Paint not drying

Well you have done what I would have suggested. I did find some years ago that a brand new wood window sill never seemed to dry, and nobody seemed to know why. The best guess was that something in the wood had come through the base coats and paint did not stick to it. I think we gave up, sanded it all off and used some kind of thick gloopy undercoat someone had in their garage and that fixed it. Sadly it was a while back now and I don't know what it was. So I guess it could be that the undercoat is just not sealing things properly? Brian

Which paint system and drip or non-drip?

The new water based gloss or the traditional solvent based. The latter tends to be smelly but more robust.

The former can be susceptible to frost damage in the tin which spoils its curing properties. I have had the new water based wood preservative turn into an evil green slime jelly worthy of Dr Who.

Try a patch of the paint on an inert surface and see if it will dry in a more normal environment. Best bet is wait a couple of days and cross fingers. If it is still uncured after that then I am afraid it has denatured and will never cure properly so have to come off.

First - Brian: thanks -- no, it's not the underlying wood: there are several coats of paint on this wood, it being about 50 years old by now, and indeed the undercoat cured very well.

Sec> Which paint system and drip or non-drip?

Ordinary "drip" oil-based gloss (iow: proper paint :-) ) To be precise "Dulux Professional Liquid Gloss / High Gloss / Brilliant White / For Wood and Metal". Although as I said it's a couple of years old; stored in our utility room, so has never gone as low as (say) 5 degrees.

Good idea - thanks

Agh!!! So how would I go about that? Copious amounts of white spirit and acres of cloths? (I'm glad by the way that I've only done this one small window so far, even though one coat of all those surfaces takes an hour or two.)

Thanks chaps

John

To remove, I would start with a scrapper to get the worst off, Cut up old CD's are ideal and can be used once and binned, then repeat.

Thanks Eednud - fortunately I don't think I will need to try out your idea.

I don't know if my using the dehumidifier for a few hours today helped (it certainly warmed up that smallest room, in its effort to dehumidify the toilet on which it was sitting!).

I'm assuming that the fact that there's almost no moving air in there is one reason why it has been so slow to cure. Plus the fact that the paint is old, I suppose.

Cheers J.

Hmm, might try that. I use 6mm glass, which gives me 8 sharp edges

Thats good, it would still be a crappy and messy job to remove it, a fan heater in the room might speed up the process, I would try everything before stripping it off.