Painting MDF Castle

[Guest]

I have made a model castle out of Mdf and not sure the beat way to paint it.

I want it to have a brick/block effect so was thinking of painting it with a paint and sand mix and score the mortor lines in. Has anybody got any tips on what i should use for paint. I was thinking a mix of pva and sand (for texture then over paint with a coloured poster paint. Would pva take to the mdf? Can i mix a paint with the sand/pva???

Tia
Lloyd

[colin m]

Hello Lloyd,

I'm wondering if poster paint will stick (long term) to dried PVA. It sounds like it's time for a bit of an experiment. Why not mix all three (just a small amount) and see what happens ? I've only ever thinned PVA with water so there's a good chance an acrylic paint (water based) will mix in with the PVA.
I have mixed PVA with a pigment (dust like powder) and real soil to make mud, as seen below. Here, the thinned PVA, pigment (colour) and dried, sieved soil were all mixed together at the same time until I got what I wanted.

[ATTACH]282913[/ATTACH]

[Guest]

That looks great colin. I have a few paints to play with. Will the (mainly) pva take to raw mdf or do u think i would have to prime and undercoat it?

[colin m]

That looks great colin. I have a few paints to play with. Will the (mainly) pva take to raw mdf or do u think i would have to prime and undercoat it?

MDF isn't my choice of material, so I'm not the best person to answer this, but I would be concerned about the MDF warping. So I think, it needs to be sealed first. Having said that, (well, typed) diluted PVA is a good way of sealing the MDF.

[col68]

Hi Lloyd welcome to the forum
I have used PVA to seal MDF before not only on 10mm+ thick sheets so not sure if thinner sheets would warp.
The other problem with PVA is that some water based paints will not cover it very well.

[dave]

I built a modular MDF castle for my son years ago. It was sealed with a 50:50 PVA:water mix. As it was a toy I just painted with a stone effect spray paint.

For scoring in blocks I would use powdered filler mixed with paint, water and some PVA to help adhesion.

[Ian M]

I make my bases from MDF as I can get off-cuts at the local stores.
PVA and acrylic paints do mix and do stick well to it. You can add sand to the mix. so go for it.
As for the lines between the stones.... Cut thin strips of masking tape. paint over them and peel them off right away....(otherwise you'll never get them off lol )