painting grooves in T-111

[ben]

I'm starting to stain my house. It has T-111-like siding (mine is 4" OC grooves). Before I got outside I'm staining new panels that will replace some old ones.

The only thing I could figure out to paint the grooves well was to use a small brush and paint each groove by hand. I had to go over each one several times in order to get the bottom and each side of the groove covered. It was wrist-breaking work, and I'm now scared of painting the whole house this way.

Any suggestions? I'm willing to consider a sprayer, but my searching has suggested that you still have to go over the grooves with a brush even after spraying. And the prep for spraying would be a lot more.

Ideas welcome! Thx

[ransley]

With a 1 1/4" roller I did mine mostly with the roller since its thick, but some brushing is needed. With spraying no brush is needed, prep does take time but spraying is fast, but you need zero wind so using a rental can be an issue if you get it home and wind kicks up, unless nothing else is nearby. With oil stain in what I thought was no wind I stained my car 60 ft away, luckily I caught it before it dried and hand cleaner worked to clean the car. Actualy I screwed up a few cars another time, and it cured hard.

[Rudy]

They make a foam "roller" thats actually sort of flat (think Pizza cutter) and is intended for corners. That should work fine in the grooves

[ben]

Oh yeah, I know what you're talking about. That's a great idea.

Thanks to ransley too. I tried a 3/4" nap roller thinking it would do it. I didn't realize they had a 1 1/4" one. I'll look for that too. And I'm still willing to consider buying a spray setup.

[norminn]

Well....there is a nice sprayer for small jobs, made by Preval. It has an 8 oz. bottle and the air can screws onto the top of the bottle. It might work and be slightly less tedious than brushing. It has a small spray pattern, so drift isn't horrible. Keeping a brush handy, you could spray two or three grooves, and brush them out. You would need to thin it, instructions on the can agree with most paint I have used. The one "big" project I used them for was a four-panel louvered closet door. It was really slick for that project. I keep one or two handy for small projects and hobby stuff. I painted my range hood, primer and Rustoleum enamel, with very nice results. They spatter once in a while, but much less than regular spray cans, and with less drift.

[Red Green]

ben wrote in news:00e3bc3a-80de-4d6d-98d2- [e-mail]:

Should you end up going with a sprayer (not promoting it's a good or bad idea), I can tell you my experience with this siding.

With me it was paint. Maybe a totally different situation.

The siding I did was extreeeeemely dry from neglect. To the point it had all the hairline cracks. I had to prime, obviously, then paint. I chose to spray since we were talking prime+paint+paint. That's a billion dips and brush strokes.

Siding this dry HAD to be back brushed since spray will not penetrate/fill/cover as I learned. Even so, I found the sprayer cut the time enormously even on the back brush coats. Eliminates dipping. Sprayer type was the head on a long hose to a supply in container/pump on the ground. Sprayer head in left hand and 4" brush in the right. Fortunately a single story home.

Maybe someone who did the spray/brush thing with stain can comment. I never used stain in a sprayer so I have no foresight even on obvious problems.

[ben]

No doubt. I'm cutting off the bottom 20" and putting up new because it sucked up water and rotted. I'm fully staining the pieces before they go on and am covering the edges and tongue/grooves. I'll stain the new cut edge on the house too before I put up the flashing.

I don't think the panels on the house were edge stained. And I know the panels on the house weren't installed correctly so that they have some space between the flashing and the edge. That's where the siding is it's worst.

[tom CLOSE]

replying to Rudy, tom CLOSE wrote: thanks good idea