spray or brush my wood windows

16 years ago

I'm having a bit of trouble with my current painters. I am renovating a 4,200 sq ft house, and have contracted some guys to paint the interior. I have always handpainted (rolled, brushed, etc) on our last 6 renovations. These guys are really insistent on using an airless sprayer to paint my new windows. I've only seen this done in mass construction - not custom high end renovation jobs. Am I being too fussy -- which is better - brush paint wood, double hung, simulated divided light windows or use a spray gun??? We're talking about 30 windows.

I wasn't thrilled with their uneven spray of my ceilings either and asked them to roll instead - so this is becomming a tense issue on the job.

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (4)

paintguy22
16 years ago
Well of course the sprayed finish looks the best if done correctly, plus it is usually faster. Ceilings usually get backrolled after the paint is sprayed on, not just sprayed and left to dry. I spray whenever I can on renovation/remodel jobs just because the end result is always better with a sprayer.
Michael
16 years ago
We brush every window we paint in our paint shop and we paint more windows than most painters want to see. Currently we have 67 on the line being painted. A Corona Edge brush and Pro Classic by SW(when done professionally) looks as good as sprayed.

Some painters spray because they can't brush. That's a fact.

Michael
Related Discussions
Painting interior trim: brush or spray?
Q
Comments (4)
I would go with latex. I don't use much Pittsburgh, but I am sure they have a premium acrylic paint. You just need to be sure you buy their top line paint. I would use BIN on the sills or an acrylic bonding type primer. BIN would be safest because it sticks the best and will kill stains, but it stinks. A conditioner is a good idea if you are worried about the paint drying too fast. It depends on how fast you can move and how good of a painter you are. Dynaflex 230 is a fine choice for caulk. You do not want to use that for filling holes though. Caulk is only for filling gaps between two pieces of wood. For the holes, you can use any shrink free type of spackling, preferable something lightweight so that it sands easily, but definately do not use Red Devil and any type of product that says it is has a vinyl component. I just use the tinted drywall mud for filling holes. I leave a very small mound of it on top of the hole to account for the shrinking and then when dry, sand it flush. And, when I say small, I mean really small....so many DIY'ers when using this technique lay so much spackling on top of each nail hole that they end up having to sand forever. I don't think it is realistic to to just pick up a sprayer, practice on a few doors and then spray your trim with good results. The trick to really great spraywork is that you want to put the paint on heavy, but not so heavy that it runs and sags. Finding that zone can take years of practice. Some people can pick up a sprayer and learn it pretty quick though, but I just think this is a very small percentage of people. If you have natural great hand-eye coordination, then maybe you can do it. It's very hard to fix paint runs.
...See More
Spray on vinyl over wood?
Q
Comments (3)
All I can do is go by my experience with painting/finishing wood. I had never heard of thei process until now. Sitting here thinking about it raises several warning flags. The first being I have never heard of it before. The second is how does the applier prepare the wood for coating with vinyl? simply spraying on the stuff would allow the peeling paint/deteriorated wood to cause problems with adhesion. Incorrect adhesion will cause bubbling vinyl and sagging. Third, how is the transition between the trim and the siding made? Just terminating by cutting/taping/whatever along the trim/siding joint will allow weather/moisture to have access to the trim---which will eventually cause adhesion problems---and so on. There are probably many more gotcha's, but I did not think much more about the method, as the first three gotcha's were sufficient for me.
...See More
Brush or Spray Can
Q
Comments (2)
I recently tried using spray satin urethane on some new cabinet doors I made for my kitchen remodel, and I simply could not get as smooth a finish as was on the existing, professionally sprayed cabinets. I was also going through a lot of cans. I bought a quart of the same urethane that I was spraying from cans and tried to brush it on: terrible results. I next tried a really fine nap roller to roll it on: terrible results. I finally used an inexpensive sprayer that I hooked to my compressor and thinned down the urethane with about 15% mineral spirits. After trying at several spray settings, and doing a little sanding between light coats, I finally found that I was able to get a result that was almost indistinguishable from the existing cabinets. An HVLP setup would have produced better results, but I didn't want to spend the 100's of dollars necessary for such a system, and, as sierraeast points out, you need practice. If I had a lot of area to cover, I might invest in an HVLP setup, or farm it out, but I've gotten good enough with my little sprayer that I'm satisfied. And using cans of liquid finish is a lot cheaper than burning through $7 dollar spray cans. Below is a link to the sprayer I used. It looks pretty basic, but it's easy to use and very easy to clean, and you can see that it has quite a few high ratings on Amazon. One last tip: make sure you have a place that's pretty dust-free where the finish can dry. Here is a link that might be useful: Critter spray gun
...See More
Feedback on cabinet painting-spraying and brushing
Q
Comments (4)
sis2two, my existing golden oak boxes were spray-painted in place and my new maple doors and drawer fronts were spray-painted in their shop. Yes, they're both sprayed, but the woods are different and while the maple and MDF are smooth as can be, you can still see the grain on the frames if you look closely enough. Nevertheless, it doesn't matter. Even though the difference is technically discernible, the eye misses it, or at least mine does. Although my doors are full overlay, there's a lot of old box showing, esp. between the corbels of my peninsula overhang. Anyway, although the circumstances of our cabinet differences, um, differ, I don't think you're really going to notice the the few areas where you have brush painted adjacent to sprayed. My cabs are also warm white.
...See More
paintguy22
16 years ago
You know it is sort of a shot in the dark telling people what to do sometimes on these forums. We have no idea what kind of painters you have on your job. Maybe they aren't very good with the sprayer or the brush and maybe they are...how can we know? A lot of painters out there are just bad and they get by working for clients that just don't notice a bad paint job. Sure you can brush the windows and have them come out like a sprayed look...but I think you have to be a pretty good painter to do that. And then you have the guys that spray all the time and get big sags and all their work is rough because they don't understand overspray or they go too light because they are scared of getting sags so you end up with a pinholed finish. So if we don't know the painters then I guess there can't be a right answer. Maybe this would be a good time to check references or actually see some of their sprayed work? I know that may not be possible.
lovetorenovate
Original Author
16 years ago
thanks for the replies... i probably should have checked these guys out more thoroughly - we're at the end of our budget and the price was right (and they came highly recommended from the trim guys i love).... i'm sure you know how that goes. i wasn't thrilled with their spray work so far, so i think i'm gonna insist on brush for the windows.

spray or brush my wood windows

Comments (4)

paintguy22

Michael

Related Discussions

paintguy22

lovetorenovate
Original Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

spray or brush my wood windows

Comments (4)

paintguy22

Michael

Related Discussions

paintguy22

lovetorenovateOriginal Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

lovetorenovate
Original Author