Roller lint - Sanding issues (heat gun?)

[s_busby_uk]

I'm on about my 5 attempt at painting my top coat of black semi-gloss now because after my second coat I noticed lint in the paintwork after it had dried. I tried to sand it back with fine paper and when that clearly wasn't getting rid of it I moved up to coarser stuff, then sanding with fine after to smooth any rough bits. Thing is, firstly, subsequent coats continuted to leave lint behind (finally realised it was the roller and not dust in the air!), but also now I can see the marks from the coarse sanding through the paint work.

What's the best way out of this slightly dislikeable scenario? I'm assuming that I need to move to either a foam roller or a brush after - but how do I deal with the current lint-flecked paintwork, and will more coats eventually deal with the sanding marks I've made?

[Slippyblade]

Foam roller.

and lots of fine sanding. 

Sorry, not what you wanted to hear, but that'll fix it.

[s_busby_uk]

Sigh. If that's what it takes then that's what it takes! Thanks for the reply.

[Slippyblade]

I had no idea how much a pain in the ass painting was until I started this hobby.  HATE painting, but it looks so nice when done right.  Then again, laminate looks good immediately...

[s_busby_uk]

It's doubly annoying cos I actually started with foam but the rollers left behind some streaks I didn't like so I looked into better ones and the linty ones advertised themselves as usable with gloss so went for them. Should've stuck with the foam ones and just worked through it!

[Slippyblade]

I've noticed the "streaks" you mention with the foam, but in my experience they fade out as the paint dries.  Then a super light sanding and a second coat makes it nice and crisp.

[s_busby_uk]

Ah is that so? Guess this is where patience is a virtue then...

[mnewt]

I too have just gone through painting hell..but learnt a lot from it... Ditto the above advise - thin coats, foam roller and light sanding in between. One tip that I read somewhere in these forums was to never to apply the paint directly using the roller. Use a brush to apply the paint and then roller over it. Don't know what other people have experienced, but this worked great for me.

[s_busby_uk]

The paint I have seems to start drying quite quickly tho - bit worried that if I try the brush first and then the roller that it will leave all sorts of weird arifacts

[mnewt]

For my bartop, I mixed a little thinner in with the paint and painted a third of a side before using the roller on it so it didn't have chance to dry. Painting it in thirds this way meant I didn't get any of the artefacts you mention. Any "patchiness" faded when the paint dried. I do appreciate though that different paints act in different ways. If you do a search on this forum though, you'll find loads of advice about painting cabinets from people who know much more than me.

[s_busby_uk]

Yeah it was specifically the lint residue that I couldn't find much info on, but this thread has helped loads, thanks! Just bought a cheap electric sander so should save me the arm ache of redoing it all lol

[s_busby_uk]

So I bought an electric sander that is pretty rubbish and just seems to get clogged with the paint it's sanded off within seconds. After a long while trying to "sand" down one side of my cabinet I tried painting it again, but now that it's dried I can see in the light that the thing is covered in small circular marks, presumably representing the circular motion of the sander.

This isn't going very well.

Could I feasibly remove these with another coat of paint? I don't think they're particularly deep marks but they are marks nonetheless - or is that not how paint works?

If not, I'm this close to either buying some vinyl siding or getting a heat gun to strip the paint off completely and start anew. Thoughts?

Edit: Added a photo so you can (hopefully) see the problem

[Drnick]

Yep those are marks in the wood. If you want a perfect finish stop now and go get some laminate.  Either that or you will want to sand it back down apply a fine coat of bondo or other product.  Then a good high quality filling primer and start the painting procedure again.

[leapinlew]

I know you are looking for a picture perfect finish, but that doesn't look bad to me. If you are going to paint - you can spend oodles more time getting it perfect, or you can deal with some imperfections.

I like mine to look perfect, so I choose not to even paint. I go with full art or laminate. I've seen very well done paint jobs, but it all requires more time than I want to allocate. Good luck.

[s_busby_uk]

I know you are looking for a picture perfect finish, but that doesn't look bad to me. If you are going to paint - you can spend oodles more time getting it perfect, or you can deal with some imperfections.

I like mine to look perfect, so I choose not to even paint. I go with full art or laminate. I've seen very well done paint jobs, but it all requires more time than I want to allocate. Good luck.

Yeah at this point I've been stuck at this stage for about 2 weeks and it's getting a bit annoying. I may try one more coat of paint to see if that helps and then leave it at that. I don't think the scratches are as deep as the wood - I'm not really sure how they could be as I'd have seen the white primer sticking out.

It's just gutting because it looked super sweet up until I used that linty roller, and since then I've fixed one problem and encountered another.

[s_busby_uk]

So for the update you didn't know you wanted...

I ended up using a heat gun to remove most of the semi-gloss from the affected areas. It took me a while to work out the best method, so the early patches have a lot of smeared sections. Eventually I worked out the best way to remove semi-gloss with a heat gun is to more or less melt the paint onto the scraper as you push it slowly upward. Once the heat gun gets going you really don't need to spend that long heating the paint as it softens quite quickly and then the scraper slips right underneath it.

This didn't remove the primer though - which I wasn't too worried about because that would be easy enough to sand off - but I still had some gunky gloss bits left behind. So I used some chemical paint remover to get those bits off and then washed that off with water and a scrubber.

Obviously using water on MDF isn't ideal, so I ended up drying the wood shortly after with the heat gun again.

I can't say the whole process is ideal, but provided I can sand what's there down nicely enough so it's smooth enough to paint on I'll be happy.

Does anything think that I should be worried about the state of my MDF now tho? It's 18mm so quite thick. I'm hoping that as I was quick enough with the heat gun to dry it off after that it won't have suffered any deep damage from the water. Not sure how else I could've made sure the surface was free form the chemicals though...

[Minwah]

Does anything think that I should be worried about the state of my MDF now tho? It's 18mm so quite thick. I'm hoping that as I was quick enough with the heat gun to dry it off after that it won't have suffered any deep damage from the water. Not sure how else I could've made sure the surface was free form the chemicals though...

I would think you would see if there was a problem...ie the MDF would probably have swelled.

[s_busby_uk]

Yeah I think it's fine - I've been sanding it and it's more or less back to the smooth sheen it had before I started. Phew!

[jennifer]

      After letting it dry really good and its all cured out, Jennifer would spray some primer/sealer on that to get a nice protective surface and then a light sand (around the 400 grit) you can do this with your foam roller too, just make sure its compatible with your topcoat.... +1 on the thinner if your paints drying too fast, and IMO laminate blows, not only do you have T molding thickness to deal with, but it scratches and chips easily. 

[s_busby_uk]

      After letting it dry really good and its all cured out, Jennifer would spray some primer/sealer on that to get a nice protective surface and then a light sand (around the 400 grit) you can do this with your foam roller too, just make sure its compatible with your topcoat.... +1 on the thinner if your paints drying too fast, and IMO laminate blows, not only do you have T molding thickness to deal with, but it scratches and chips easily.

Thanks for the advice Jennifer!

The paint stripping has so far been something of a mixed blessing as it's exposed some filled-in screws for a beam I needed to move to make more room for my control panel. I didn't take into consideration the hinge and it was all misaligned!