Waxy Residue on Oil Paint...

Rammstitch · 06-27-2009, 03:15 PM

Hi,

Help! (Great way to start your first post eh?)
My boyfriend and I recently paid a neighbor to redo our front porch which was rotting. He did a beautiful job. When we went to paint it, the paint has what looks to be "wax bleed" on top of it, but all the websites I've been on say that only happens on hardboard siding.
We didn't paint in direct sunlight (actually we waited until sunset...might have been a mistake I guess). Our neighbor used kiln-dried wood tongue and groove boards and he primed them with Kilz Latex primer before installation. The odd thing was though that the Kilz never dried quite right. It was tacky and plenty of dust particles stuck to it happily (we did our best to clean those off). But we painted it with a sort of chocolate brown color of Valspar Porch and Floor Paint in gloss and now wherever the coats were on the thin side there is this waxy residue on top (making it look pink...girl or not, I don't want a pink porch!)
So I tried a small spot with mineral spirits and it seemed to take off the residue, but is it ok to go over the whole thing with rags and mineral spirits? This is only the first coat and we'd planned on at least two coats of paint for durability. What is to prevent it from happening again, or will a thicker coat of paint seal it in better after we remove it? I'm not even sure how it could happen since it was kiln-dried wood...
Any ideas before I give up, rent Money Pit, and succumb to involuntary facial twitches?
~Sarah

DangerMouse · 06-27-2009, 03:57 PM

hmmmmm

DM

chrisn · 06-28-2009, 06:00 AM

hmmmmm

Kilz Latex primer

first mistake

Valspar Porch and Floor Paint

second mistake, oil or latex?

Rammstitch · 06-29-2009, 08:42 AM

The Porch and Floor paint is oil based. The Kilz is latex. Painting it was not the original plan...I would have loved to stain and seal the wood, but he'd primed it the day he got the wood home.
Now I'm wondering though if maybe the lumberyard had coated the boards in paraffin for storage and he didn't know it??? There are places on the boards where there was a little wood glue in between the primer and the paint and the paint looks exactly like the gloss brown it's supposed to which leads me to think it was something to do with the primer or the wood (also given that the primer was tacky and catching dust for a solid two weeks...)
I don't know...I've never seen anything like this before.
I'm trying the mineral spirits idea tonight if nothing else so I guess we'll see what happens.

Rammstitch · 06-29-2009, 12:00 PM

I think I may have found the answer to my problem on the SW website.
It looks like by painting it on such a hot day and so close to sunset, the dew and sudden shift in humidity caused the gloss in the paint to fail and sort of "wax over". They say another coat of paint should hide it so we'll see. I'll have to wait until this weekend though since I'm hardly ever home during the day, but I'll let everyone know how it goes.

saggdevil · 06-29-2009, 01:30 PM

Just curious why one would use a latex primer and oil based paint

???

Makes no sense to me.

mazzonetv · 06-29-2009, 03:44 PM

wow - where to begin.

Ok - killz latex - not a big fan at ALL. Paiting over the killz while tacky was certainly not a good idea. Oil paint outside in the summer - another possible disaster.

Where are you located? If you are in a high humidity area, what was the humidity like when you painted? You said you painted at sundown as well - what was the weather like? Whenver using an oil based paint outside you want to make sure that the ambient temperature as well as surface temperature are somwhere between say 45- 80 for a good 24 hours. Another VERY important thing is not to paint in direct sunlight, and not too paint on a humid day or when you expect that "morning dew". If moisture gets in your finish you are done for and right now I would lean towards that being the source of your problem. Ok, so how to fix?? Without seeing it the best thing I can suggest is wipe down everything with some rags and mineral spirts. MAke sure it is all good and dry before you paint again. Wait for a nice DRY, cool day and start painting about 9 or so in the morning and stop about 4 hours before sundown. Do a VERY thin coat of oil based paint. You may want to call customer service for the particular paint brand you used already and see what they have to say. Hope that helps you some...

good luck.

Matthewt1970 · 06-29-2009, 09:45 PM

I concur with the general opinion here. When we use an oil based deck enamel, you really don't need to prime, just hit any bare wood spots and then coat it all. For the most part, latex primer is only good for drywall. Prime bare wood with oil based primer.

Rammstitch · 06-30-2009, 12:03 PM

mazzonetv and Matthewt1970, thanks for the information!
To answer the questions, We live in the Tidewater area of VA...on the water. It's constantly humid in the summer. Generally I would take time to do it right and usually we paint in the fall where we live, but the "city" wants it done now or else.

We're smack in the middle of redoing ALL the plumbing and heating in the place, and really hadn't planned for dealing with this right now. We had planned to side our house in the coming year as well, but they want paint on it now and paint they shall have. I'm so tired of this city. The building is structurally sound and is no danger to anyone but name it a historic district and poof suddenly it's absolute blasphemy if you have one wall of peeling paint and rotted ends on three T&G boards. But I digress...

As far as the primer goes, I'd never had any experience with Kilz, but I'm generally not a fan of "one product fits all" type deals that say you can use anything with them. But I wasn't given a choice on that. Our neighbor really did a beautiful job on the carpentry end of it though, but the primer I wasn't crazy about expecially since it stayed tacky for weeks.

So, mineral spirits it is then. It looks like the weather might be decent this weekend *crosses fingers*. I'll let you know how it goes.

waynech · 06-30-2009, 01:54 PM

The only thing I would like to add is its strange that the latex kilz did not dry after weeks. Hopefully the lumber was not treated with something preventing the Kilz from drying. Good Luck