# 2 coats primer on poplar?



## STAR (Nov 26, 2010)

Working on new build with poplar base, trim, doors etc. I'm using SW premium wall and wood primer with BM Advance satin top coat. Everything is getting sprayed, 1 coat primer and 2 coats finish. The finish is smooth like glass, but I can see the wood grain showing through the finish. 

It seems to me a second coat of primer would help, but I priced this job 1 and 2 finish. Is this common with poplar or would another brand of primer be more efficient? I would like to stay waterborne so no cover stain or oil underbodies. Any suggestions or does this require a two coat primer system for top results?


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## CApainter (Jun 29, 2007)

STAR said:


> Working on new build with poplar base, trim, doors etc. I'm using SW premium wall and wood primer with BM Advance satin top coat. Everything is getting sprayed, 1 coat primer and 2 coats finish. The finish is smooth like glass, but I can see the wood grain showing through the finish.
> 
> It seems to me a second coat of primer would help, but I priced this job 1 and 2 finish. Is this common with poplar or would another brand of primer be more efficient? I would like to stay waterborne so no cover stain or oil underbodies. Any suggestions or does this require a two coat primer system for top results?


I was always under the impression that primers were only designed to be applied at one coat, followed with multiple coats of a finish paint as needs.


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## Wildbill7145 (Apr 30, 2014)

GC I work with exclusively uses poplar trim and doors. I always just do one coat Bullseye 123 and two top coats.

Just reread your post. Are you saying you are seeing wood grain after the finish coats are applied? Absolutely I see them after the primer, but it always goes away after even one coat of BM Regal Select. Second coat always looks beautiful. Never had to oil prime and the GC would freak if I told him I wanted to.


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## STAR (Nov 26, 2010)

Wildbill7145 said:


> GC I work with exclusively uses poplar trim and doors. I always just do one coat Bullseye 123 and two top coats.
> 
> Just reread your post. Are you saying you are seeing wood grain after the finish coats are applied? Absolutely I see them after the primer, but it always goes away after even one coat of BM Regal Select. Second coat always looks beautiful. Never had to oil prime and the GC would freak if I told him I wanted to.


Yes after two top coats. It looks good from far, but when you observe from say 4" away you can see the grain. Never mind I can see some lines from the milling process. In my opinion 1 coat of primer hasn't properly sealed the substrate. I guess I could try another primer such as Zinsser 123 or maybe Aqualock, but the SW primer has had great reviews from other pros.
All products are sprayed unthinned with a 210ff tip for trim and 310ff for doors. Actually the doors are a dark colour and that makes the grain even more apparent.


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## Jmayspaint (Mar 26, 2013)

Wildbill7145 said:


> GC I work with exclusively uses poplar trim and doors. I always just do one coat Bullseye 123 and two top coats.
> 
> Just reread your post. Are you saying your seeing wood grain after the finish coats are applied? Absolutely I see them after the primer, but it always goes away after even one coat of BM Regal Select. Second coat always looks beautiful. Never had to oil prime and the GC would freak if I told him I wanted to.




The thing is, Advance telegraphs the slightest imperfections. It's not like Regal or other acrylics 
That will hide some things just by there nature. Advance reveals all, accentuates it even. 

I guess your thinking another coat of primer as a sanding base so you can better smooth it out? That might work somewhat, but the Wall&Wood doesn't sand that great. I guess another coat might help just by virtue of having a thicker acrylic film to hide the grain. The Advance certainly isn't going to do it unaided. 

What I've been doing with Advance to better hide grain patterns and such is wet sanding the first coat. It will absolutely slick down smooth as a baby's butt and level with some 400 grit and water. Evens the film out for the top coat to go on. I did that on a set of wood cabinets last week and the finished film on the doors looks almost like laminate. 

That's a lot of work though. It's one thing to do that on cabinets, another for a whole trim pack. 

A note on wet sanding Advance is I have noticed it softens the film quite a bit. How I like to do it is let the first coat dry till it's good and set up, maybe 3-5 hours then wet sand. Wait the rest of the 16 hour period before top coating to allow the first coat to harden back up.


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## stelzerpaintinginc. (May 9, 2012)

Jmayspaint said:


> The thing is, Advance telegraphs the slightest imperfections. It's not like Regal or other acrylics
> That will hide some things just by there nature. Advance reveals all, accentuates it even.
> 
> I guess your thinking another coat of primer as a sanding base so you can better smooth it out? That might work somewhat, but the Wall&Wood doesn't sand that great. I guess another coat might help just by virtue of having a thicker acrylic film to hide the grain. The Advance certainly isn't going to do it unaided.
> ...



After wet-sanding, what is your process for cleaning the wood before the final topcoat? Forced air or vacuum yields insufficient results, which means I usually wipe after with many rags. I don't use tack cloths if I wet sand. Wanted to know if there is a better way.


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## Jmayspaint (Mar 26, 2013)

stelzerpaintinginc. said:


> After wet-sanding, what is your process for cleaning the wood before the final topcoat? Forced air or vacuum yields insufficient results, which means I usually wipe after with many rags. I don't use tack cloths if I wet sand. Wanted to know if there is a better way.



Yes, I just wipe it down thoroughly with clean water after sanding. I try to get all the sanding residue off before it has a chance to dry.


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## epretot (Dec 17, 2011)

It's the young growth poplar. Hard to hide that grain. 

Try white pigmented shellac next time. The water based primers accentuate the problem.


