When it comes to painting and decorating, prep is key! Read on, as Steve Cotton, Valspar Trade’s Senior Product Marketing Manager, takes a look at the latest technologies in preparation coatings and how they can help you deliver a top-quality finish every time.
Delivering a good job, a high-quality finish and ensuring a happy customer takes far more than just putting some paint on a wall. In fact, the preparation stage is perhaps just as critical as the topcoat itself, helping to provide a smooth and clean surface, as well as a brilliant colour and finish.
For many years, there has been a wide range of preparation products available to meet different painting and decorating needs, from traditional primers to knot blockers and undercoats. For example, a primer, as you will well know, is designed to provide a strong and reliable base for your undercoat or topcoat to adhere to, as well as helping to fully prepare and ‘fix’ a substrate, addressing any issues. While a knot blocker is a primer specifically for wood applications, whether that be skirting boards, panelling or door frames, helping to prevent seepage from knots and minimise any discolouration of the final finish. Finally, there are undercoats, used for preparing an even surface for painting and are formulated to provide an optimum surface for your customer’s desired topcoat, helping to achieve a true colour in fewer coats.
With all of this in mind, it’s no surprise that some jobs see painters and builders using all three products – and that’s before they can even apply the paint itself. Understandably, this can be a time-consuming process, especially with each individual coat requiring its own drying time. That’s why it’s good to know that there are now products available that can help you tackle the required preparation stage all in just one coat and one product, saving both time and money.
Take a combined primer and undercoat for example, perfect for jobs where you’re looking to apply a brightly coloured topcoat to a bare surface. Look for a product that can be applied to bare wood, walls or ceilings to help make your life easier. It’s also worthwhile considering a combined primer and undercoat that can be tinted to help prepare for any dramatic colour changes, as well as achieving an optimal appearance for vivid shades.
When it comes to painting over wood, consider using a primer that also incorporates a knot blocker too. As well as providing you with a smooth and reliable surface to apply the paint onto, it can help to prevent cracking, peeling or any bleed through from wood knots.
Then there is metal, a surface that is famous for requiring the right prep in order to achieve a high-quality finish. However, there are now paint products available that can make this challenge a thing of the past, such as Valspar Trade’s Direct to Wood and Metal paint. As the name suggests, it can be applied directly onto the metal substrate, without the need for any primer at all.
A high-quality, water-based formulation, it has been designed to be applied directly to bare or rusty metal, cast iron, galvanised steel, aluminium and stainless steel, as well as exterior wood and timber. As a water-based primer, products such as this have the added benefits of being better for the environment, due to lower Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), and quicker drying times, helping you complete your projects quicker. Using a water-based product also makes your equipment easier to clean and maintains a malleable, crack resistant layer with good adhesion properties for the topcoat.
To learn more about Valspar Trade’s combined primers and undercoats, please click here.
