Mill Glaze

Painting new wood it easy…right? Well, it does not have to be scraped and might not need cleaning. But there is a step that most people do not know, and it is an important one. When wood is cut the blades used to cut it creates Mill Glaze, which is a thin layer of glaze. The glaze is not a stable substrate to apply primer. Therefore in order to ensure that the paint does not fail, the glaze must be sanded off. In the picture below you can clearly see where I stopped sanding.

I did a job a few years ago on some clapboards. It still looks great. Except for one side. The boards on it are newer than the rest of the house and I suspect that the boards were not the pre-primed and whoever stained them did not remove the mill glaze.

Mill Glaze

Painting new wood it easy…right? Well, it does not have to be scraped and might not need cleaning. But there is a step that most people do not know, and it is an important one. When wood is cut the blades used to cut it creates Mill Glaze, which is a thin layer of glaze. The glaze is not a stable substrate to apply primer. Therefore in order to ensure that the paint does not fail, the glaze must be sanded off. In the picture below you can clearly see where I stopped sanding.

I did a job a few years ago on some clapboards. It still looks great. Except for one side. The boards on it are newer than the rest of the house and I suspect that the boards were not the pre-primed and whoever stained them did not remove the mill glaze.

Mill Glaze

Painting new wood it easy…right? Well, it does not have to be scraped and might not need cleaning. But there is a step that most people do not know, and it is an important one. When wood is cut the blades used to cut it creates Mill Glaze, which is a thin layer of glaze. The glaze is not a stable substrate to apply primer. Therefore in order to ensure that the paint does not fail, the glaze must be sanded off. In the picture below you can clearly see where I stopped sanding.

I did a job a few years ago on some clapboards. It still looks great. Except for one side. The boards on it are newer than the rest of the house and I suspect that the boards were not the pre-primed and whoever stained them did not remove the mill glaze.

Mill Glaze

Painting new wood it easy…right? Well, it does not have to be scraped and might not need cleaning. But there is a step that most people do not know, and it is an important one. When wood is cut the blades used to cut it creates Mill Glaze, which is a thin layer of glaze. The glaze is not a stable substrate to apply primer. Therefore in order to ensure that the paint does not fail, the glaze must be sanded off. In the picture below you can clearly see where I stopped sanding.

I did a job a few years ago on some clapboards. It still looks great. Except for one side. The boards on it are newer than the rest of the house and I suspect that the boards were not the pre-primed and whoever stained them did not remove the mill glaze.

Mill Glaze

Painting new wood it easy…right? Well, it does not have to be scraped and might not need cleaning. But there is a step that most people do not know, and it is an important one. When wood is cut the blades used to cut it creates Mill Glaze, which is a thin layer of glaze. The glaze is not a stable substrate to apply primer. Therefore in order to ensure that the paint does not fail, the glaze must be sanded off. In the picture below you can clearly see where I stopped sanding.

I did a job a few years ago on some clapboards. It still looks great. Except for one side. The boards on it are newer than the rest of the house and I suspect that the boards were not the pre-primed and whoever stained them did not remove the mill glaze.

Mill Glaze

Painting new wood it easy…right? Well, it does not have to be scraped and might not need cleaning. But there is a step that most people do not know, and it is an important one. When wood is cut the blades used to cut it creates Mill Glaze, which is a thin layer of glaze. The glaze is not a stable substrate to apply primer. Therefore in order to ensure that the paint does not fail, the glaze must be sanded off. In the picture below you can clearly see where I stopped sanding.

I did a job a few years ago on some clapboards. It still looks great. Except for one side. The boards on it are newer than the rest of the house and I suspect that the boards were not the pre-primed and whoever stained them did not remove the mill glaze.

Mill Glaze

Painting new wood it easy…right? Well, it does not have to be scraped and might not need cleaning. But there is a step that most people do not know, and it is an important one. When wood is cut the blades used to cut it creates Mill Glaze, which is a thin layer of glaze. The glaze is not a stable substrate to apply primer. Therefore in order to ensure that the paint does not fail, the glaze must be sanded off. In the picture below you can clearly see where I stopped sanding.

