I have a whole load of pine skirting, doorframes, window cills, pelmets, etc. to paint, and I don't much enjoy painting.
It seems that 'elf 'n' safety and environmental concerns have encouraged most manufacturers to change to water-based paints. After much deliberation, I purchased some Ronseal KnotBlock Wood Primer & Undercoat, and some Ronseal Diamond Hard Wood Paint in Pure Brilliant White Satin.
I started applying the Ronseal primer/undercoat using the recommended synthetic brush. The paint dragged and was very difficult to brush out smooth. I was painting bare pine. I asked Ronseal whether I could thin the paint for the first coat. They said I could thin the paint with up to 10% cold water (although thinning the paint isn't mentioned on the tin, or on Ronseal's website). The thinned paint was a bit easier to apply, but it was still hard work.
I encountered several problems:
- The paint dries quickly - much too quickly - on the brush. The drying paint causes the shorter, outer bristles of the synthetic brush to twist & curl, making the brush look like it's having a bad hair day. Washing the brush out in water every 15-30 minutes seems to be the only way of resolving this.
- The drying paint quickly causes the brush bristles to clump together. This makes it very difficult to paint curves or mouldings because instead of the bristles fanning out evenly over the contour, the brush simply splits into two or three clumps, thereby missing much of the surface. Again, washing the brush out in water every 15-20 minutes seems to be the only way of resolving this.
- I keep getting tiny lumps in the paint. At first I thought these lumps were actually in the paint. Now I think they are small pieces of partially-dried/hardened paint dropping off the brush bristles, even though I wash the brush clean every 15-20 minutes. I have resorted to lightly rubbing down the paint between coats to remove these lumps.
The cause of these problems appears to be that the paint starts to harden within the brush bristles very quickly and the process of adding more paint to the brush as the painting proceeds does not stop this hardening process. I never experienced any of these problems with spirit-based paints.
Maybe I need to change my technique, or maybe this is as good as it gets with modern, environmentally-friendly, water-based paints - I don't know.
I would welcome any advice or comments before I become totally pi$$ed off and abandon the project.
Maybe someone could recommend a better make/type of paint for wood that does go on smoothly and doesn't require the brush to be washed out every few minutes (a friend has suggested Dulux Trade paints)?
Thanks