# Benjamin Moore Advance Primer.



## zoomermp (Jun 8, 2017)

We just started using this primer in conjunction with using Advance paint as our top coat. Before we discuss this primer I wanted to let everybody know we have previously used Smart Prime by Zinsser.
A very very good primer but it doesn't play well with sprayers because it has ceramic beads in its chemical composition which there for clogged up the Pistons in all sprayers. This was not known to us immediately and we found that we had many months before our sprayers started acting up due to this problem.
No matter what remedies were considered everyone fell short because plain and simple the primer has ceramic beads in it which will clog up the machine.
We never considered Advance primer before only because it is priced at nearly $15 more per gallon over Smart Prime.
With just using Advance primer yesterday and Friday we have discovered that it seems to meet all of the criteria that we want in primer but it seems to run and sag much faster than smart Prime.
Using a 312 tip we sprayed base and case and also solid 6 panel doors.
This primer seems to want to Sag and bunch up in the raised panels of our 6 panel doors. The way that we spray doors is horizontally on saw horses then flipping them to do the other side. This is followed by taking them to a dry area inside the customer's house to have it dry at room temperature inside the house. After the doors were dried we noticed sags in the raised panels of the doors. I suppose we will have to spray them faster and possibly raise the temperature in our dry area slightly more to get the primer to dry before sagging.
We will probably use up words of 150 to 200 gallons of this primer in the next year since we primarily paint entire houses with stained woodwork. What are the opinions of you fellow painters on the pros and cons of this primer. Would really appreciate any feedback.


----------



## zoomermp (Jun 8, 2017)

I know a lot of you painters will recommend solvent-based primers but that is not a consideration in occupied houses. No matter what we do as painters we cannot completely prevent the primer from getting into the HVAC system of houses. Therefore when respecting and considering the customer it is best to go with a product that has much less odor. Therefore we are using Advanced primer and prior to we were using smart Prime


----------



## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

I would ditch the 312 for a 410, but thanks for the info! I will definitely keep it in mind.

I also did not know that about smart prime. I have considered giving it a try in the past. I guess I wont now.


----------



## zoomermp (Jun 8, 2017)

Woodco said:


> I would ditch the 312 for a 410, but thanks for the info! I will definitely keep it in mind.
> 
> I also did not know that about smart prime. I have considered giving it a try in the past. I guess I wont now.


don't get me wrong it is a very good primer with strong attributes but it does not work well with sprayers regardless of tip size.


----------



## sayn3ver (Jan 9, 2010)

What does this primer excell at? Typically primers don't easily sag. Having to worry about sags in my prime coat is a disadvantage. 

I like SW wall and wood at the moment for bare wood trim for a sprayable acrylic. Ppg fastdry acrylic undercoat and California paints acrylic enamel undercoat are very similar. Looking to try zinser primecoat/bullseye on a price concious job after coming across a review by jack Paul on it. It probably doesn't sand as good but for $15 a gallon it might be worth trying. 

Wall and wood doesn't sag and dries pretty quick. More so it sands nice. Doesn't powder like bm217 oil does but it's pretty good. It doesn't lay down as smooth as I would prefer however.


----------



## cocomonkeynuts (Apr 14, 2017)

sayn3ver said:


> What does this primer excell at? Typically primers don't easily sag. Having to worry about sags in my prime coat is a disadvantage.


IMO its not the best in any one particular category. It is an alkyd so good adhesion to many substrate and excellent holdout, other than that it's only real advantage:



> Provides a total waterborne system for Advance® Waterborne Interior Alkyd


----------



## thinkpainting/nick (Dec 25, 2012)

Aqualock dries moderately quick and sands decent
Fresh Start high hide covers great sands like ****
Wall & Wood from SW spays great dries pretty quick and sands very good
Advance primer for us sanded nice but he odor and long dry time used us off although it did Sand well.
None of the above will block stains unless allowed to dry 24 hrs and double up over stains. 
We also do allot of painting over stained woodwork. We did use SW bonding primer on a whole house doors, frames etc that were stained it did work pretty good . But again is not a stain blocker.