I did a job a few years ago on some clapboards. It still looks great. Except for one side. The boards on it are newer than the rest of the house and I suspect that the boards were not the pre-primed and whoever stained them did not remove the mill glaze.

Mill Glaze

Painting new wood it easy…right? Well, it does not have to be scraped and might not need cleaning. But there is a step that most people do not know, and it is an important one. When wood is cut the blades used to cut it creates Mill Glaze, which is a thin layer of glaze. The glaze is not a stable substrate to apply primer. Therefore in order to ensure that the paint does not fail, the glaze must be sanded off. In the picture below you can clearly see where I stopped sanding.

I did a job a few years ago on some clapboards. It still looks great. Except for one side. The boards on it are newer than the rest of the house and I suspect that the boards were not the pre-primed and whoever stained them did not remove the mill glaze.

Mill Glaze

Painting new wood it easy…right? Well, it does not have to be scraped and might not need cleaning. But there is a step that most people do not know, and it is an important one. When wood is cut the blades used to cut it creates Mill Glaze, which is a thin layer of glaze. The glaze is not a stable substrate to apply primer. Therefore in order to ensure that the paint does not fail, the glaze must be sanded off. In the picture below you can clearly see where I stopped sanding.

I did a job a few years ago on some clapboards. It still looks great. Except for one side. The boards on it are newer than the rest of the house and I suspect that the boards were not the pre-primed and whoever stained them did not remove the mill glaze.

PSA and Some Self Promotion

Now that the exterior season is almost here many are looking to get the outside of there house painted. I try to not do a whole lot of exterior work nowadays. I am fifty-four and I work by myself. I consider myself to be in pretty good shape, but up in down ladders all day is hard on everyone and the older you get the harder it gets to recover. But that is not why I am writing this post.

When home owners hire a painter, or in fact any contractor, they expect that they know what they are doing. And, often, since home owners have little experience painting, they have little knowledge of proper painting practices.

The truth of it is that put painting on a wall is not that hard. Put paint on a brush or roller, place said brush or roller on the surface to be painted, and move it back and forth. But, making it look good is a skill.

BUT,the most important part of a paint job is the preparation. It is cleaning, sanding off old gray wood, caulking gaps in the wood, and ensuring that the wood is dry or that the surface to be painted is not too hot.

I own and often use a moisture meter and an infrared thermometer to ensure that the surface is both dry and below 90 degrees.

Even interiors have special issues that many home owners would not consider. New unpainted wood needs to be sanded to remove the mill glaze prior to being primed. Mill glaze is the result of the metal blades used to cut the wood.

Why am I telling you this? Getting a house painted can be expensive, even an interior of a home which is usually easier and less expensive than an interior can bet expensive, and finding out that the the professional that you hired did not prop properly can cost a lot of money to fix, if it can be fixed at all.

These are just some of the issues that I have seen or been told about in the past few years:

• New raw wood fence painted right after a half day of rain

• Home owner being told that the painters will not be cleaning that house because they are doing a lot of sanding

• Putting Bondo on top of wet rotting wood

• Not sanding interior trim before painting

• Not priming new sheet rock before painting

• Stripping all the paint off a house in the Fall and painting the entire house after a rainy morning (there is no way that house was dry)

• I did a job once where the previous painted caulked under all of the clapboards. This is not supposed to be done. It keeps the wood from breathing. Which can lead to paint failure and rotten wood and I am sure some other issues too.

I am not a master painter. Is that even a thing? There are many things that I do not know. Such as doing epoxy floors. My solution to my lack of knowledge is to either ask others who know more than me, if I think it is something I can do. Or, if it is something that I know I cannot do, I do not take on the job. I think a lot of painters out there have absolutely no idea of what they are doing. They believe that you do not have to prime if you get painter and primer in one. Of that painting is simply slapping pain on a wall. Or, they know what to do, and they do not care that they are ripping their customer off.

polyurethane to paint

Many houses that were built in the 1980s have natural wood trim with polyurethane. Sometimes the wood is stained. Many home owners no longer like the look. I usually have a least one job a year painting natural wood. It is a lot of work. The poly needs to be cleaned and a really good sanding. Usually the nail holes have to be filled and the sparkle sanded smooth. Then a bonding primer. Then caulking, and finally two coats of finish paint. On this job I am also removing the chair rail before painting.

