Cruising around the local lumber yards and hardware stores, I can't help but notice the "thick" paints offered by Rustoleum and others to repair worn out wood decks and other surfaces. (Rustoeum's products even say that they are "suitable for horizontal and vertical surfaces)

My first thought is that these products are a godsend for painting the decrepit wood often found on wood railcars. Their ability to fill in, and thus seal, cracks and such in the wood is appealing and they even come pre mixed in a nice freightcar red.

Has anyone had any experience with this type of paint? Any thoughts on what the outcome of hosing down a wood boxcar with a coat of oil based primer followed by a couple of coats of the new "thick" (latex of course) paint would be?

Jason Midyette

I recently had my house painted and they used a "super paint" which was also very thick.

Since it was recent, I don't have any long term feedback. A couple of things I did notice. It is indeed quite thick. As such, it doesn't seem to sink in like regular paint does. It's almost more of a coating. I had a metal area where it didn't adhere, and it pulled off in large sheets, flexible thin rubbery feel. It was still pretty fresh at that point though.

I wonder about a couple of things. It doesn't seem as "sticky" as conventional paint. Will it peel off easier? Will it trap moisture? Will that cause future problems?

The thickness also obscures details like wood grain. I wasn't overly pleased with the final look. It's not as bad on wood, but on a flat surface with little grain it has a sort of texture to it.

I think you'll find mixed results and as always surface prep will alter you results. In two decks that I've seen use these type products, the paint failed in six months on one. It started peeling in large sheets and made a huge mess. The second deck I've seen has a couple years and it's holding up better with high traffic. Unfortunately I don't remember which products were used as they are not my decks but I've helped in chipping the stuff that failed and it's a royal pain because some of it comes off easily and the rest required hours of labor and much cursing.

It might not be a bad idea to get some scrap wood and at least see if it's a viable stop gap until something can be properly restored.

Just used the PPG variant. It has a sand component. Might be excellent for exposed walkways, but I don't see it for finished car sides.

There are not any good paints any longer. If they are new they are reformulated because the politicians have legislated the good ones out for our own good. You want paint that will last 50 years, lets the wood breath, doesn't crack, check or peal. Search for Allback linseed oil paint. You pay more for the product but in the end that is the cheap part. The expensive part is stripping what they now call paint every 5-6 years. http://www.solventfreepaint.com/

I'm perfectly happy with the paints I use and would not trade them for the old stuff. The trick is don't buy paint at home improvement stores.

Those deck coatings are designed to help you get a few more years out of a deck which is otherwise at the end of its service life. Since the deck is presumptively disintegrating underneath the paint, the manufacturer expects the coating installation to die of substrate failure within the next few years anyway. So there is no reason to make the coating super durable, and cost factors keep it from being so.

In any case, there are three contaminants that you, as a painter, never want to be painting over: linseed oil, silicones, and latex paint.

My treated pine deck is about 6 years old and looking shabby with cracks so I tried PPG Revitalize. First I cleaned the deck as per the instructions then a coat of the “Light restoration” to soak in. I then followed with the thicker “Moderate restoration” to fill the cracks. The can implies it fills cracks up to ¼ inch. However I missed the fine print that states ¼ inch Deep, not Wide.
Well hell, new decking comes with cracks over ¼ inch deep. Four heavy coats this stuff did not fill any cracks visible from 5 feet. And the instructions state that if you don't completely fill ALL the cracks it will peel up.
It did however look very nice from about 10 yards away. Also somewhat rough, will snag your socks.
If you want to preserve and protect the wood you will have to concoct your own mixture of real oil stain. Possible, as they still sell boiled linseed oil and mineral spirits etc to mix into oil base paint.
After putting this water base snake oil on I am now screwed.

Buzz, read on the can of boiled linseed oil. It says to mix it with oil based paints to help with flow and adhesion. It is fine however I do not know about painting over it with anything they call paint today. Latex paint is crap, high priced as it is. You can not buy mineral spirits/paint thinner any longer in California. It is acetone or acetone with something else in it. Same as the can marked lacquer thinner.



