Preparing woodworking for painting is important for optimal results.
Any woodworking project, whether attempted by a professional contractor or a do-it-yourself weekend woodworker should begin with thoughtful preparation and planning.
For example, if you plan to varnish the surfaces of your project, you must first sand the wood stock across its grain before varnishing in order to avoid leaving scratching that will be detectable to the eye through the varnish.
In addition, because the air that we breathe contains greases (cleaning and cooking), de-greasing the surfaces of your wood stock prior to working on it is essential. Furthermore, a coat of paint is not going to remain on the surface without peeling if the base is not stable and prepared before applications.
Let's look at some other tips to preparing woodworking for painting or varnishing that will assure that your woodworking efforts are not in vain.
Woodwork Preparation Tips Before Painting
New wood or bare wood will almost always benefit from sanding and priming prior to painting or varnishing. You can purchase sand paper in various grades that will have different degrees of coarseness, also called grades. When preparing woodwork for painting, as a general rule of thumb new timber should be sanded using a medium to fine 120 grade paper. (The lower the grade number, the coarser the grit of the sand paper).
Once you have sanded your wood, you will need to use an all purpose filter to fill in any dents or dings that you couldn't sand away. Fillers are available that will closely match the wood stock that you are working with.
Oftentimes where woodwork meets your wall you will find a gap. Filling in this gap is easily accomplished using decorator's caulk or flexible filler. Once you have filled the gap, you can run a wet finger across the wall's joint to make it look neater and remove any extra filler with a damp cloth.
Priming your wood stock is important as primer soaks into the wood's grain and makes it less porous; this is especially true of new wood. Choose a high quality primer. Unprimed wood that is painted may peel quickly. To best prime your wood stock, degrease the surface using sugar soap or other degreaser made for this purpose, choose sandpaper that best fits the grain of your wood, and sand the stock thoroughly. You can use a sanding block to help the task go more smoothly, or a power sander.
When working with surfaces that have been painted before, remove as much of the old paint as possible, clean with degreasers, sand with fine paper, and paint or varnish as needed. If you cannot remove all of the old paint or varnish, you may need to put two or more coats of varnish or paint on your new project.
