How To Paint A Carousel Horse
How To Paint A Carousel Horse
A. SANDING AND SMOOTHING (not necessary on our Ready-To-Paint Carousel Horses)
1. We do a LOT of horses so we use an orbital sander with #60 sandpaper; however, if you want to, you can use a Dremel® or do it by hand. Some of the bumps and angles are supposed to be there to replicate the original artists carving, so do not go nuts with the sandpaper.
2. We also use a cutting knife to trim off some of the bigger seams.
3. After we trim and sand, we use a torch (yes fire!) to lightly melt down the rough edges. You have to be careful not to heat too much and melt the resin. I really enjoy doing this part, but if you are a little nervous, you can always use finer sand paper. It is just going to take a LOT longer. We use a big propane torch, but I have seen small butane torches at Wal-Mart or Kmart etc.
4. We use an orange filler that we buy at Wal-Mart in the automotive department to fill small holes. Recently we tried using spackle (I found a neat little applicator tube with a sponge head at Wal-Mart the other day, and it works great). You can also use Bondo®, but it really stinks! All these fillers need to be sanded smooth when they dry.
B. PRIMING (not necessary on our Ready-To-Paint Carousel Horses)
We use an aerosol primer and prime the horse everywhere. This also helps smooth out the horse somewhat and fills small holes.
C. BASECOATING
We use a waterbased latex to basecoat the horse. The basecoat is main color of your horse. If you horse is white, the basecoat is white. If brown, brown, etc.
D. PAINTING
We use waterbased latex to paint the strapping and do our artwork. You can use oil paints, acrylics, or just about anything else that will stick to your basecoat.
E. FINISHING SPRAY
We use a waterbased clearcoat to seal the horse because waterbased does not yellow like oil based clearcoats can.
Whew! That's it.