I don’t love painting & decorating – not sure why – just not my favourite handyman activity. Even so, I do like to see the end result after all the cleaning, extensive prep work, priming & top coating. This garage door was really an eyesore; covered in mould and mildew and flaking paint. It took quite a few hours of washing, sanding, cleaning and priming before two coats of primer and three top coats could be applied.
I learnt a few lessons on this particular door.
Firstly because of its watery consistency and low viscosity, the Hammerite Special Metals Primer actually flows very nicely off the brush into all the nooks and crannies to give a great primed undercoat. Unfortunately, the Hammerite Garage Door Finish Paint, because of its anti-sag, high viscosity properties does not flow so easily into all the nooks and crannies. Given the fact that a garage door is nothing but nooks and crannies and the significant colour change between the primer and top coat this door needed three top coats to really get the job done.
Secondly it’s worth keeping and eye on where the sun is going to be through the day when planning exterior paintwork. I held off a week or two to get two days to do this task when the weather would be dry and warm. (Not so easy in the UK). As it turned out if was dry and hot and the sun broke out from behind the house shadow directly onto the garage door right about when i planned to start painting. The blinding effect of sun reflecting on the white door was one issue as was the heat generated on the door meaning i had to delay painting the second and third coats until later days when no sun was forecast!
The finish was a lovely, smooth, shiny, almost plastic coating effect, but it took more time than expected to get there.
