Painting tips...

[madk]

Hello,

I'm about to venture forth with my cab and move into the "planning the finish" stages.  How exciting!  I need all the advice I can get on painting this beast.  This is the final stage that I have been dreading.  I'm going with black.  I've browsed the example and notice a lot of people use a good exterior paint with a thick clear coat.  I've heard some people prefer rollers and opposed to brushes too.  So could everyone please post their painting experiences for me and give me some advice.  Thanks for all the help.

-madk

[rampy]

Here's a thread a started when I started painting my cabinet


blah...

once I get some coffee in me I'll see If I can articulate any additional comments...

I do stronly recommend you use tinted primer.

I used an oil based egg shell finish black on my cabinet - but I wasn't totally happy with the finish.. but that was due to having a. not totally smooth surface   b.  I used a towel to wipe down the surface before painting... which was incredibly stupid... I have permantly embeded lint into my paint =P (it's not that bad... but it was still a lesson learned... get a tack clothe)

rampy

[kgriffin]

My best tip is this...

I painted my cab in the garage under florescent light (at night) and sunshine during the day. I found that I spent a lot of time taking care of roller marks and streaking that would have been invisible in its permanent home. Once I moved the cabinet upstairs, the paint looked fantastic. In the sunlight, you could see every blemish.

My advice is to give the cab a few solid coats of paint and then move it to its permanent home to "touchup".

[slug54]

I really hate to paint So this was probably one of my least favorite parts of building my cab.
I went with a black semi-gloss paint rolled it on with a one-coat roller. I actually put about 3 coats on my cab to make sure I had all the roller marks and runs covered I wanted a real durable finnish.
My cab is MDF so it took paint really well . I am really happy with the way it came out. If you do roll it don't use a cheap roller some rollers will leave little bits of fuzz in your paint.

                                  Good luck
                                   Slug54

[Frostillicus]

I'm painting a cab right now and I'm getting good results with gloss black interior paint.  It's on wood, so I put a few coats of sanding sealer on it first so the grain won't show.  

I rolled the first coat on, but I'll brush the second on because even with a high qualilty "no texture" skinny roll, the roller still leaves a bit of texture.  oh and lightly sand with steel wool after first coat to get rid of any bumps or accidental lint or dust particles. good luck!

[Darkade]

I painted mine with some Semi-gloss Latex that I rolled on.   I made sure to prime it first as I was using MDF and I used 1 coat primer, 2 coats paint.  I primed the inside of the cab behind the marquee and left it like that because it was white and would help reflect the light inside better.  All in all it turned out pretty well except that some gnats flew into the paint and got stuck and are now permanent additions to my cab.