# Painting Masonite ColorLok siding?



## Gough (Nov 24, 2010)

I was approached by a potential client who wants the exterior of her house painted. The only problem? It's sided with Masonite ColorLok siding, which was supposed to never need painting. 

Anyone here had to deal with this? My inclination is to wash it down, scuff it, apply an acrylic bonding primer, and paint it.


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## ReNt A PaInTeR (Dec 28, 2008)

Don't use acrylic primer. go with oil.

Some masonite siding will leach oils into the primer if you use a latex, so, to be on the safe side, it's best to use an oil.


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## stelzerpaintinginc. (May 9, 2012)

ReNt A PaInTeR said:


> Don't use acrylic primer. go with oil.
> 
> Some masonite siding will leach oils into the primer if you use a latex, so, to be on the safe side, it's best to use an oil.



Respectfully disagree. Acrylic is needed for the elasticity from expansion/contraction cycles occurring.


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## stelzerpaintinginc. (May 9, 2012)

Gough said:


> I was approached by a potential client who wants the exterior of her house painted. The only problem? It's sided with Masonite ColorLok siding, which was supposed to never need painting.
> 
> 
> 
> Anyone here had to deal with this? My inclination is to wash it down, scuff it, apply an acrylic bonding primer, and paint it.



I've done a few in the past. I found very little info that was useful, so my opinions on it aren't fact, but ya, we washed, sanded thoroughly, acrylic bonding primer, acrylic topcoat. 

I'd just make sure every inch of it has been scuffed to some degree. It's been known to peel easily when the sanding step was skipped, (although most of those horror stories were before the really good advancements in paint with respect to their adhesion abilities). 

BTW, this is the 1st question I've ever seen you post...and it barely even counts, since you already knew the answer.


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## Gough (Nov 24, 2010)

RAP and Troy thanks for the responses. I haven't seen the job, but from what the client has described, it sounds mainly like fading from the sprinkler system using our "aggressive" water, but she did mention some discoloration that sounded a little like Wax Bleed. I'm used to seeing that in the traditional hardboard siding, but hadn't seen it in ColorLok. I'll keep an eye out for it.


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## stelzerpaintinginc. (May 9, 2012)

Gough said:


> RAP and Troy thanks for the responses. I haven't seen the job, but from what the client has described, it sounds mainly like fading from the sprinkler system using our "aggressive" water, but she did mention some discoloration that sounded a little like Wax Bleed. I'm used to seeing that in the traditional hardboard siding, but hadn't seen it in ColorLok. I'll keep an eye out for it.



I've used liquid sanding de-glosser for wax bleeds in a situation like that. Rag goes right in the trash after to avoid cross-contamination. Don't ask me how I know.


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## paintpimp (Jun 29, 2007)

Looked at this situation a lot over the years. Masonite can exhibit wax bleed. You clean and must oil prime. The wax will do what wax does to water and a water based primer will not hold. Paint with your regular house paint after oil prime.


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## Gough (Nov 24, 2010)

paintpimp said:


> Looked at this situation a lot over the years. Masonite can exhibit wax bleed. You clean and must oil prime. The wax will do what wax does to water and a water based primer will not hold. Paint with your regular house paint after oil prime.


Have you see that on ColorLok? I know the regular HB was prone to it, especially in darker colors.


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## journeymanPainter (Feb 26, 2014)

I've never run across anything like this before so I did a quick Google search and came across this

http://www.ehow.com/how_7634012_paint-colorlok-siding.html

Site looks a little basic to be taken as gospel but from what I could see on my phone it aligns with what stelzer is taking about


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## paintpimp (Jun 29, 2007)

Gough said:


> Have you see that on ColorLok? I know the regular HB was prone to it, especially in darker colors.



Saw a lot of it in colorlok, especially the dRk blue color


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## stelzerpaintinginc. (May 9, 2012)

paintpimp said:


> Looked at this situation a lot over the years. Masonite can exhibit wax bleed. You clean and must oil prime. The wax will do what wax does to water and a water based primer will not hold. Paint with your regular house paint after oil prime.



It's my contention that an acrylic primer will hold just fine, provided a quality acrylic topcoat is applied at proper mils, and a satin-gloss, (or something with more sheen than a flat), is used. If you can provide a noteworthy source that recommends ONLY an alkyd primer on Colorlok I'd love to read it. The few cases I've heard about wax bleeding through acrylic primers turned out to be insufficient millage applied, or perhaps sufficient millage, but a flat was applied.


