Pine Window & Door Casing Question

[Dan Aims]

Hi everyone, I am new to forums (But a lurker) and was hoping to get some advice from the community.

I am redoing to window and door casing in our place. We ended up buying about 1000 LF of RB3 profile unprimed pine 3 1/4 boards (finger joints) for the whole house. I wanted to see what everyone recommended to do for prepping for paint. We are probably going to go with traditional white paint.

I have an airless sprayer I was thinking about using to prime before painting. But with the new types of paints out there that include primer and sealer not sure if the extra step in needed.

Advice would greatly be appreciated. ;)

[Peter Quinn]

New types of paint? If you are talking about the stuff advertised by big boxes as "primes and paints in one" that stuff IMO is meant to placate cheap lazy homeowners that would rather not buy two gallons of paint and would rather not apply three coats of paint. Paint and primer do different jobs in a different order, so don't mix them together and expect much in terms of results. Prime......sand.....prime.....paint....paint...enj oy!

[Tom M King]

Primer sands a lot easier than paint. Here's what I do: spray it all with Zinser bullseye 1-2-3 latex primer or SW Wood and Wall, sand it with fine sanding sponges, tack it, spray the first coat of finish-something like SW Proclassic enamel making sure to get the edges finished, put it up after the walls have been finished and painted, putty holes with Elmers nail hole filler, sand nailholes until you only see where the hole was-don't leave a blob surrounding the hole, tape with blue fine edge masking tape to a good break line on the trim-don't shoot nails behind where you are going to put this tape, use the cling-on wall masking around the openings masked with regular blue tape to the fine edge blue tape, and spray the finish coat. By painting the edges of the trim and walls first, you end up with a perfect transition that no painter can match, and have no cutting in to do.

For ease of the perfect fit of trim to walls, never put head joints in sheetrock at window or door openings.

I've had two architects tell me that I'm the best finish carpenter that they've ever seen, but they didn't understand that I was also the painter, and probably the best caulker they had seen.

[Mark Wooden]

Definitely prime-all sides!- before you trim; even better, apply one light coat of finish color(after sand, prime and sand) or have the paint store tint your primer to your finish color. No holidays that way.

[Dan Aims]

Guys thanks so much for the insight! I have a lot of trim to finish, have to see if I can figure out what the best method to get it all done. I have a low end airless sprayer and a higher end one. I was thinking of using the low end one to get the primer on. Probably use floetrol to thin down the primer to make it smoother and easier to shoot.

I figured the primer and paint was just a marketing point. I used primer and paint for the bathroom walls so the extra step is ok with me so long as the job is as good as possible.

So I will be picking up some Zinser for the primer (SW is way too over priced even with there bogus 50% sale). One thing I am not quite understanding is the sanding aspect of what everyone mentioned. So once I prime, I should sand all the molding using what sort of of fine finish sanding sponge? So primer normally get spotty or why should I sand? Just trying to get an understanding here.

One other question tom, you mentioned after sanding to tack it, could you elaborate on that?

Thanks so much for all the feedback so far!

[Mark Bolton]

One other question tom, you mentioned after sanding to tack it, could you elaborate on that?

Thanks so much for all the feedback so far!

Just a term to remove dust from sanding. It can be done with a tack cloth which is cheese cloth impregnated with an adhesive to catch the dust. Overkill. Just wipe it down with a lightly damp rag. Afterall, its just latex.

[Jason Roehl]

You have to sand after priming because priming bare wood will raise the grain, and that will telegraph through the finish coats, definitely to touch, and perhaps visibly. I almost always prime first, then fill holes, sand, clean (damp rag), then caulk. No need for Floetrol in the primer with an airless sprayer, Floetrol is for brushing purposes. (I'm a pro painter...)

[Dan Aims]

Any pointers on the sanding aspect? What grit should I use? By hand or use a palm sander? I have about 1000 linear feet of colonial molding to get done and sprayed. I am trying to also think about how to lay the trim so I can spray all sides as mentioned.

Jason I used floetrol with the primer after being told it would help with thinning the primer down which would in turn put less wear on the airless sprayers tip. This is of course because primer tends to be thicker then paint.

[Mel Fulks]

You can use the sanding sponges. Do it yourself ,if you hire a kid to do it he will complain about what a tough job it is
because he is sanding it ALL OFF! You just want to quickly remove the rough fuzz.