Craft paint: is not covering base coat question

19 years ago

We painted new cast iron trivets with a coat of semi-gloss black oil paint. These casts have raised images of bygone days scenes.

Our painter, who is applying various colored acrylics to outline the picture design in the casting, is saying that it requires two or three coats to fully cover over the black underbase.

We were unaware of this in past years.

Is there another black base type of paint, maybe flat, that would allow acrylic to fully cover in one coat?

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Comments (6)

sweets98
19 years ago
With almost all craft projects, you'll find it DOES take more than one coat and it's not just with black base coats. You can cover in one but it's not going to look as nice as it does with that extra coat.
calirose
19 years ago
Also, acrylic does not stick well to oil base. Oil can go over acrylic but acrylic shouldn't go over oil. (Think of oil floats - always on top). For longetivity, I would base coat the trivets with a primer that will allow the acrylic to adhere. Look for one that works with oil based existing paint.
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baymee
Original Author
19 years ago
This doesn't sound good. If I painted the base coat with a latex to start with, would there be less of a problem.

I can't paint the entire trivet with primer because only a certain portion is painted different colors.
calirose
19 years ago
Yes, if the base coat had been in a "flat" latex, the acrylic should have adhered. After painting, then a glossy or semi-glossy varnish could have been used.

Because you used a glossy oil base, I am not sure that even oil would adhere better than acrylic without a primer.

What I would do is to lightly sand the area to be painted, use a primer and paint with the acrylic on those areas.

Rhonda
baymee
Original Author
19 years ago
Thanks for the tips. There are 450 of these trivets, so sanding the area is too difficult at this time. The acrylic seems to hold well and these hang on a wall anyway, so they don't see wear.

The problem seems to be that when the latex dries, the water, which made up the body of the paint, doesn't leave enough solids behind to cover the black, when it evaporates. The current painter applied a gloss over the entire finished job and it looks great, however, we weren't aware up to this point that two coats were necessary.

I can recall these trivets and repaint with a flat black latex (since they are clear-coated anyway), if you knowledgable people think it will make it easier on our painter and allow a one-coat finish.

We do these every year and have been for the past 50 years and want to make life easy on our painter.

Opinions please.
sweets98
19 years ago
You most likely will still need a two coat finish even with latex basecoat. Not a whole lot of paint covers in one coat and even paint they say will cover say a wall in one coat, will look better with the second coat because you can always miss a spot here and there or not have as good of coverage in one place as the next.

I think two coats shouldn't be a problem. I have done things that have taken 3 or 4. So anymore, two is not a problem at all for me!