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Recommend me an exterior gloss paint for woodwork

colasblue

colasblue

pfm Member
Hi All,

I've decided to repaint the small amount of remaining exterior woodwork I have while the weather lasts and I'm having trouble selecting a suitable paint.

My first Instinct was Dulux weathersheiled, since that's what I used when I last did the job about 20 years ago! It's lasted well!

I think I used a one coat variant back then.

So I bought the weathershield and it's proved to be a complete PITA, not a all like the product I had before.

It's ridiculously thin (like milk) so is a total nightmare to use if your brush points upward. Drips absolutely everywhere and has piss poor covering power.

I had a bit of an accident with the garage about 5 years ago and repainted the door frame with a sandtex product, but that's starting to come away now so maybe not the best thing.

The online reviews of Ronseal suggest its Just as crap as the Dulux if not worse.

Does anybody have any recommendations from recent experience.

Ideally I'd like non drip, one coat and good coverage. Surely not too much to ask?
 
colasblue said:
Hi All,

I've decided to repaint the small amount of remaining exterior woodwork I have while the weather lasts and I'm having trouble selecting a suitable paint.

My first Instinct was Dulux weathersheiled, since that's what I used when I last did the job about 20 years ago! It's lasted well!

I think I used a one coat variant back then.

So I bought the weathershield and it's proved to be a complete PITA, not a all like the product I had before.

It's ridiculously thin (like milk) so is a total nightmare to use if your brush points upward. Drips absolutely everywhere and has piss poor covering power.

I had a bit of an accident with the garage about 5 years ago and repainted the door frame with a sandtex product, but that's starting to come away now so maybe not the best thing.

The online reviews of Ronseal suggest its Just as crap as the Dulux if not worse.

Does anybody have any recommendations from recent experience.

Ideally I'd like non drip, one coat and good coverage. Surely not too much to ask?
Click to expand...

Paints with high voc content were reformulated in 2010 and most, if not all, suffered as a result.

Weathershield was a top rated product but appears to have become much worse.

I've used two that have worked well so far, albeit maybe not satisfying your desire for a one coat solution.

The first are two gloss paints made by sikkens: xd and another( name escapes me). Both are good but can also take some effort to master.

The other is miranol by tikkurilla. My only problem with this one is the white isn't very white, which doesn't always matter. Some merchants will add some extra colourant to increase its opacity and make it whiter.

Some years ago I used 'Benjamin moore' grand entrance on a front door. It's water based and a bit less shiny than the oil based paints mentioned above but was lovely to use and has stood up well so far. Still two coats minimum but dries quite quickly.
 
If there was one set EU interventions I hoped we might see the back of it was the ones that made manufacturers stop making products that actually work properly because they contain something the EU doesn't like.

So we now get paint that doesn't paint,
Weedkillers that don't kill weeds.
Fertilizers which don't make things grow etc etc.

I've used Sikkens products before (stains though) and found them to be decent enough but the only things they sell in the UK for exterior use are Cetol and Rubbol, neither of which is paint as such. They're also owned by Azco-Nobel - same as Dulux so likely as not similar stuff now.

The Miranol looks like a possibility.
 
The formulations will change pretty frequently, so by the time anyone reckons something is good or bad, the formulation will have long since changed.

Quite a bit of my exterior woodwork is white - mostly soffits and barge boards, but also a large shiplap gable to the apex roof that I put on my attached single garage. I can't remember the manufacturer but they were done with the original Ranch Paint - International maybe. They are as sound and white as when done around 20 and 15 years ago respectively. The only bit that needs redoing now is one small area taht gets the very worst of the weather.

It may look a bit down at heel occasionally, but get a soft broom and the hose and it is pretty well as new.

I would never use a paint that had to work hard that was not high VOC, even prime - water-based prime is perhaps the very worst of water-based for outdoor use, it really is fit only for light duty indoor use, otherwise, it is shockingly bad and without that key to the wood, you might as well not bother.
 
colasblue said:
If there was one set EU interventions I hoped we might see the back of it was the ones that made manufacturers stop making products that actually work properly because they contain something the EU doesn't like.

So we now get paint that doesn't paint,
Weedkillers that don't kill weeds.
Fertilizers which don't make things grow etc etc.

I've used Sikkens products before (stains though) and found them to be decent enough but the only things they sell in the UK for exterior use are Cetol and Rubbol, neither of which is paint as such. They're also owned by Azco-Nobel - same as Dulux so likely as not similar stuff now.

The Miranol looks like a possibility.
Click to expand...
Yeah, what’s cancer and other conditions matter when you want a glossy door.
 
Carcinogens are only one element, though I never heard of anybody getting a paint related cancer from DIY usage. People in the industry maybe.

We can't get sodium chlorate or ammonium nitrate because they assume anybody using them must be making a bomb in their shed!
 
Bob McC said:
Yeah, what’s cancer and other conditions matter when you want a glossy door.
Click to expand...

You are getting things very confused here.

High VOC has less than nothing at all to do with cancer.

VOCs are bad news for the atmosphere - greenhouse or ozone, I can't remember, which is why they are discouraged, not banned.

I spent nearly 20 years working with organosols in very large quantities and very, very, very few were/have been associated with cancer, or any health effect, unless you drink or bathe in them. Where I worked was such a huge user of solvents that it became part of an HSE long-term study. I am sure that if it ever found anything, they would have contacted me.

Acetone, MEK, methylene chloride, triklone, genklene, di-acetone alcohol, methanol, numerous cellosolves - really not nice health-wise, several phthalate esters, all used in vast quantities, plus a few others in relatively minor quantities. The major ones being recovered after use using activated carbon bed solvent recoveries.

