Brushable White Enamel-How Well Does It Cover?
When someone says they want something painted white, I cringe. One of the hardest colors to paint is white, but I admit – I love a good piece of white furniture. General Finishes just came out with a new product called Brushable White Enamel. It’s an all in one paint and topcoat and I couldn’t wait to give it a try.
When you apply a topcoat over a light colored finish it can react with the tannins in the wood causing the paint to turn yellow or pink. The chances of this happening lessen when you use a stain blocking primer. But even then it sometimes isn’t enough.
So the GF Brushable White Enamel is supposed to be a solution – paint + topcoat in one application with no risk of the topcoat creating a problem at the end.
I tested it out on this dresser which was perfect because it had the tint of orange/red that would need a stain blocking primer plus really test the Enamel. I first lightly sanded (220 grit) and cleaned then followed the directions on the White Enamel can. I primed with 2 coats of GF Stain Blocker first.
Once dry, time for the new stuff! It was pretty runny in the can. I painted one coat then let that dry. I lightly sanded between coats.
The problem was, I kept painting… and painting… and painting… and ended up doing 3 coats and never did achieve full coverage.
This was 5 coats of primer and paint!
My conclusions:
- you have to prime to use this paint.
- the coverage is terrible
- it does have built in topcoat.
- you can distress it.
- you can tint it slightly but to do so you need paint tint.
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I agree painting white is the hardest. Always had a problem with it not looking right or a lot of caots were needed.
I just lightly sand, prime with Kilz and paint with white. I like to use a foam brush and foam roller. Get better coverage and smooth finish.
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