My daughter wanted a desk for her room and my MIL gave us an old one that she had in storage.

I stripped and sanded it  and it looked pretty good and I felt it was properly prepped for prime and paint.

Now, I don't know much about all this and don't know anything about paint. Since my wife and daughter were picking out the paint colors, I said just get what ever the paint store recommends for what we are doing.

I am using a LVLP (low volume/low pressure) spray gun and it seems to be working pretty good.

The problem I have is that after two coats of primer I am getting color bleeding through.

Am I using crap primer? Wrong type of primer?

Any advice about what I should do next?????????????

Set on fire?

Thanks.....

Pics

Primer and paint. Desk is going to be white and have (not my choice ) pink drawers.



Desk and drawers before:





After stripping and sanding:







After two coats of primer:



The drawers don't look too bad.

Use Kilz primer.

That was my thought also but like I said, I don't know much about paint.

Is that compatible with what I have already used and the paint that I have?

"Oil" based Kilz. Basically a clear shellac is what you are looking for.

Pine knots, Mahogany, and the Oak family of woods will bleed through latex paints and primers.

A couple of coats of clear shellac will prevent the oils from bleeding into the paint.

I guess I'm off to the paint store. Thanks.

shellac or kilz

(Kilz has shellac in it iirc)

either will work.  Kilz oil base is a pita to clean out of your spray gun if you go that route.  Shellac cleans up with alcohol.

Good luck!

You already got good advice what to do for the issue.

First, if you are a true amateur, you need to consider woodworking as a hobby!  You sanding job from the pics posted is top notch and VERY impressive!  I will say this- you did such an awesome job sanding that desk, it would have been beautiful stained!  Almost a mortal sin to paint it!  Plus you didn't have to go that far sanding if you were just painting it.    

Second, as an amateur here is a little "why" versus "what."  They gave you a latex primer, which is water based.  The second it hits the surface, it can raise grain.  It also will always let the surface remain porous and, thus, will allow some moisture movement inward and outward from the wood.  That means you don't want to cover it with something like the oil paint you have, as it will result in trapped moisture which means paint that will eventually (may take decades in some cases) fail in some way.  When doing furniture, oil primer always gets oil paint and latex primer gets latex paint

But when you are going to paint wood, you can get bleed through. Different grains and the summer bands in the wood will create blotching.  All that fine sanding you did opened those pores up to sucking your primer in.  When painting wood, you need to close those pores up and seal them so moisture won't escape and your paint will adhere to a level, sealed surface.  For that you need a "sealer." The sealer coat envelopes the porous wood, preventing the first few coats of lacquer from being excessively absorbed. Kilz or Zinsser or BIN.  Keep in mind sealer is not paint.  Its a sealer. Do one coat.  

Now you have to decide about the grain.  You will  likely still see the grain from an angle.  It won't be a bleed through when painted, but you will see the pattern.  Do you want to keep that of not?  If you are OK with that, skip this step.  If not, you need use a wood filler. Wood filler is a paste like paint.  You use a flat blade to apply filler in two very thin coats, one following the grain of the wood and the other crossing the grain. Let the first coat dry thoroughly, for at least several hours, then sand it with fine-grit paper.  It will level the surface out so you will never see the grain pattern.  

Now you put another coat of sealer on.  Once dry, you are ready to paint!  

As for oil paint- its more durable than latex.  The downside is any wood furniture painted with oil paint will yellow over time.  There is no way around it.  It will vary depending on the original color and how much sun it gets.  White oil based paint will have the most noticeable yellowing.  It may take 5 years, it may take ten, it will yellow.  Any finisher who tells you different is a flat out liar.  There is no way to avoid it!   Additionally, if applied too thick or too fast between coats, it will peel and crack in addition to yellowing.  The paint you have in the red cans from SW is EXCELLENT- BUT WHY DO YOU HAVE TWO DIFFERENT WHITE COLORS?  Those are two different base colors, one white and one tinting white!  If you are painting it all one color, those cans should be identical!  Fix that before you paint!  You can mix the two in a spate container or just go exchange one so they match.  

Two coats with plenty of drying time between!  Don't let anyone, including the label on the can tell you to put more than one coat on every 12 hours!    

Post pics when you are done!


A very basic guide to finishing wood furniture is below for your future projects:

Painting Bare Wood:
-Water/TSP wash
-Sealer
-Wood fill (if doing)
-Sealer again if you used wood fill
-Primer  (latex or oil)
-Paint 1 (same type as primer)
-Paint 2

Staining Bare Wood
-Tack cloth wiping
-Apply coat of pre-stain conditioner
-Stain coat 1
-Stain coat 2
-Poly 1
-Sand
-Poly 2
-Sand
-Poly 3


 
   

Thanks for taking the time to post that.

