Painting Pine Plywood

[Tilzs]

Anyone here painted pine plywood and has it turned out reasonably well or does it turn out ruff. I notice the pine plywood at the store even the sanded isn't nearly as smooth as the birtch, oak, or MDF. Granded pine's primary use is frameing but I'm just curious to how it comes out painted.

Thanks

[DrewKaree]

Anyone here painted pine plywood and has it turned out reasonably well or does it turn out ruff. I notice the pine plywood at the store even the sanded isn't nearly as smooth as the birtch, oak, or MDF. Granded pine's primary use is frameing but I'm just curious to how it comes out painted.

Thanks

I've had to paint it before.  Pine will never be as smooth as any of those others, it's a very open-grained softwood.  What you can do is this - you'll need a random-orbit sander - sand it with finer and finer grades of paper.  Go over it with a damp rag and then sand...work down to the smoothness you want.  

You will N-E-V-E-R get it to be as smooth as birch plywood.  If that's the result you are looking to get, go buy it.  You'd have to spend way more time than it's worth to get that pine that smooth, and it STILL won't be as good.  

Other options - Get a quart of Kilz primer and put it on with a foam roller.  Get a gallon of the paint you want to paint it, and put one coat on, sand rough spots down, paint again, sand if you want, and apply another.  That's way overkill, but how much work do you want to put in to get it close?  There's also a slurry method, but it's not worth it in this case, since you're painting.

Oh, and an oil-based paint will even out your finish better than a latex, there's another thing you can try.  Add a japan drier if you don't wanna wait that long between coats.