What primer to use

[Lynn Eades]

Good helpful post Tony. Thanks.

[Stew Robertson]

I find this conversation very interesting about military primers
Of all the vehicles I have worked on and sandblasted over the years I have never seen any primer on the vehicles direct from the factories
Just my conclusion and not saying that I do not use primer on a restoration

[Jacques Reed]

Perhaps sandblasting takes off all the paint before any levels can be exposed.

I have only used sandblasting on the chassis due to its size and preferred using a caustic soda and water bath to remove paint on all the other steel parts of my vehicle. This was then followed up with molasses and water immersion for rust removal. It is a slow process but thorough, and more gentle on sheet metal parts.

I can assure you as the levels of khaki/green/sand whatever paint came off after the caustic bath, the last remaining paint to be water blasted off the bare steel was either red or grey primer.

Cheers,

[Jacques Reed]

I have been using the generic term "red primer" in this thread. The actual colour of the primer I have seen is more a reddish brown.

Red lead primer was banned even in my early days at sea in the 70's but seafarers still called any primer "red lead" for many years thereafter. It was a more red colour compared to the reddish brown primer I have seen on my vehicle.

Doesn't prove vehicle paint didn't contain lead but obviously they were differently formulated paints.

[Jacques Reed]

Should have added this to an earlier posting.

Here is my roof after coming out of the caustic bath and first pressure wash.

Remains of "red primer" can be seen at bare metal level.

It took another dunking to remove all the primer.

Sandblasting would leave fine scratches in the sheet metal which many people like as they feel it give a good key for the primer. Again, personal preferences, but I prefer not to have the fine scratches and use Wattyl Super etch on the bare metal after the molasses bath and a wipe of metal prep followed by either Wattyl or Wagon Paints primer.

Cheers,

[Stew Robertson]

out of all the vehicles I have cleaned rebuilt and sand blasted I have never seen red primer here in Canada and I have done a few including sanding off paint with water sand paper finding markings even the carriers I am doing now there is absolutely no primer on any of them, also the tank that we are working on now : absolutely No primer!

[Private_collector]

I wet-sand through paint when looking for different layers. That's done prior to sending for blasting.