Thread: Want to paint a pine tallboy white, need help

One problem that often arises with painting pine is seepage into the paint from the knots. They need sealing with knotting which is nothing more than french polish. Shellac dissolved in meths.

Go to bunnings and get a can of zinzer stain block. Get the shallac based one. It is a white primer that blocks the wood from showing through your paint. It is really good stuff.

Blind leading the blind but here are a couple of examples of my own experience:

http://lumberjocks.com/projects/96235

http://lumberjocks.com/projects/96237

The first example I used an Ikea paint thinking it would match the original - it turned out to be little more than a glaze and after a zillion coats I then coated it with minwax wipe on poly and it turned it yellow... live and learn so don't do that!

The latter used a good quality acrylic primer and enumerable coats of a good quality acrylic top coat (both sprayed). Much better result but by no means perfect (perhaps partially due to that period of really hot weather we had).

I have put a great deal of time into the painting of pine, there are many claims of success but I take them with a grain of salt.

Another project of mine made use of the "rustic" nature of pine and allowed the grain to show through, just an antique varnish - definitely NOT what you are looking for me thinks.
http://lumberjocks.com/projects/96915

Originally Posted by kallii

Could someone please advise on what paint or product i need.

I would go for the primer of Zinzer. I would then follow this up with Dulux Aqua Enamel (or similar water based enamel) in a semi gloss. I painted a bedhead last weekend using this method (actually without the primer as it was already painted) and got good results.

You do need to be careful with the aqua enamel if you want to get a good finish. I would avoid a paint brush and go with either a foam paintbrush (you can get a pack of 5 or 6 from the reject ($2) shops) or a roller. In my experience the aqua enamel doesn't have the same wet flow as the oil based enamel and the brush marks do not settle out upon drying as well. To get around this the paint can be thinned slightly with water to assist in getting it to sit flat when dry.

With the bedhead I stupidly applied the first coat, straight from the can with a brush. The paint did not settle down and I had very noticeable brush marks. Fortunately I was able to keep the painted surface flat and applied 5 or so thinned down coats that enabled the paint to level out and sit on the surface before drying. If you need to do vertical surfaces you obviously wouldn't thin the paint as much. The results were very good and looked very much like a sprayed finish. I did apply quite a few coats (a lot to get rid of the initial brush marks) but as it was drying quickly it was possible to get 2-3 coats on in a day and given that the paint was thinned it didn't use too much.

I have never had much luck with oil based enamels. I find they take ages to dry, difficult to clean up equipment and when I have used white it tended to yellow over time. The aqua enamel if handy as it dries quickly, easy to clean up, but you do need to be careful to get a quality job. It would be worth practising a little to get the hang of it before moving onto the final item.