----------



## TrueColors (Jul 30, 2010)

I use a 210 or 208 with advance and it looks fantastic


----------



## zoomermp (Jun 8, 2017)

We found a lot of success using the Advance primer along with two coats of Advance semi-gloss on all of the doors and trim in the basement of this house. This was only Phase 1 and we still have the Upper Floor and the main floor as well as the kitchen cabinets to do with the same white color which is Benjamin Moore OC - 17 white dove. This will be our go-to primer and by the way we used an old 212 fine finish tip from tri-tech. The only downside is the cost point for this primer at present but my Benjamin Moore rep is now working on that for us knowing that we will use up to 200 gallons this year for our projects.


----------



## cocomonkeynuts (Apr 14, 2017)

zoomermp said:


> We found a lot of success using the Advance primer along with two coats of Advance semi-gloss on all of the doors and trim in the basement of this house. This was only Phase 1 and we still have the Upper Floor and the main floor as well as the kitchen cabinets to do with the same white color which is Benjamin Moore OC - 17 white dove. This will be our go-to primer and by the way we used an old 212 fine finish tip from tri-tech. The only downside is the cost point for this primer at present but* my Benjamin Moore rep is now working on that for us knowing that we will use up to 200 gallons this year for our projects.*


For jobs typically over 50gallons BM will set up job quote pricing where your dealer can buy it for ~X% less. If you had bought enough to meet my 48 gallon minimum order from me I would give you a good deal on them on top of that X% from BM. Every dealer is different though, I heard of one guy pass up a few hundred gallon job simply because he didn't want to go below a 30% margin. Pure profit anyway you look at it. Personally I think that's bonkers it just went to someone else.

The job quote pricing takes all of 5 minutes to set up btw, nothing really to work on other than negotiating a price with you.


----------



## zoomermp (Jun 8, 2017)

cocomonkeynuts said:


> zoomermp said:
> 
> 
> > We found a lot of success using the Advance primer along with two coats of Advance semi-gloss on all of the doors and trim in the basement of this house. This was only Phase 1 and we still have the Upper Floor and the main floor as well as the kitchen cabinets to do with the same white color which is Benjamin Moore OC - 17 white dove. This will be our go-to primer and by the way we used an old 212 fine finish tip from tri-tech. The only downside is the cost point for this primer at present but* my Benjamin Moore rep is now working on that for us knowing that we will use up to 200 gallons this year for our projects.*
> ...


Thank you.


----------



## Zoomer (Dec 17, 2011)

I would like to make a revision to our post on Benjamin Moore Advance primer.
we discovered that yes it is a good quality primer but it does have certain drawbacks that have made us turn away from it and go to Bin Primer.
Yes we had stated in much earlier part of this particular thread that it was not ideal in occupied homes but sometimes you have to bend a little bit.
it seems to be a far superior primer to just about anything else because it excels at two things. One, is that it holds out practically every stain that you can throw at it. Two, it bonds very well to practically every substrate that we can find inside a house.
We were primarily looking for a primer that didn't clog up our machines and dried fast while holding out all stains for wood that was previously stained and lacquered.
It still has a drawback of having a smell to it that can occupy a house if not vented properly or in our case with kitchen cabinets blocking off with plastic the entire kitchen all the way up to the ceiling and not letting any of the odor escape out of our plastic bubble inside our kitchen while we paint cabinet boxes.
I remember my father using this primer over and over again when I was a teenager and a young man.
It had a terrible odor to it and it still does but proper protection such as a very good respirator with always fresh filters will allow you to use this excellent primer that will not let you down. We will just state in our proposals that the customer will have a couple of days of inconvenience followed by many many years of a very high quality product applied in their house. Using Bin Primer in conjunction with Benjamin Moore Advance paint gives you a high quality, very durable finish.
If this system is used with a professional sprayer, our preferred choice is Tri-tech, you can achieve factory like finishes for your projects. I have enclosed pics of kitchen cabinets recently done with this system.


----------



## finishesbykevyn (Apr 14, 2010)

I'm amazed at all the taping required for such little surface area being painted. I have great success just brushing and rolling all the boxes with Advance. I do spray doors at my shop though. 
Are you running the BIN through your airless? Make sure not to blow the house up. Lol. I prefer Stix primer personally, but yes BIN probably better for tannin bleed..


----------



## DeanV (Apr 18, 2007)

It is so hard to get tannin bleed controlled with a water base.

Benjamin Moore 046 has been pretty good at blocking tannins, but not fool proof. Lousy sanding. Very soft. 

Zinsser BIN Advance (their acrylic "BIN") has done better for us, but here some mixed results out there.

Stix bonds like crazy, but no stain blocking at all.

