What primer?

[Brewerpaul]

I've got my hull planks on my Pride of Baltimore II (first planking attempt). Sanded the planks then added Minwax color change filler. OK, quite a bit of filler 😉. This sanded out nicely so I think I'm ready for a primer to seal the hull and to reveal any remaining defects.

What kind of primer do you folks use? A rattle can would be nice but I'm willing to brush it on if that's better. Would something like Kilz shellac primer be a good choice?

 

[Canute]

Tamiya Fine Primer in a spray can works well, goes on thin. It has fine size pigment. House paints are coarser, since they're formulated for covering parts of your 1 to 1 scale house.

 

Make sure to mask the vessel so you don't spray paint where you don't want it to go.

[wefalck]

The choice of primer will also depend on what paint you are going to use later. The two should be compatible.

[Nirvana]

There are great acrylic primers as well.
However, I used Rustoleum white primer on my Bluenose before airbrushing with Vallejo paint. No problem for me.
Yes, the primer gave the surface the feeling of a fine sandy beach, but after using a 400 grit sandpaper the surface was good for painting.

[Brewerpaul]

I already had a can of shellac based water stain primer so I gave it a try on a small, isolated part of my current ship. It went on nice and smooth,leaving a very fine sandpaper feeling surface. I hit this with some 400 grit sandpaper as Nirvana suggested,dusted it off, then applied the craft store acrylic I plan on using. The results were terrific. I think the bit of "tooth" provided by the primer actually helped the paint go on smoothly. I'll post results once I do the entire hull.