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## gabe (Apr 20, 2012)

I have used Lenmar water based lacquer undercoater, u can really build up the mills.are u sanding the wood before priming?


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## slinger58 (Feb 11, 2013)

STAR said:


> Yes after two top coats. It looks good from far, but when you observe from say 4" away you can see the grain. Never mind I can see some lines from the milling process. In my opinion 1 coat of primer hasn't properly sealed the substrate. I guess I could try another primer such as Zinsser 123 or maybe Aqualock, but the SW primer has had great reviews from other pros.
> All products are sprayed unthinned with a 210ff tip for trim and 310ff for doors. Actually the doors are a dark colour and that makes the grain even more apparent.


I think of those as "planer lines" and something that the carpenter should sand out prior to turning it over to the painter. As far as the grain showing, I don't think double coating primer is going to help much. Short of grain-filling, using a lower sheen of finish is about all that can be done to cut down on the visibility of the grain, IMHO.


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## allaboutfun (Apr 2, 2015)

STAR said:


> Yes after two top coats. It looks good from far, but when you observe from say 4" away you can see the grain. Never mind I can see some lines from the milling process. In my opinion 1 coat of primer hasn't properly sealed the substrate. I guess I could try another primer such as Zinsser 123 or maybe Aqualock, but the SW primer has had great reviews from other pros.
> All products are sprayed unthinned with a 210ff tip for trim and 310ff for doors. Actually the doors are a dark colour and that makes the grain even more apparent.


How about going to a 312? You should be able to load type primer more heavily with poplar.


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## STAR (Nov 26, 2010)

gabe said:


> I have used Lenmar water based lacquer undercoater, u can really build up the mills.are u sanding the wood before priming?


My BM dealer has mentioned this product, but it sounds like your suggesting multiple coats? On this particular profile of trim I sanded the sharp 90* corners prior to priming as poplar is very smooth.



slinger58 said:


> I think of those as "planer lines" and something that the carpenter should sand out prior to turning it over to the painter. As far as the grain showing, I don't think double coating primer is going to help much. Short of grain-filling, using a lower sheen of finish is about all that can be done to cut down on the visibility of the grain, IMHO.


Don't know who's responsibility the planer lines are, but I would point to the lumber company for better quality control. My beef with the carpenter is a gazillion nail holes to fill and installing damaged pieces, but that's another story.



allaboutfun said:


> How about going to a 312? You should be able to load type primer more heavily with poplar.


I did try a 312ff tip...same results.


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## gabe (Apr 20, 2012)

There are products in which you can almost spray one pass, wait a few min and hit it again and u almost get two coats. Dry fall and lacquer work like that. If you build up the mills it will fill in quite a bit of the grain.


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## slinger58 (Feb 11, 2013)

STAR said:


> Don't know who's responsibility the planer lines are, but I would point to the lumber company for better quality control. My beef with the carpenter is a gazillion nail holes to fill and installing damaged pieces, but that's another story.


Not wanting to beat a dead horse here, but it's up to the carpenter or GC to use a finish quality wood product. I think I'm a decent painter, but I'm not a miracle worker. :thumbsup:


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## dyneser (Jul 26, 2011)

Maybe your being to much of a perfectionist? Chances are no-one but yourself will ever notice it unless its really bad of course. I know my eyes are automatically drawn to things i know aren't 100% perfect that would never be noticed by anyone else. you could drive yourself crazy for nothing. Just my 2 cents!


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## PACman (Oct 24, 2014)

I use a lot of trim pieces to make sheen samples of the paints I sell. Almost all of the trim out there is nasty when it comes to planer lines and ripples. Even the factory primed is crap. I need to prime and sand the crap out of it just to make a decent semigloss sample. Recently I gave up on Home Depot, Lowe's, and Menard's and went to a local lumber yard (Probuild) and the quality difference was incredible. And it was less then a 5% difference in price. I would think saving that much labor and providing a superior finished product would be worth paying 5% more, but the builders can just pass that labor expense on to the painter so why would they splurge? If they want it perfectly smooth and they are buying the cheapest trim they can find, I wouldn't want to eat the expense of the extra labor.


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## stelzerpaintinginc. (May 9, 2012)

gabe said:


> There are products in which you can almost spray one pass, wait a few min and hit it again and u almost get two coats. Dry fall and lacquer work like that. If you build up the mills it will fill in quite a bit of the grain.



From my experience, unless you account for additional sanding between coats, adding more product isn't very effective in hiding grain. Applying by brush will help more than spraying, but still pretty ineffective.


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## DrakeB (Jun 6, 2011)

It might be worth a shot swapping to a different primer if you're really wanting it to be perfect. Not sure what your feelings are on Fresh Start... it's not lovely to sand, but if you work with it, it may help a bit with hiding that grain.


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## ExcelPaintingCo (Apr 16, 2011)

217 is our go to poplar primer. Good old-school oil doesn't raise the grain like a waterborne. 

We don't attempt to completely remove 100% of the grain. 

I don't mind wood looking like wood, as long as it looks good.


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## PremierPaintingMa (Nov 30, 2014)

ExcelPaintingCo said:


> 217 is our go to poplar primer. Good old-school oil doesn't raise the grain like a waterborne.
> 
> We don't attempt to completely remove 100% of the grain.
> 
> I don't mind wood looking like wood, as long as it looks good.


+1 ExelPaintingCo,
I use 217 BM As ExelPaintingCo said, easy to sand and will make the finish coat silky. Special Thanks to Gough.


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