I tend to be obsessive compulsive and that explains the sanding job!

There are two tints of oil paint since the drawer fronts will be a different color.

I would like to have left it just stained but in this case I am just labor, no input on finish.

I am going to town and try to find something like all of you  have been reccomending.

Will post pics, IF is comes out decent

A coat of sealer and then two coats of paint and I don't see how it will not come out great.

You took a beat up piece of furniture, stripped and sanded it back to beauty.

Then you painted it.

Poor desk.

I agree but it's what the big boss wanted. It's important to keep her happy.

How did you do the sanding?

First I stripped the old finish and then cleaned off the stripper residue.

Next I used a palm sander on all the areas that I could to make it go quicker.

Then went over that again with a sanding block and 220 grit to smooth out any sanding swirls the sander left. I also used the sanding block to hand sand everything else I could get to.

Next I just started hand sanding using just my fingers and several tools wrapped with sandpaper to get to all the hard to get to places.

It really wasn't that bad. Much better than the stripping phase.

Well I sanded it real good and sprayed two coats of B-I-N Shellac-Base Primer.

Looks really good and I'm ready to spray the finish coats.

It's going to rain tomorrow so no painting for a couple days.

As soon as the weather permits I will get back on it.

Oh, I took the rest of the original primer and my receipt to Sherwin Williams.

It took a while but I finally got them to understand what the problem was after showing them pics.

The two people working there (very nice but young and probably not very experienced) had never seen that before and called someone at another store.

He agreed that they never should have recommended that primer and they refunded my money.

I really wish they could give me my two days back.

Hopefully the finish coat will go on easy.

Hoping for a little more advice on the final stage of this project.

After the issue with the first primer and bleed through I gave it a good sanding all over and sprayed two coats of shellac based primer.

It looked good after that with no bleed through.

Now I have sprayed the first coat of oil based enamel paint and it looks pretty good. If I had a little better coverage I would be tempted to leave it like it is but that is not an option.

My question is how much should I sand between finish coats? Just barely enough to take the sheen off or really try to smooth it out?

After a little testing it looks like 320 or 400 grit will do the best.

It took some experimenting with spray nozzels and Naphtha thinner to get it to spray. I ended up with a good bit of thinned paint that I put back in a paint can. Will that paint with thinner added still be good to use or do I need to go buy some more?

Any other advice about applying the final coat?

Thanks

Here are a few (really poor) pics of the first coat.

Drawers





Desk









Chair

My insignificant advice - sand until the surface is as smooth as you want for the final product.  

If you want more of the grain filled, you should have do this with primer but it's not too late.  Add coats and sand until the paint is all removed except in the grain.  Then re-spray and re-sand until the grain is as filled as you want.

Prior to your final color coat, sand to remove all defects.  Then spray a final, thin color coat.

Thanks for the advice.

I don't mind the grain showing through.

The finish is pretty good. I really just want to put one more coat with out making it look worse. It looks so good now I just don't want to screw it up.

I feel like I need to sand between coats just to smooth out any over spray and to make sure the final coat adheres properly.

I've spent too much time on this and need to get it finished in the next few days.

I think it is going to need to cure for a week or two before letting my daughter start using it.

what sprayer are you using?

Some Alibaba rebranded chinese LVLP sprayer

It took me a while to figure out how to set it up but it is working pretty good. Especially since I have no experience with one.

Finally almost done with this project. Just waiting for the drawer pulls we ordered.

At least it's in the house now and I am done painting.







I painted the drawers outside so I wouldn't get any pink on the desk. The wind kept blowing and I had to make a wind break. All the paint on the saw horses and the wind break are where I was practicing.

You're good!  Really good at this.  Now your wife will be going to garage sales and bringing shit home for you to do for her all the time. Say goodby to your free time!

Looks good. Sherwin rep should have known to sell you an oil primer, you can go over oil base with latex but not the other way around, as the latex expands and contracts with moisture causing the oil base top coat to check or crack.

Good work dad

Very nice work, MadDog.

Thanks...hopefully this is the last woodworking project for a while.

Got the drawer pulls today. Still trying to get them to bend to fit the curved drawers just right.

I also have to replace the padding and recover the chair seat. Waiting on the bosses to pick out some fabric

I'll post another pic when it is set up in my daughters room.