Anyone have favorable experience with Exterior 450?

LarryF

I saw it being used and praised on a TV DIY show and tried to find some. It's not to be found in any of my local paint stores, and the paint departments at HD and Lowes never heard of it. Even though it's an exterior water-base finish, it's supposed to be excellent for interior woodwork and furniture as well. This site is where it comes from and it identifies a few on-line sites where it can be gotten.

http://www.generalfinishes.com/retai...outdoor-finish

They all seem to have nice things to say about it, but I haven't been able to find any independent reviews of the product. Can anyone direct me to some?

Matthewt1970

Leave that stuff for outsoor use. A good interior oil based varnish will give you your best most durable finish. Water based are "ok" but never lay down like an oil based will and tend to cloud up.

__________________
Latex Primer: Good for Drywall, that's about it.
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sdsester

I agree. Anything that claims to be good on exterior surfaces and interior trim raises a red flag for me. Usually the chemistry between interior and exterior paints is quite different.

I used to love painting trim with oil based products but those days are soon behind us I fear. VOC bans and all that. And oil based products had their downside too like yellowing and chalking. With modern quality paint store trim paints and something like Floetrol and a nice brush you can lay down almost as nice a finish as with oil. You just loose the working time to feather it out that you have with oil.

LarryF

Thanks to both of you for your opinions, both of which pretty much agree with my own instincts. But neither of you indicated that you have actually used this 450 product, and when I asked for a review of it, I assumed that whoever is going to do that should have actually tried it first. Years ago I used to use an excellent polyurethane made by Red Devil, but it's no longer available. I've tried a lot of others, but in my opinion all are inferior to the Red Devil one. That includes the popular MiniWax product which I was so disappointed with, I consider it to be unacceptable. I even tried conversion varnish, and although I found it also to be excellent,I'm just a homeowner and can't provide the safety precautions one should follow when using that product. It's also very pricey and hard to find. My experiment with the conversion varnish is shown on this website.

http://www.woodworkingtalk.com/f13/s...93/#post262526

and it was used on both the mantel and the surrounding cabinets & shelves, all of which I built from scratch and finished in my garage during the summer with the doors wide open.

A fast drying, water based varnish would be nice to use if it can provide a quality finish. Has anyone not associated with the manufacture or sale of the 450 found that to be the case?