Czteacherman; back in the day every model did not warrent a babies butt smooth finish Nor was it necessary to clear coat everything. Some simple 2f&nc models were just built, Painted and flown the same day JUST FOR FUN. There was no internet, many of us were not affilated with a NAR Section or model rocket club and were only flying models with our close friends or alone so the look of the models wasn't nearly as important as getting in the air.
Additionally most any way a model is finished looks just fine from 15feet away!
We were at the time Obsessed with Keeping everything as Light weight as possible to get the most out of our 1/2A-C motors.

So if you wanted a red rocket did you spray red or used white first? I was looking at some old spray paint from 1983 Rusto and Kmart brands and they said recoat within 1 hour or after 48 hours.

SCIGS30 said:

So if you wanted a red rocket did you spray red or used white first? I was looking at some old spray paint from 1983 Rusto and Kmart brands and they said recoat within 1 hour or after 48 hours.

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Can't speak for everyone but I didn't base coat at the time, the Balsa Filler dried a very nice flat White so a couple quick coats of red or whatever color except yellow was all it took. Yellow back then, as it is applied today had to be done in many light timed passing coats to get a full even color coat, but was still painted directly over the white balsa filler.

Sorry the only photos I have from back then were polariods. Mostly black & white but a couple color.

Those rockets look great.