Cabbage is rammed full of carcinogens - mostly the compounds associated with the flavour of brassicas.
 
The woodwork in my garden, I built in the mid to late eighties. It's mostly soft wood, though some of it is tanalised, (for what that is worth)
I've always used Dulux paint. We have a summerhouse and two pergolas. In the last three years I've bought five wooden troughs and painted those with it. It's best on smooth surfaces, it forms a polymer seal around the wood and as long as it isn't broken will keep water out.
I have used on a featherboard fence I made, but it uses more paint.
Nothing has rotted.
Originally it was "Exterior Woodsheen," over the years the name changed a bit. Now it's called Exterior Trade Woodstain. It's not cheap, cheapest price for 2.5 ltrs I've found is around £57. List is £77. It's more a satin finish, not a full gloss

I give them all another coat every few years.




This is a recent photo of our summerhouse. The floor of the veranda is marine ply tiles. It gets a bit wet when it rains, but protected by this paint it's still in perfect condition.

P1000634.jpg



The two pergolas.



 
Sean Regan said:
....................some of it is tanalised, (for what that is worth)
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If the wood is exposed, it is worth a very great deal if that old, although I would doubt that Rhone-Poulenc, from memory, had registered the formulation and trade mark that long ago - CCA - chrome, copper, arsenic.

Today tanalised means just pressure-treated with cypermethrin and a dye - really not worth much, if anything.

Wood stain covers all manner of sins, at the most basic and honest level, it is just a pigment dispersed in a liquid - preferably NOT water as that swells the grain and causes problems.
 
^ re: 'wood stain' - agreed re the generics, but modern microporous stains (again - Sikkens as first recourse) - are superb for such uses.
 
martin clark said:
^ re: 'wood stain' - agreed re the generics, but modern microporous stains (again - Sikkens as first recourse) - are superb for such uses.
Click to expand...

Agreed, there's lots of alternatives where the makers claim it'll do..... whatever.

But I'd be interested in photographic evidence of something that has worked as well for so long as this solvent based paint.
 
I get to instigate & specify every single aspect of building fabric for construction, & old enough to do that at every scale of development as an Architect; and I'm generally on the hook for that legally for a minimum 12 yrs for defects. Minimum.

Make of that what you will.


(hint: solvent-based paints seal surfaces: sometimes - it is very important that the surface can vent internal vapour pressure. which may well not apply to your situation, with no great temp diference/ esulting vapour-pressure differential drivers)
 
Wood stain - it isn't really generics.

Go back far enough and it was exactly and nothing more than that - pigment in a carrier liquid.
Only in the past - who knows - 30 years or so, has it been anything else. The last time that I saw Coloron outside of the tin, it still was just a stain. The last time that I used a wood stain, it was a stain and nothing more.

The term has become abused.
 
martin clark said:
(hint: solvent-based paints seal surfaces: sometimes - it is very important that the surface can vent internal vapour pressure. which may well not apply to your situation, with no great temp diference/ esulting vapour-pressure differential drivers)
Click to expand...

Ranch paint - micro-porous - in the 2-3 cans that I have bought has been solvent-based - it was THE selling point when launched.
Having worked with surface coating technologies in a previous life, for approaching 20 years, I can assure that anything is possible with the correct formulation, most especially using solvents.
There are two problems with water-based formulations, based on my rather restricted experience with them, surface tension - water has a very, very high one, and minimum film-forming temperatures.
 
I can recommend Zinsser AllCoat Exterior Gloss (Solvent Based), it's a lovely paint to use and gives a good durable finish if used with the right preparation.
 
Vinny said:
You are getting things very confused here.

High VOC has less than nothing at all to do with cancer.
Click to expand...

Of course not - it's all made up innit .....

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9961358/#:~:text=Short-term exposure to high,, and cancer [7].

"5. Conclusions and Implications
This study collected VOC samples in the respiratory zone of workers in paint factories under normal occupational conditions. Xylene, toluene, and ethylbenzene were the most abundant compounds in the production processes, which was generally consistent with previous, related studies. A total of 15 VOCs were selected to evaluate their non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks to workers from different sectors in paint factories. The highest concentration of total VOCs was observed in the washing salon-PC sector. Non-carcinogenic risks promoted by exposure to benzene, n-nonane, trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, xylene, and ethylbenzene were found almost in all of the sectors of the factories. For carcinogens, the LTCR values significantly exceeded the value of the negligible risks, which was 1.0 × 10−6.

Ethylbenzene and benzene were the most critical pollutants that contributed to the high risk of cancer in these factories. Considering the high exposure concentrations and the high non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks of these compounds, the use of PPE, biological monitoring of workers, and the use of technical and modern engineering control measures are highly recommended. Additionally, in order to reduce VOC emissions directly at the source, paints with low VOC content or without VOCs (new environmentally friendly paints) are urgently needed."
 
miktec said:
Of course not - it's all made up innit .....
Click to expand...

That is not the UK, or EU - most of the solvents mentioned have been banned here for 20+ years. Take a look at the author's names and where the study was - Iran.
Certainly benzene was essentially banned when I was at school and that is 50 years ago. Tri-chloro- and tetra-chloro-ethylene are ozone-destroyers and were banned around 20 years ago unless you had unbelievably complicated plant to retain all the fumes and they certainly could not be openly sold.

Nor could it be imported.

Innit.
 
I've decided to try the Sikkens Rubbol Xd, mostly because I've found a fairly local stockist in Folkestone.

Astonishing how difficult this stuff is to come by!
 
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