When painting any substrate, we must always begin with a clean, dirt and grease free surface. If there is mould, dirt, grease or anything else present, we must remove and clean it before we can begin applying any type of coating.

Moisture Content

When coating bare wood, first things first, we must check its moisture content. Coating wood with high moisture levels will result in product failure; loss of adhesion.  If you do not have one already, a moisture meter is a good investment to make, especially for a painting contractor. It will cost you more in the end to have to return the following year and deal with a coating issue. Typically, exterior wood surfaces should not have more than 15-20% moisture present prior to painting & 12-15% for interior surfaces.

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Priming Bare Wood

If you are deciding to paint bare wood, you should seal all knots (spot prime) with a shellac based primer. Shellac based primers are great for sealing wood knots and sap streaks. They do carry a pungent odour, but dry very quickly and will not let the knot bleed through the top (finish) coat. If you are looking to stain your bare wood, you don’t not have to seal the knots with a primer, heavily saturating the knots with stain will do.

Removing all dried up and oozing sap is a must, especially when dealing with woods such as fir or pine. After removing the sap build up, use an appropriate primer/sealer to seal in the sap affected areas.

Shellac-Base Primer

Zinsser Shellac-Base Primer

Filling in the Holes

Finally, it is time to fill in the holes and cracks and begin sanding. Use an interior or exterior grade wood filler, when filling in holes and cracks. I would recommend using a higher grade wood filler as they tend to shrink and crack a lot less. When it comes to sanding, stick with 150g – 220g sand paper. All sanding should be performed in the direction of the wood grain. Sanding across the grain will create scratches that will absorb stain and polyurethane unevenly.

Preparing your bare wood surface correctly, will allow your coating to penetrate and adhere properly. Your new wood surface will last for many years to come!

Billy Petrovski
Creative Director
The Paint People

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The post Preparing Bare Wood for Painting or Staining appeared first on The Paint People.

If you’ve ever done a DIY staining project, you know how amazing it is to see the transformation from bare to stained wood – all in an almost foolproof process.

But where things can get quite complicated and somewhat more difficult is when you try to match an existing wood stain. While you can choose any stain your heart desires for bare wood, matching and existing stain severely restricts your choices. And getting it wrong can be disastrous.

You can face a number of obstacles that add to the difficulty getting a good match, but if you know more about them, you’ll increase your chances of success.

1. Species of Wood

It might look the same, but different species of wood can have vastly different reactions to stain. Characteristics like wood density affect how the stain is absorbed – and how it looks. This is true even of different varieties of the same wood, like pine or maple.

2. The Grain

Even when you stain the same type of wood, grain patterns can be different from one piece to another. The patterns can be affected by blemishes in the wood and how the lumber was cut at the mill.

3. Humidity

The amount of moisture in the wood affects how much stain is absorbed. Drier wood absorbs more stain.

4. Lighting

If you try to match a wood stain in your living room under incandescent light, it will look different in your work room if it is lit with fluorescent lighting.

5. Stain Intensity

In addition to the moisture content of the wood, a stain’s absorption rate will be affected by how long you allow the stain to be absorbed.

Stain matching is not easy, but with practice, your results will improve.

The post The Pitfalls When Trying to Match Wood Stain appeared first on The Paint People.