Painting Poplar Like I'm a 4 Year Old

Woodshop
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So please, talk down to me. I have (roughly) zero woodworking talent, skills, wisdom, or knowledge. There are a few things I know:

  • I have a project to complete, which needs painted to a smooth, glossy finish
  • The species of wood which will be used is poplar (done been bought, can’t go back, it’s happening)
  • the sections I tested with “Behr Multi-surface Primer & Sealer” (water based, interior/exterior) raised “nibs”, so I get the impression I’m doing this wrong, or it’s going to be a LOT more work sanding than I have the impression others do.
  • I’m not spraying this. It’ll be rollered/brushed.

So I’ve read tons of advice on painting poplar to a smooth, glossy finish, and it appears to be almost religious, in that everyone has their experience, and only it is “right”. But unlike the CoLDS, nobody wants to tell you THEIR recipe. They’ll hint “use oil primer.”, “don’t use oil primer.”, “use only Zinnser primer.”, “Killz is the only primer to use.” ad nauseum, and generally in contradiction to the last thing I read.
So I guess I’m asking for more abuse. Tell me what you do to get smooth, glossy finish on poplar. Like I’m a 4 year old. Seriously. Your instructions cannot be too elementary.

Thank you for your time.

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Long, long ago …
When I needed an absolutely smooth final surface, it would take a tremendous amount of sanding. When the surface felt smooth, I would wipe it with a damp rag and let it dry. Sand the raised nibs. Repeat ad nauseum until the damp rag did not cause any nibs to stand up. Depending on the wood, it could take twenty or thirty iterations.
There is probably a better way now that we no longer hunt the wooly mammoth for dinner.

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How big is this piece and how is it assembled?

Me personally, I would use oil or Benjamin Moore Advanced after an oil primer. You can brush this using a very nice silver tip brush. But you will need to sand and tack between primer and coats. I would finish a top coat with lacquer, but you don’t need to do that.

Now if it were me, I’d spray it using BM Advanced.

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I’ve decided to take this statement personally :slight_smile:

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Does the project have to be painted? I feel like poplar is highly underrated in its natural state.

http://www.rwgiangiulio.com/ (all of the pipes are polyurethaned poplar)

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almost anytime one applies water, or water-based liquids, to bare wood it “raises the grain”. Read-up, but essentially to fix/avoid one first sand smooth, brushes or wipes on some water to raise the grain, sand again to whatever grit (220, 221, whatever it takes…), and then, like shampooing instructions, repeat once more time.

The point is that when you go to apply actual water-based product(s), the grain has already been raised enough times that it gives up in disgust. Then proceed as @Owen_Soccer22 indicates proceed with as many coats and sanding/dusting in between until you get the results you are interested in.

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Another way to smooth the wood before painting involves using sanding sealer or some type of a pore filler. Typically less sanding is involved, but this may not be workable depending on what type of paint you plan to put over the top.

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Haha … ‘Mr. Mom’

“Honey if you call, I’ll ether be at the gym or the gun club”

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Wanna beer?
It’s 7 o’clock in the morning…
Scotch?

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If the project is relatively small and flat, etc. you can use tinted 2-part epoxy. But anything over a couple of square feet would be really expensive.

something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ_w75D486c

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What Chris said. You can use sanding sealer, filler, or a light cut of shellac.

I suggest sanding to about 150 or 220 grit. wet the surface with water and allow to dry. Sand smooth again. Coat the entire piece with 1 pound cut shellac using a high quality brush. If the shellac has any brush marks in it when it dries, thin the shellac a bit with denatured alchohol. Sand to final finish, prime, and paint.

Great thing about shellac - everything sticks to it, and it sticks to everything.

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Yes, as long as it isn’t too old. If using canned shellac, it is best to test it on a scrap piece. Old shellac doest dry it just gets gummy. Good shellac should dry to the touch fast, no more then 30 minutes to an hour.

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Please don’t. Your class was about:

  • not breaking DMS equipment
  • not breaking other people when attempting to use DMS equipment
  • not breaking myself when attempting to use DMS equipment

My lack of practical, participatory learning is no reflection on your teaching.

It does. Not because the wood isn’t beautiful, but because it has to be painted.

about 500’ long, 6" tall, with brads (I reckon that’s a dead give-away of WHAT it is, too! :smile: ) Honestly, this is my first time working with poplar, but it’s a popular wood, so I figure this should be a learning experience. So far, it is. More than I bargained for…

Cool, but I think we skipped a step of the magic juju with ‘an oil primer’. Just any old oil primer? Because my experience shows that I WILL find a way to screw that up. There are SO MANY “oil primers” out there, and I am gifted with wrongchoice.

I’m really straining my painting knowledge here, but I’ll stab at it: does sand and tack mean sand with sandpaper, then wipe clean with a tack cloth? Or does this somehow involve the tack one is supposed to wait for before applying the next coat? I think the former, or the sand doesn’t really make sense…

Cool. This kind of thing makes me start to wonder why people DO woodworking…

I’ve wondered about this, but I hear these products tend to be soft. This is likely to get abused more than I care to know, so that makes me a little leery of using such products underneath. No experience to draw on, there, to know if it “really matters in this application”. The top coat will likely be standard issue interior house latex paint. Sometimes I think it’s called “enamel”, but I don’t think it is REAL enamel. (again, ignorance of paint chemistry rears it head; I have never been able to grasp when things are CALLED something that they aren’t REALLY, at least in a traditional sense, and the paint industry, it seems to me, is rampant with such things).

Excellent! Thank you for the elaboration.

No problem there. Any shellac I have, will be fresh off the store shelf (where it may have sat, so good to know if it’s not behaving!)

Thank you each of you who posted to share your experience!
Now to learn by doing…more sanding than I care for, it would seem.
Thank you!

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500 feet is lot, is it molding?

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Winner winner chicken dinner. :smile:

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moulding with a “u” right?

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LOL.
Yep. I hope it stays that way…

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And here I thought it was a pigmy goat fence… :clown_face:

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SO is this going to be baseboards? If that’s the case, don’t do any sanding. I thought you were building a fine furniture piece. Put Kilz oil primer on(this will keep the grain from swelling like water-based). Make sure it’s the low odor kind. Then you can put 1 or 2 coats of acrylic enamel (water clean up). That should give you a nice finish and just choose your sheen you want.

All the shellac or sanding filler is way over kill.

EDIT FOR STEPS:

1.) purchase 1x6x10’ or 12’ lengths.

2.) lay boards put on saw horses or aff the ground.

3.) Prime face and edges with KILZ (or any equivalent) Low Odor Oil Primer.

4.) Dry overnite

5.) Put 2 top coats of acrylic enamel(water-based) in desired sheen

6.) Use a stud finder to find verticals

7.) Measure, chop and set by air-nailing 15 or 16 gauge 1-1/2” brads into vertical studs.

8.) Fill brad holes with no shrink spackling

9.) Touch-up spackled holes with top coat.

10.) After setting 500 lineal feet of base, get a 12 pack or a bottle of 21 year old Scotch and nurse your aching!

11.) This should give you months of attaboys from your better half!

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This goes back to that “learning experience” thing, though. Sure, from ~5’6" away, the finish isn’t so important, but I have an opportunity here to learn what to do (when) if I choose to use it for something where it IS important.

I think this

precludes that…
Crappy “let’s see if I can learn to do this” furniture, maybe. This is kind of that…

I imagine before these guys are in, I’ll have tried at least 3 of these techniques…

You might think, but right now my better half is pissed that we didn’t know more about wood and what it would do when painted… :confounded:

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