Unsolicited compliment

Scrolling through my Facebook feed the other day and found this. My cousin Tony work for some years back, but had to give up painting for medical reasons. He now runs a Livery business

It is not just "Slapping Paint on a Wall"...Why all that Equipment

When I arrive on a worksite, my truck’s, which is a Toyota Tacoma, bed is usually full with equipment. I tell my customers that I like to bring all of my equipment just in case. It is easier to drag it all to the worksite, than it is to discover that the one tool I need it back at my storage.

To do a good job painting requires a lot of equipment. I am not saying that painters are on the same level as a general contractor. I do not anticipate that I will ever require a trailer to haul my equipment. But, what I bring along with me requires many storage totes and boxes.

I know what you are thinking. Doesn’t painting only require some paint, a roller, and a paint brush and small ladder. Well, yes. But that is a bit of an over simplification. if that walls were 8 feet high, there there no preparation required before painting. But, let’s face it, if that was the only type of job that there was, than there would be little need for professional painters.

Ninety percent of the equipment that I own was purchased for two reasons: The first is to get to high areas safely. The second are tools for preparation.

Working in a stairwell, might require a PiVit Ladder Tool, a Little Giant ladder, or a plank , or a combination of all three. Before I even get up on the ladder, I will need a bucket and sponges to clean, nail sets to set nails, perhaps a screw gun to set screws, putty knives to fill holes, caulking gun to fill gaps in the trim.

If there are cracks in the wall I will need to fix them, I have an entire tote full of tools to do joint compound work.

I might need to putt nails out….I have four tools to do that. Each one has a specific purpose.

Once all the cracks are fixed and walls are repaired that walls and trim will need to be sanded. I own six Festool sanders. They are great sanders wand when used with Festool extractors most of the dust is sucked up.

Thus, many customers are a bit amazed when I show up at their door with a truck load of equipment. But, once they see me get to work and noticed all the tools that I use and see how much easier each tool makes my job, they understand why we have to find a place to put all of my stuff.

Exterior Painting....Why is it so Harder than Interior?

The exterior season is just around the corner, and I have a love hate relationship with exterior work. I enjoy it because I get to be outside, and as long as the weather cooperates I usually have no issues staying really busy. This year I am starting the season with four exteriors that I could not fit into my schedule last year. The hate…well it is exhausting work. Up and down ladders all day, and if there is a lot of scraping and sanding I will be shot at the end of the day. And there is all of the other stuff that can make it so much work….

Here are the things that you should be thinking about when you hire a painter to paint your exterior work. Most of these are why painting can be so difficult in the early spring and late autumn.

• Air and surface temperature usually has be at 40 degrees or higher

  • So, if it is 50 degrees out and the area to be painted is in the shade chances are that it cannot be painted

• Grey wood (wood that looks aged) is no good, It has to be removed

  • Grey wood will not hold paint long

• The house has to be cleaned

  • A layer of dirt under the new paint will lead to failure

• As too cold is not good, most paint cannot not be applied when the air or surface temp is above 90 degrees

  • it is very easy for a dark surface to reach well above 90 degrees even when the air temp is below 90 degrees

    • I have seen temps as high as 140 degrees. Paint fries at that temp

• Moisture…this one is the worst of them all.. Especially if you live right on the water

  • The moisture level of wood must be below 10%.

  • If there is dew or rain in the morning it can often take hours for wood to dry to a moisture level that will allow it to be painted

  • A little dew in the morning on the north or west side of a building can mean no painting can be done on that day.

Keeping up with New Technologies (An Educated Painter)

My grandfather use to paint. He painted steeples. I could never paint steeples for a living. I do not mind heights, but I have my limits. The painting profession has changed very little since the time that my grandfather painted…on the surface. But in reality better paints, better prep tools, and better safety tools are constantly being developed, and I want to try them all.

I am now working on my seventh year on my own. And, I have learned that there are essentially two types of painters when it comes to new technologies. Those that refuse to try new things, and those that are eager to try anything that makes their job easier and better. I am the latter. I am not saying that you cannot get a quality paint job from those that are set in their ways, but there is so much out there that can make painting easier on the painter and home owner, and hopefully make the job last longer.

