# why did my spray paint crack in certain areas on my metal door



## twigg (Sep 15, 2011)

Hello all me and hubby need some help. We bought a steel entry door and are trying to paint the door and sidelights red. We bought a enamel from sherwin williams it brush paint it. Well it turned out really ugly finish with brush stokes and you could just nick it with your fingernail after a week of drying, so we decited to strip and sand the door back to the finished primer and bought a spray rust-oleum paint. So we made our own paint booth and sprayed a primer first on the front and back( cause we kinda took some off when we stripped it) and lightly wet sanded it turned out a beautiful finish, then we sprayed white on the back of the door, once again a beautiful finish, so tapped off the back and was ready to spray the red,(after we lightly wet sanded the primer) first coat beautiful, then waited proper amount of time to do a second coat, and now in certain areas the paint looks cracked...my question why did this happen??? We once again tryed sanding the cracked areas and re sprayed it and it cracked again....what did we do..the back while turned out so beautiful the first coat of red turned out beautiful but why did the second coat crack...going to try and upload some pics to show...once again what do we do??


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## Paradigmzz (May 5, 2010)

Water under an oil based = fail. Too heavy of coats equal fail as well. The answer is in our picture, see the orange peel? You applied this product much too thick and it skinned out on top, trapping a wet layer of paint below, and as the wet layer dried, the dried outer layer shrunk down and left the problem in which you now face. Sand it down, again. NO wet sanding! THEN apply a thin SINGLE pass of paint and move on. 


With that being said. This is a Professional Paint contractors website and we recommend you talk to the store in which you bought your materials. There are many reasons this and many other issues could happen, prep, technique and application being the biggest contributors to yours and many other DIY problems. This thread is going to be closed soon and I hope my input will help you determine the value of using a well seasoned paint contractor in areas like this from now on.


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## DeanV (Apr 18, 2007)

Thanks for posting on PaintTalk.com. The Moderators of this forum would prefer if you post Do It Yourself related topics on our sister site www.DIYChatroom.com 

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