Copper Wire And Thoughts On Zinc Undercoats.

I bought some copper wire at a Melbourne flea market a few days ago. As copper is lest prone to corrosion than steel I'm going to use this for joining pieces on figures and for lances and other weapons. The ends will be easily flattened and shaped for edged points. The drawback is the wire is a little too easy to bend. But there might be another drawback.

I had a discussion with my mate, Bryan, about this and did some research: I just now read that zinc coatings, whilst fine with most metals, including steel, aluminium and lead (phew) are not good with copper! So that might be one limitation in choice of undercoats. I have been using a silver zinc spray on lead soldiers, followed by a white Games Workshop acrylic spray. If there are exposed copper items I might have to skip the zinc spray which is mostly for protecting steel but i figured it would also protect lead.

So far the issue I have had with the siver zinc anti=corrosive spray is it reacts with enamel paints, even after a couple of days apparent drying and mixes in with the enamel. that is why I now add an acrylic second undercoat.