Not everything that I try work. I have a lot of equipment in my storage garage that has not seen the light of day for quite some time. There are others that are game changers. I am going to talk about a couple of these briefly,

Festool

Festool is a German tool company. Although I am not a fan of Cadillac cars, the saying about them is apropos…Festool is the Cadillac of sanders. From what I have been told all of the tools that the company makes are top notch. I have a cousin that bought one of its sanders specifically designed for autobody shops. And, anytime that I have run into a carpenter that uses its tools they have high praise for them. I use the sanders. The reason that I use them is three fold. They are workhorses, they design a sander for almost every possible situation (I will soon purchase my sixth sander) and they are clean. The sanders attach to extractors (vacuums) that turn on when the sander is turned on and turn off five seconds after the sander is turned off. The extractor sucks up almost all of the dust…99% if the entire surface of the sandpaper is in contact with the surface being sanded. This means a much cleaner work site, and a lot less time spent cleaning.

Mad Dog Primers

Mad Dog Primers are a game changer. Essentially the primers are glue like. I use this primer on exterior jobs when the surface is in rough shape, or is difficult to prep properly. Such an example would be lead paint. Whenever I run into lead paint that is a really bad state of affairs I use Mad Dog. Mad Dog can be used over glossy paint without being sanded, and it can be used with somewhat weathered wood. When lead work is done, workers have to wear Tyvek suits, and plastic has to be laid out to keep dust from contaminating the ground. So, the less sanding the scraping the better. The company also claims that its primers allow the paint job to last up to twenty years. I have not been using it long enough to verify, but I have used it on wood that was so beat up that I felt it should not have been painted. Five years later and it still looks great.

Why I Do Not Like Behr Paint

I recently did a job that I used Behr paint. As every time that I use Behr, I did not purchase the paint. The home owner bought it. I have worked for these customers before, and they are very nice people, and I enjoyed working for them very much, but by the end of the job I had had enough of working with Behr. I essentially have a policy that as long as the customer is willing to spend the time to get the paint, I will use Behr. However, I am seriously considering adding on extra labor hours when using the paint. And, here are the reasons why:

• Drag: When I cut in the ceiling and trim the paint dragged. The average person might not f drag. But, if you paint for a living you will feel it. The best way to describe it is that you have to work much harder to get a nice straight line in the cut. The paint is essentially working against you.

• Drips: When I moved the paint from the cut can to the wall drips would go all over the place. This does not happen with higher quality paints. Why does this matter to a painter. When you step off the ladder and step on the drop cloth there is a good chance your foot is going to step in wet paint, which can then be tracked all over the house.

• Drips and Sags on the Wall:. A drip is pretty self explanatory to most. A sag is like a really wide drip. I rolled out the wall and go back latter on to find drips and sags all over the place. This happens every time that I use Behr, and it is a pain to go back to fix, and I am always concerned that I am missing some. If you are a professional painter, you do not want to have to constantly going back to look for sags and drips.

• HIde: This is the ability of a paint to hide the color underneath it. Some colors have a really hard time doing this, such as reds and some yellows and oranges. I was covering a blue with a peach. This should have not be a problem, but I had to roll a third coat of the peach.

• Backrolling: This was only a problem with the ceiling paint, which I believe was Behr’s lowest quality ceiling paint. When you roll a wall or ceiling, the roller is often moved all over the place to make sure that everything is covered. Periodically a back roll is done. This is done with a dry (not a lot of paint on it) roller. The roller is very lightly rolled over the paint in a straight line. This is to get a smooth and even appearance. The Behr ceiling paint set up so fast that it was almost impossible to back roll. And, in general just rolling with it was like working with paste. It did not want to roll.

There are also some things that home owners should really think about when purchasing Behr.

• .Touch Ups: Behr paint does not retain its color very well. The few times that I have attempted to touch up with Behr it has not gone well. One time I had to repaint an entire great room because a few small touch ups stuck out like a sore thumb.

• Knowledge: The people working at Home Depot behind the paint counter know nothing about paint. They are not the people to ask about advice. Over the summer I painted an exterior with Behr. After I had gotten a big chuck of the first coat on, I took a close look at the paint I was using. The Home Depot store had given the home owner interior paint.