Aqualock, no stain blocking either.

We have had waterborne lacquer primers that show bleed through in primer like crazy, even on the second coat, but for some reason they do not bleed through the acrylic top coats.

BTW, I would be very suspicious of the claim that ceramic is bad on pumps. Maybe the smart prime has larger particles, but ceramic trim paints were very popular here since 2000 and I have not heard of one sprayer issue attributed to that.


----------



## rosespainting (Mar 16, 2014)

Sherwin williams has a synthetic shellac primer. I just used it for the first time last week. I would still prefer bin (or sherwins real shellac primer), but the smell of the synthetic version dissipates quickly. Seems like a good alternative for occupied houses, where smell is a concern. It is also less money than the actual shellac primers.


----------



## ccpainting (Oct 17, 2007)

That advanced primer works great. I use it all the time. sands well to. 
https://www.stlpaintingcompany.com/


----------



## Mr Smith (Mar 11, 2016)

DeanV said:


> It is so hard to get tannin bleed controlled with a water base.
> 
> Benjamin Moore 046 has been pretty good at blocking tannins, but not fool proof. Lousy sanding. Very soft.
> 
> ...


I have an OAK cabinet job coming up. I'd really like to find a waterbased alternative to BIN. Will tannins show through a medium gray color? I know tannins show thru white.

The high-end Kilz WB primer claims to have tannin sealing properties.


----------



## finishesbykevyn (Apr 14, 2010)

Mr Smith said:


> I have an OAK cabinet job coming up. I'd really like to find a waterbased alternative to BIN. Will tannins show through a medium gray color? I know tannins show thru white.
> 
> The high-end Kilz WB primer claims to have tannin sealing properties.


I don't usually have any problems with tannins on oak doors.
What are you top coating with?


----------



## Mr Smith (Mar 11, 2016)

finishesbykevyn said:


> I don't usually have any problems with tannins on oak doors.
> What are you top coating with?


Advance semi-gloss in a gray color.


----------



## Zoomer (Dec 17, 2011)

DeanV said:


> It is so hard to get tannin bleed controlled with a water base.
> 
> Benjamin Moore 046 has been pretty good at blocking tannins, but not fool proof. Lousy sanding. Very soft.
> 
> ...


you guys hit upon some excellent points. We have used Bin synthetic Shellac. It's decent but doesn't hold out everything, doesn't sand as well and takes forever to dry. Stix is great but doesn't hold out any stains and takes awhile to dry. Smart prime is great but clogs up sprayers. We used it exclusively for two years and had our Graco and Tri-tech sprayers clog. Reps from both companies agreed. BIN is 42 per gallon out the door, dries super fast, holds out ALL stains, bonds very well, stinks for a short period. We concluded that if BIN dries so fast and we don't have any downtime for every man waiting for it to dry, then it(BIN) also saves many hours of labor time. In the end our concern is the quality of our results. Most contractors desire to have a high profit margin and a system of painting that doesn't wear them down prematurely. We believe kitchen cabinet painting done efficiently and correctly in conjunction with high quality products such as BIN and Advance reaps high rewards. Larger profits, less man hours for each project, and tons of referrals because of the factory like results. BIN is the go-to. Just make certain to factor into the estimate plenty of denatured alcohol for clean up and filter replacement for respirators more often.


----------



## DeanV (Apr 18, 2007)

We have gone back to traditional BIN for a lot of stuff as well. Still searching for the perfect waterborne primer.

I have an idea to try sometime, but not sure if it is worth the hassle of trying. Adding BleedControl 100 to Stix. I do not know if that will work on oak tannin or just cedar tannin.


----------



## Zoomer (Dec 17, 2011)

I forgot to mention that we have also tried aqua lock which is a decent primer but as well takes forever to dry and doesn't sand out or hold out stains as well as BIN


----------



## Zoomer (Dec 17, 2011)

DeanV said:


> We have gone back to traditional BIN for a lot of stuff as well. Still searching for the perfect waterborne primer.
> 
> I have an idea to try sometime, but not sure if it is worth the hassle of trying. Adding BleedControl 100 to Stix. I do not know if that will work on oak tannin or just cedar tannin.


We to continue to look for the perfect waterborne.


----------



## Mr Smith (Mar 11, 2016)

The local Cloverdale paint sells a quick dry oil based primer. I'm not sure I want to go in that direction. You also can't brush and roll it.