[quote="buzz_morris"]My treated pine deck is about 6 years old and looking shabby with cracks so I tried PPG Revitalize. First I cleaned the deck as per the instructions then a coat of the “Light restoration” to soak in. I then followed with the thicker “Moderate restoration” to fill the cracks. The can implies it fills cracks up to ¼ inch. However I missed the fine print that states ¼ inch Deep, not Wide.
Well hell, new decking comes with cracks over ¼ inch deep. Four heavy coats this stuff did not fill any cracks visible from 5 feet. And the instructions state that if you don't completely fill ALL the cracks it will peel up.
It did however look very nice from about 10 yards away. Also somewhat rough, will snag your socks.
If you want to preserve and protect the wood you will have to concoct your own mixture of real oil stain. Possible, as they still sell boiled linseed oil and mineral spirits etc to mix into oil base paint.
After putting this water base snake oil on I am now screwed.[/quote]

Boy, be careful indiscriminately adding linseed oil to paint. I went through this about ten years ago, painting my house. I got tired of having everything I painted look like it was painted with a rake, and started adding boiled linseed oil to improve the flow. Worked great.

The only problem is linseed oil is organic. and will provide food for organisms like mildew. In years past, common paints had enough various metal salts that prevented this, but all that good stuff is gone from today's paints. Within five years the house was showing black streaks all over. I spent an entire summer scrubbing it down with mildew remover before power washing it and repainting again, this time with a water borne acrylic. Too early to say how well that is going to hold up, but at least it's not turning black.

Further warning... linseed oil is a naturally polymerizing oil, and the reaction is exothermic; it generates heat. All those stories you've heard about oily rags catching fire from spontaneous combustion... They're true, and are specifically about linseed oil.

I have used boiled linseed oil mixed in with mineral spirits into primer on several projects as a first coat. Something of a wood preservative, before we put regular primer and paint over, epically window sash on cars in use outside. I let it dry a couple weeks before priming.
Or as an emergency treatment to windows and frames starting to rot on a car that will remain in outside storage for awhile.
When I know we will replace car siding eventually we have also used high quality water base exterior paint to stabilize what’s there with good results. (as long as the inside of the car stays dry)
But a full restoration back to pre 1950 paint on wood is going to take oil based paint.
What are you guys in California doing for that?

Fine Paints of Europe is a brand we like at WRM. This, along with many other products, relies on the blanket exemption for paints sold in quarts. That is an intentional backdoor created by the CA government for "purists" who are committed to particular techniques for non-economic reasons, e.g. preservationists.

Of course, good luck getting thinner. Thinner was driven off the market because the fact is, it's usually used to clean stuff, for which many other products will work just as well without the smog impact of thinner. Of course any individual citizen, faced with the task of cleaning something, will always reach for old familiar "thinner" rather than "Dr. Schwarzenegger's magical no-smog cleaning solvent", on the logic that ”his" solitary use is a drop in the bucket. Textbook example of the tragedy of the commons.

Thought I would update this thread about thick paints of any use.
I had put PPG Revitalize on my treated deck here in the Midwest in 2005 (see 05 post in this thread) and had a pretty dim view of it as it did not actually fill cracks very well.
Just sold that house and deck and I have to say it held up pretty well. It's color (Mineral Red) faded out some but it did not crack or peel up.
I would never use this product on anything you plan to later strip back to the wood. This is a paint of last resort that you toss out with the rotten wood you apply it to.

For my work on more stationary old wood structures, I use Abatron's products (Liquid Wood & WoodEpox) to deal with old, rotten wood before painting.

Modern (premium) water-based paints & urethenes are actually quite good.

With three years of experience with the PPG product in midwest winters, there are no polite words for its performance. They had a class action suit because it wasn't much better than pouring milk on the wood. Cracked, peeled and looks like ****. Supposedly reformulated but I wouldn't buy it. PPG refused to even discuss its performance and referred customer problems directly to their attorneys.

Back in the mid 60s, we bought our first house. The front porch had a lot of wood, faced north and the paint was bad.
I was young and full of energy, so I used a blowtorch (remember them? Burned white gas) and stripped down to bare wood, sanded and painted it with a coat of linseed oil and turpentine. Let it dry for a week, then painted it with a good oil based paint. I don't remember whether white lead was gone from paint by then or not. I think it was. We lived there 11 years and the paint was still good when we moved.
I don't like today's paint.