Best Wood Exterior Door Finish

of others. I've pretty much settled on 1-2-3 for everything...applies/flows/covers well, drys quickly and sands well.

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Reply to
dadiOH
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They don't dry fast enough or hard enough for me. Since I use oil based enamels, I don't like to put a hard resin over a soft latex product. I only use water borne on sheetrock prep for repaints because I will be putting latex on over it.

If I have heavy staining, knot bleeding, or other issues besides a simple priming on fairly clean wood, this is my preference:

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excellent product, it works as advertised. It doesn't spray out as smoothly as the first one I recommended due to its higher solid content, but it is close. While it says it is for "spot exterior use", it works fine for ext. doors, trims, cabinetry, etc.

The best thing about the BIN for me is that when it all works correctly, you don't have to sand before applying your top coats.

Spray your BIN on a large cabinet and drawers, clean the gun, go have lunch. Come back, start finish coat applications. spray your primer, wait until it is hard enough to sand, sand the project all over again to scuff it up, wipe out with a damp rag, blow it/vacuum it, let it dry 100% (since water based finishes are inherently more porous), then start to apply the topcoats.

Think of the time you save with no sanding. Add on the fact you don't have to clean the cabinet thoroughly to get any dust you will kick up when spraying. Think of maintaining your clean finishing environment because you didn't raise any dust in the air from sanding or cleaning.

Even if you shuttle cabinets, doors, or whatever you are finishing around from place to place to keep the dust down, that still requires the processes required from sanding, but now with added project handling. There is nothing like moving cabinets around in the different stages of finish only to drop one... or an entry door.... yikes! Drop it and it is toast.

Everyone has their favorite processes, and I think as long as the end product is satisfactory, it is important to use the ones you are comfortable in using. For me personally, I try to use the best technology that yields the best finish at the fastest pace.

As comment on that, I still have a colleague (read: another beer drinking contractor) that used the BM product I referenced above to repaint kitchen cabinets. He doesn't spray... he hand brushes! He has one guy that does the most beautiful job on doors you have ever seen.

They look sprayed; my brush work isn't that good, nor is my buddy's. We can't figure out what he does, but his flatwork turns out like glass. (In the cruel revenge of Karma, he can't cut a straight line to save his ass!) My buddy won't spray as he doesn't have a good spray guy, he won't invest in the equipment, tried it himself and can't get the hang of mixing and gun adjustment, and is convinced that the time it takes to isolate and tape off a room is more time than it is worth.

On occasion he has paid me to spray metal exterior doors with enamels, cabinet doors and drawer fronts for him, but he still brushes the rest of a kitchen job. It all works out... he is an older fella with a lot of older clients. Since he peddles that hand brushed business as "things done the old way, the right way" he does indeed get his price. Routinely, he gets about 15% or more than I do for the same job. No reason for him to change, right?

Just a little additional commentary on the subject.

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

I'd love to but no sprayer :(

While you and his boss are out drinking beer he hauls in a sprayer :)

Reply to
dadiOH

Damnit... I laughed so hard when I read that I almost spewed out my iced tea!

I will be sure and pass that on to my "colleague", Bill. He'll get a bang out of it too!

Seriously; you know how it look like you are doing the exact same thing someone else is doing and yet you get different results? That's me with oils. I am OK on small pieces, crown and trims, and flat panels when using a brush. But this guy can give me a complex. Raised six panel wood doors in a house? No problem. One Marlboro and a 1/2 cup of coffee a door. Worse, (or at least more frustrating to me) this guy is fast.

So one day when visiting my buddy's job site a while back, I ran into this guy and he was cleaning brushes at around 2:00 pm. We chatted a bit as I thought he was just changing colors or needed a quick clean. Nope, he was going home. I was pretty dumbstruck, and thought something was wrong at the home front. Nope, again. The rest of the job needed to be sprayed, and that wasn't his job. He did the cab interiors along with the rails and stiles in the kitchen and bath and that was it. Aren't you going to spray the doors and drawers, I asked? No he wasn't. That wasn't his job. He told me he never "learned" the spray rig (except for an airless) and didn't understand all the knobs and stuff on the gun. And no clue at all about thinning, patterns, tips or anything else. He thinks being a spray man is a subset of being a painter, but not the same thing.

Apparently he and his pals decided to spray a truck, and it was a disaster, and an expensive one at that. After that happened, no more sprayer. Ever. I told him I could walk him through the basics and even had a old gun he could use to practice his skills. He wasn't even remotely interested.

I actually think he really enjoys being the king of handwork, and if everyone knew he couldn't spray it would be too embarrassing. So he stays the king of what he knows. I was REALLY looking forward to ragging on him for his lack of spray skills, but I won't ever get to see them.

Thanks... I am *still* chuckling over here....

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

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