Exterior shed painting advice...

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angelboy

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I've put together a shed with rough-sawn tanalised timber cladding. It's been weathered for well over 6 months so today I started the job of painting it.

I bought some Barn paint from Premium Paints (Paintmaster paints) thinking I could just pain straight onto the wood as I've read you can with Bedec but after a quick call to Paintmaster they advised a primer first then the Barn paint.

I trundled off to Screwfix for some primer, saw the dark grey stuff - £20 for 2.5ltrs, bought it and painted an entire side with it. The coverage was half as much as it said on the tin, which I accepted with the timber being pretty rough so I trundled back off again to buy some more. I saw they had 5ltrs for £25 so bought that instead, reasoning that I might just be able to stretch it out for the rest of the shed. When I got home and opened it up it was WHITE!



So off the internet to see if white primer is an issue when painting black over it. It's pretty inconclusive and all I found was model makers or car sprayers that say that you either need to tint the primer to match the top coat or buy a dark primer for a dark top coat.

Does this still matter for exterior wood?

So I thought about sticking some of the black barn paint in with the white primer to make it grey BUT one is an acrylic water based paint and the other a oil based paint so no luck there! It was then that I'd realised that the dark grey I'd bought was actually undercoat and not primer! Argh!

So, I have an entire side painted with an undercoat on tantalised timber - it looks fine to me, covered well, but if I paint over it with the barn paint am I asking for trouble?

Also, the white primer, can I paint over it with black?

What I don't want to do it prime it white, then paint it with a grey undercoat then paint it with the barn paint! The whole point for the barn paint in the first place is because it was supposed to be no nonsense - like I really do not see farmers messing around with several coats of paint on their agricultural buildings!

So, I'm now waiting to contact Leyland paints tomorrow morning to ask if it's OK but what are your thoughts?

I'm not looking for a pro-job that will last 25 years - I just want to paint it black with something that is supposed to pretty substantial in the first place!
 
Spoke to Leyland and they reckon to paint the rest of the shed with the primer, then undercoat, then the Barn paint.

The section I've already undercoated they reckon to give it another coat.

I'll follow their advice but it's a bummer when I thought it was only going to cost £30 for the Barn pain instead of more likely to be £95+ for it all in!
 
I've painted several wooden buildings with the water based barn paint, never bothered with a primer or underfoot. It lasts really well on sawn and rough timber not so well on planed timber. Though the planed was on the outside of my beach hut, which is pretty exposed.
 
I’ve never used barn paint before so thought calling the manufacturer might be the best option. On the bedec stuff it says it can be painted on direct but typically for the stuff I’ve bought they say a primer. I ended up paying £30 for 5ltrs which I thought was better than £55 for 5ltrs at toolstation. Had I known that my stuff then needed £25 of primer and £40 or undercoat plus 3 entire applications then I wouldn’t have bothered!!!

Will it be better in the end?

Who knows as I’ll not have a frame of reference to compare it to!!!!
 
I know this is likely not much help to you at the moment but it may assist someone else.

I used this stuff on my pressure treated softwood fence panels last year.

https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/pr ... eservative

I sprayed on two coats with one of those pump action garden sprayers. I also didn't get anywhere near the coverage rate the manufacturer stated but that was likely my fault, I was very generous with it.

The sprayer made the job really easy on the rough timber but as the product is oil based it was a bit messy. Full curing took about a week in the middle of summer but again that may have been my fault for slathering it on.

14 months on and the fence panels look as good as when I sprayed them. On the whole I was very impressed with the product and will definitely use it again in the future.
 
It's probably to late to help you now but I clad a large building with feather edge boards and painted them with bedec barn paint no need for primer and after 2 years the result has been excellent.
 

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