Painting Over Very old Dark Wood Panneling General decorating topics, questions and answers. find help, tips and advice on completing your decorating projects

[clfarr]

Hi,
I am looking for some advice for painting over some very old dark wood panelling. It is pine but I am not sure what is on top of it - paint, varnish perhaps.

I thought I could use Zinsser Bin so I followed the instructions by cleaning the surface then using methylated spirit to degrease. However, the methylated spirit caused a clear-ish top layer to go sticky and peel off. The more methylated spirit was added, eventually the whole layer came off and it went back to bare wood.

Below picture shows what happens when a little methylated spirit is applied

Below picture shows what happens when a bit more methylated spirit is added with a little more elbow grease:

I have a huge area of this panelling so it is going to be very time consuming to completely strip all the area. Any suggestions?

Many thanks

[TommyPurdyPnD]

Looks a little like a shellac varnish maybe if meths is breaking it down-I'd be very tempted to give it a heavy mechanical sand, then sugar soap and rinse and maybe use Zinnser cover stain over the whole lot-The BIN they make is really really good for this sort of stuff but very very smelly poisonous especially over large areas-cover stain still smelly but oil based rather than shellac and meths-make sure you vent up and mask up! Bullseye 1-2-3 over the cover stain is an awesome primer for your undercoat to go on but not quite so heavy duty for stain blocking as the other too.

[clfarr]

Thanks for your reply.

Do you think I could get away with not using the methylated spirit and just cleaning the panelling and then going straight on with the Zinsser BIN (I have already bought a huge pot of this stuff!)

Thanks

[TommyPurdyPnD]

Yes the BIN should be able to handle that-you're best getting it on quick with a foam mini roller and brushing edges, make sure you're nippy with it though as it dries super quick and will drag easily! And definitely wear a marks and open a window, inhaling too much of it is REALLY bad (trust me, been there).