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## paintpimp (Jun 29, 2007)

stelzerpaintinginc. said:


> It's my contention that an acrylic primer will hold just fine, provided a quality acrylic topcoat is applied at proper mils, and a satin-gloss, (or something with more sheen than a flat), is used. If you can provide a noteworthy source that recommends ONLY an alkyd primer on Colorlok I'd love to read it. The few cases I've heard about wax bleeding through acrylic primers turned out to be insufficient millage applied, or perhaps sufficient millage, but a flat was applied.


http://www.sherwin-williams.com/hom...in-discoloration/sw-article-dir-waxbleed.html


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## paintpimp (Jun 29, 2007)

stelzerpaintinginc. said:


> It's my contention that an acrylic primer will hold just fine, provided a quality acrylic topcoat is applied at proper mils, and a satin-gloss, (or something with more sheen than a flat), is used. If you can provide a noteworthy source that recommends ONLY an alkyd primer on Colorlok I'd love to read it. The few cases I've heard about wax bleeding through acrylic primers turned out to be insufficient millage applied, or perhaps sufficient millage, but a flat was applied.


Area I used to live had predominately ColorLok siding. Had to visit a lot of job sites where someone coated over colorlok without oil prime. It would form bubbles in areas. I would peel back the bubble and apply water and it would still bead up. Wax rejects water.


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## stelzerpaintinginc. (May 9, 2012)

paintpimp said:


> Area I used to live had predominately ColorLok siding. Had to visit a lot of job sites where someone coated over colorlok without oil prime. It would form bubbles in areas. I would peel back the bubble and apply water and it would still bead up. Wax rejects water.



Your source was for hardboard siding, not Colorlok siding.


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## paintpimp (Jun 29, 2007)

Colorlok is hardboard.


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## Gough (Nov 24, 2010)

paintpimp said:


> Colorlok is hardboard.


I think Troy was referring to the fact that the SW page showed "traditional" HB siding, not ColorLok.


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## stelzerpaintinginc. (May 9, 2012)

paintpimp said:


> Colorlok is hardboard.


Yes, I understand that, but the term, "hardboard", is a very general term which could be describing a huge variety of products. Technically, Melamine is a hardboard, but I wouldn't follow general recommendations for hardboards if I had to paint it. 

I don't doubt you've seen your fair share of failures from Colorlok, and I also don't doubt that your recommendations for using an Alkyd primer would yield sufficient results, (at least short-term). What I take exception with is people using absolutes saying that their recommendations are the ONLY way to do something, especially when those recommendations cannot be substantiated by product-specific technical data, (specific to Colorlok, not hardboards in general). I'm about tapped-out with this debate though.


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## paintpimp (Jun 29, 2007)

Feeling same way


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## DrakeB (Jun 6, 2011)

Also, if we want to look at general "hardboard" and go off of that- some latex primers say they work fine for hardboard, for example, Benjamin Moore Sure Seal. It's hard to comment on the ColorLok specifically- after the whole clust**** and lawsuit, I'd honestly recommend people just take it off (even though that's not what they want to hear) and replace it with a product that's not terrible. If they're having issues, they might also want to consider signing on to the class action lawsuit to get money to replace it with something not-terrible.


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## Gough (Nov 24, 2010)

DrakeB said:


> Also, if we want to look at general "hardboard" and go off of that- some latex primers say they work fine for hardboard, for example, Benjamin Moore Sure Seal. It's hard to comment on the ColorLok specifically- after the whole clust**** and lawsuit, I'd honestly recommend people just take it off (even though that's not what they want to hear) and replace it with a product that's not terrible. If they're having issues, they might also want to consider signing on to the class action lawsuit to get money to replace it with something not-terrible.


It's a honkin' big house, otherwise I'd give them my HardiPlank sales pitch.

I thought the deadline for signing on to the lawsuit had passed.


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## DrakeB (Jun 6, 2011)

Gough said:


> I thought the deadline for signing on to the lawsuit had passed.


It may have, it has indeed been a while. Hardi or LP seems to be the smart way to go these days. I don't mind aluminum, either. I hate vinyl, though I get why people use it.


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## Gough (Nov 24, 2010)

DrakeB said:


> It may have, it has indeed been a while. Hardi or LP seems to be the smart way to go these days. I don't mind aluminum, either. I hate vinyl, though I get why people use it.


I checked online and it looks like the deadline to join the class was in 2008.

We've become fans of Hardi/CemPlank. As I've posted before, I have yet to see paint failure on properly-installed Hardi, and that's on projects going back 20+ years.


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## ReNt A PaInTeR (Dec 28, 2008)

paintpimp said:


> Looked at this situation a lot over the years. Masonite can exhibit wax bleed. You clean and must oil prime. The wax will do what wax does to water and a water based primer will not hold. Paint with your regular house paint after oil prime.


Gough would never listen to Rent A Painter or Paintpimp. :whistling2:


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