I am about to paint an exterior door with a gloss dark green and the label says use Charcoal Undercoat .
Are undercoats just topcoats or are they specifically undercoats .? What I'm trying to understand is can I just use Charcoal Gloss or do I need to look for a Charcoal Undercoat .?
Stuart
Undercoat is usually the same resin base with a higher pigment loading and no glossing agent, so it dries matt.
The reson for specifying charcoal is to get good obliteration of the previous colour and allow you to use fewer coats of gloss.
A far as I can see if you've got gloss you can just use it. You can paint without undercoat if you don't mind more coats, but I wouldn't do that onto bare wood.
If you have to buy paint anyway then there's no point in not using the right undercoat - its a bit harder than gloss and may give you a bit more chip resistance.
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