Painting Balustrades

Hi

I have now twice painted my balustrades and the paint has flaked off very quickly. I bought the same paint as my neighbour and his is fine.  ??? Do I need to put some sort of a primer on before painting balustrades ???

Dave

No primer necessary as far as I know.

I presume you are scrapping off the loose flaking paint before re painting ??

Are you using ordinary exterior wall paint ??

If you are you would be better using acrylic ( gloss ) paint, more expensive

but easier to clean.

Make sure there is no flaky or peeling paint. Then seal with unibond, or PVA wixed with water. PVA is wood glue. You would need around one third wood glue to 2 thirds water. You wont need a lot of it as it goes a long way. Paint this mixture on after cleaning the balustrades really thouroughly with something like rough sandpaper of a wire brush which is a bit easier. The PVA mixture will "tighten" everything up. Once dry paint with a good quality exterior grade paint. Something like sand testures paint is good as it is hard wearing and takes a knock. That sould sort it out. The paint you put on is only as good as what is undrneath it

I did it and am still here to post about it. I am not good when it comes to repetitive tasks.  I like to come up with an idea, do it once and then move on. To keep me from losing my mind, I did have to FOCUS and try to make the process go as quickly as I could.  Using the right painter’s tape and a quality primer and paint did help the process since the tape kept the paint off the steps and the paint went on even and smooth in only a few strokes of the brush.