• Cost: The argument that I always make to customers is it really worth the cost and time to drive well out or your way to purchase a few gallons of paint that is of lower quality just because it cost $10 less a gallon

• Trust Your Painter: I did a big repaint of an entire house. Customer bought the Behr paint. He bought way too much. I could have purchased a much better paint and a more appropriate paint (they bought paint for the trim that really was not well suited for trim) for less money than what they spent on the Behr paint.

Stains

I recently painted a two car garage ceiling (pictures are below). It had a lot of stains on it. When home owners want me to fix stains, they almost always assume that I am going to use Kilz. This product has be marketed as a great stain blocker. It might block some stains, but not all. In the past it has failed to work for me. Therefore, if I am dealing with stains, I use Zinsser’s Bin. It has never failed. Bin is a nasty product to work with. I always use a throw away brush, or assume that the brush that I am using will be trashed after I am done.

Bin is a shellac based product, and has a very watery consistency. If you are doing a big job (like an entire ceiling) you will need to vent, or if it is too cold out to vent, wear a mask. I suggest using a mask for any big job with Bin. For job that is in the pictures below, I used a mask, wore long sleeves, a hat, rubber gloves, and work glasses that covered the side of my eyes. the glasses and my my gloves were covered with paint specks. Luckily I was able to clean off the glasses with denatured alcohol.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture after using the Bin. One coat did a great job at covering the stains. Sometimes, two coats are needed. But, it is important to ethat even if the stains can still be seen, the shellac keeps the stain from coming through to the latex finish coat. Only when the stain is still really noticable after a first coat of Bin, will I use a second. On this job, the Bin did such a great job with one coat, that I was able to finish the job with only one coat of flat white paint. This was a garage ceiling, so the home owner was not overly concerned with the ceiling looking perfect. If I was painting a bedroom or living room, it is most likely that I would have applied a second coat of ceiling paint.

Fixing Corner Bead on Plaster Wall

I recently finished up a new construction home. The job that was done by the the plasterers was, to say the least, sub par.  We noticed that one of the entrance ways in the kitchen had a long crack about 1 1/2 inch away from the corner all the way up the side of the entrance. This is a good sign that the corner bead is separating from the wall. When I knocked out the plaster to repair it, I found that there was no wall for the corner bead to attach. The plasters had put no blue board behind the bead board.

Durabond (a very strong type of joint compound) was put in the gap, and then fibafuse (a fiberglass joint compound tape that is seven times stronger than paper tape) was used to help ensure that the crack does not come back. It looks brand new once sanded, primed and painted.

You Must Prime! "Paint and Primer" in one wil not work

I recently painted a living room that had a few areas were the paint was failing.  One area was much worse than the rest. For this I followed my typical procedure. I got rid of all of the loose paint. and then put some spackle on area that had no paint. I must note that spcakle is really not designed for this purpose. It is more of a hole filling product. If I had more than one area that needed attention then I would have used joint compound to skim coated. But, when you want a quick turn around, on a small job, I find that spackle works well.  I use the spackle  to obtain a smoother appearance. Once the spackle  was dry, I sanded the area. When I did this more of the paint came loose. So, I once again took off the loose paint and used the spackle. This time I used a hair dryer to speed the drying time of the spackle. When I used the dryer, paint on the area below the patch was flapping (like in the wind).....more loose paint! What was going on?  I looked at  a piece of paint and found that the back of it was not white. This indicates that the walls were not primed before they were painted. Sometimes painters use tinted primer, but this was not the case.

This picture shows the backside of the paint I pulled off the wall. Behind it is pure white primer.

So, the only real solution to the problem is to take off all of the old paint, fix any imperfections that come with removing the paint, sand, prime and then paint. Most people do not want to pay for this to be done. I informed the home owner of what was going on, and why it is happening. What I wound up doing is I put a coat of primer on the failing area, put some spackle over it, sanded and painted. It is not a perfect fix, and most likely there will be an issue in the future with failing paint.

The lesson is that there is no such thing as paint and primer in one. Primer is designed to have more grip to it than finish coat paints. If you have raw wood, plaster, blue board...ect., the best practice is to prime with an appropriate primer and then paint with a finish coat.