Priming and maximum humidity.

[muzman]

Hello All,
I am about to start painting again after a 20 years.

Googling around I found lots of articles mentioning do not prime in high humidity. My question is how high is too high?
I am a software developer by trade so tend to think in numbers terms. Has anyone come up with a percentage number that above this number you risk getting a bad prime?

I live in London in a tiny first floor flat I will have to go outside to prime. It is winter and the humidity is quite high on a regular basis.
Currently it is 88% humidity so I think that kills the chance of priming for today.

Article I found about advice on priming in cold weather. The current temperature will not be a problem.
priming in the cold (http://bigleesminipaintingblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/spray-priming-in-cold-weather.html)

It will never be extremely un-humid in London. Any advice from English painters would be great.
yearly averages for London and humidity (http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/world/city_guides/results.shtml?tt=TT003790)

[SotonShades]

I don't usually have too much of a problem priming here in the UK (Southampton), except occasionally in the summer. I think it's more a combination of heat and high hummidity that causes problems with the primers. Purity seal and other spray varnishes though will go bad at anything above 80% if you aren't really careful, so I guess that would be a good figure to base on.

[Atrocity]

While I can't speak to the weather conditions in Europe, much less Europe, there's an old guide here on BoLS I have found to be most helpful.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2009/04/hobby-primer-on-primer.html

You may have to take some of advice and throw it out the window, as you live in an area that probably doesn't see the humidity drop under 65% on a regular basis that often. I'd guess if you could get below 75% it's worth taking a shot, but you may want to try with a couple individual models first so you dont wreck an entire army.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/weather/forecast/8

^Not that you couldn't find a weather site, but yeah you won't be able to use the link in the article.

[muzman]

Thank you very much Atrocity. I guess I failed to find the bols article on priming. I must have missed the link for the bols painting and modelling tutorials.

I have fixed the link to the average humidity for London in my original post.

According to the post primer on primer (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2009/...on-primer.html) The answer is 65% is a good measure.

[crazyredpraetorian]

Another trick is to let your can sit in warm water before spraying. I usually put the can under a running faucet to get the whole can heated. This heats the paint up and helps it "flow" better.

[FastEd]

Another big thing is to not skimp on primer by buying the low grade primers. GW is alright, Testors tends to be consistent and resilient, and the Privateer Press primer has become my favorite by far.

[Defenestratus]

I live in Florida - where there is no such thing as less than 100% humidity in the summer. Getting the right primer helps a lot. I use an automotive grade primer that is simply the best stuff ever - even better than armypainter.

Its called Duplicolor sandable auto primer and it will not only make your models perfect, but it will save you quite a bit of $.