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Do we need primer to paint plastic milk jugs?

Asked by mhleeatcoxdotnet about 1 year ago, 2 answers.

My class wants to paint plastic milk jugs with themes, but we're not sure if we need to pre-paint the jugs with a base coat or primer before painting with acrylic or whatever. Can anybody help?

Answered by hollyberry on Jan 30, 2008, 07:12PM
6 answers

acrylic will paint straight onto plastic, as it is plastic based itself .. it paints onto most things actually happy
Just try not to water it down too much.

Answered by dtxbrian on Feb 02, 2008, 09:45PM
35 answers

Ooh, painting milk-jugs... what joy... and it's not going to happen.

Nothing that's really going to last, anyway. Primer prep or not.

The rub is that milk jugs are high density polyethylene plastic. Without getting into incredibly complicated chemistry, a chemical bond with polyethylene plastics is for all purposes impossible. Which leaves you with only a mechanical bond as the option. Basically, anything you put on the milk jug, including super glue and epoxy and the like is going to come right off. The surface is almost like Teflon (and is actually chemically related.)

Sorry... just no good way to do it.

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