That said, it would be easier on the airless sprayer than BIN. Using Bin you have to change hoses and use a ton of denatured alcohol (or ammonia) to run through the sprayer. It's almost like a lacquer.


----------



## Zoomer (Dec 17, 2011)

Mr Smith said:


> The local Cloverdale paint sells a quick dry oil based primer. I'm not sure I want to go in that direction. You also can't brush and roll it.
> 
> That said, it would be easier on the airless sprayer than BIN. Using Bin you have to change hoses and use a ton of denatured alcohol (or ammonia) to run through the sprayer. It's almost like a lacquer.


I don't think you need to change hoses. Maybe after a couple of years of continually using hundreds of gallons of it but we've never had to change hoses when we've used Bin.
I remember father used hundreds of gallons of it through his Graco Ultra back in the day and I don't think he ever changed hoses after a short period of time. Key as well as myself have run denatured alcohol through it and then flush it out thoroughly with water and then store it with mineral spirits. It is then good to go for your next project whether it's water-based oil or a shellac product.
of course with lacquer products we've always switched to a different set of hoses since it presents a problem of leaving little bits and particles of material in the hose which gets contaminated into the next product that are you are spray painting.
Haven't used cover stain in the past it is something that is not desirable since the odor of an oil based primer can linger for many many days. The shellac based products have an odor that will only linger for a couple of hours rather than days.


----------



## Zoomer (Dec 17, 2011)

finishesbykevyn said:


> I'm amazed at all the taping required for such little surface area being painted. I have great success just brushing and rolling all the boxes with Advance. I do spray doors at my shop though.
> Are you running the BIN through your airless? Make sure not to blow the house up. Lol. I prefer Stix primer personally, but yes BIN probably better for tannin bleed..


.in the end it's really not a lot of work to do all of this masking. What is a lot of work is continually going back over surfaces that have been brushed and rolled since they will never ever be able to look as good as those that have been spray-painted. our main goal is to have the customer look at the cabinets and say to themselves that it looks like a factory finish on every painted surface. This can usually only be obtained if it is spray painted. Since every job is something that we want the customer to be proud of and recommend to their friends and colleagues we consider prep work for masking to be essential and just part of the professional way for the factory like finish.


----------



## finishesbykevyn (Apr 14, 2010)

Zoomer said:


> .in the end it's really not a lot of work to do all of this masking. What is a lot of work is continually going back over surfaces that have been brushed and rolled since they will never ever be able to look as good as those that have been spray-painted. our main goal is to have the customer look at the cabinets and say to themselves that it looks like a factory finish on every painted surface. This can usually only be obtained if it is spray painted. Since every job is something that we want the customer to be proud of and recommend to their friends and colleagues we consider prep work for masking to be essential and just part of the professional way for the factory like finish.


 I do agree that the sprayer has a nicer finish. However in a lot of these kitchens I do, there is so little area to paint after the doors are off. I find the the Advance levels off so well that it almost give a spray like finish. It also means that my client has use of thier kitchen, I have minimal garbage created ( which is important to me). 
However I have definitely pulled the sprayer out on more technical looking stuff. Like the kitchens with very fancy trims etc. where brushing would be very painful and time consuming.
Curious though, are you just spraying boxes with an airless? I just find it aggressive and always leaves little spits everywhere. I may consider getting a AAA unit..for this purpose.


----------



## Zoomer (Dec 17, 2011)

finishesbykevyn said:


> Zoomer said:
> 
> 
> > .in the end it's really not a lot of work to do all of this masking. What is a lot of work is continually going back over surfaces that have been brushed and rolled since they will never ever be able to look as good as those that have been spray-painted. our main goal is to have the customer look at the cabinets and say to themselves that it looks like a factory finish on every painted surface. This can usually only be obtained if it is spray painted. Since every job is something that we want the customer to be proud of and recommend to their friends and colleagues we consider prep work for masking to be essential and just part of the professional way for the factory like finish.
> ...


 I can see how spray painting for a small area would be a pain in the ass. However when we have had such small kitchens that there's no getting around it we've had to brush and roll I like to use straight oil because it allows for a brushless and roller less finish.
my favorite oil is the Benjamin Moore super spec DTM. To answer your question about Spitz with the airless, no we don't have spitting that's left on the boxes. We use TRI-TECH sprayers and they're fine finish tips. I usually use a 210 or a 212 to achieve a factory like finish.


----------

