Painting Philosophy

I am becoming evermore dissatisfied with the accepted and standard scraping methods of paint preparation on historic buildings. I have developed what I am bold enough to consider to be a superior system. I have come to believe so strongly in this system that it is now the only method of preparation that I include in my restoration proposals, and I will no longer be willing to do a standard scrape. Please Take the time to read and understand detailed explanation below to understand my methods and reasons.

Specifications for paint prep for historic old buildings usually talk of “scraping to refusal”. Refusal of what? I ask myself. Scrape until no more old paint can be removed? A worker can remove any and all paint, no matter how sound, if they are willing to take forever and keep sharpening. Scrape until the workers are disgusted and refuse to scrape any more? Let’s face it. No matter how diligent and professional workers may be, human nature is such that “scraping to refusal” means one thing at 9 AM on the first day of scraping, and something else at 4 PM on the fifth day. I have never seen a job or specifications in which the issue of sufficient preparation is quibble proof. I consider myself to be the most aggressive of scrapers, but can I declare with certainty that I have removed every piece of old paint that may be at risk of detaching from its substrate? Of course not. Nor can anyone else who does a standard scrape job. Usually, no one has any idea what the accumulated layers of paint are. This is why when “scrape & paint” jobs begin to fail, the failure is usually the old paint falling away from its substrate, taking the newer coatings with it. So then another “scrape & paint” is done, and some of the loosening material which the scraper should now remove is missed due to the fact that it is hidden behind the last coat of paint. These missed areas will then be the first to fail as before, thus perpetuating this frustrating cycle. Furthermore, as evermore layers of paint are applied over the decades, the thickness of the coating increases, meaning that an ugly and crooked ghost line will show through the finish paint where an area scraped bare meets old paint. We are all real familiar with this horrid look on old buildings. The answer is of course to “feather” these transitions with sand paper. This is often as time consuming a process as the scraping itself, and is a bad practice from a lead safety standpoint. When all is said and done, no matter how good a job of preparation may have been performed, the final results still depend on the old layers of buried paint. In most cases, no one even knows what these layers are. Dartmouth College, which is known to be demanding of the trades it hires, only expects 5 years from its exterior paint jobs on historic wood buildings.
We have begun to use a mechanical method of total paint removal that at first blush seems barbaric but in my strongly held opinion results in a superior product. We use pneumatic needle scalers to pulverize the old brittle paint. The scaled paint can then be easily scraped off and the wood wire brushed. The surface left by this process is excellent for accepting and holding paint.

Needle scalers are like miniature hand held jackhammers that, instead of one single bit, have twenty 1/8" diameter needles. The wood surface is rendered bare, clean, and appropriately coarse. Once the steeple is free of all the old coatings, one may start fresh with carefully chosen products.
Of course this method of preparation costs more than the standard scraping, but the difference is not prohibitive. I usually enclose pricing for each method for comparative purposes. We have used this method on the Pittsford Congregational Steeple, the Brandon Baptist Steeple, The Waitsfield UCC Steeple, Washington County Court Clocktower., and the Stowe Helen Day Arts Center among others.

When the paint on a steeple begins to look bad, and money is scarce, church members often decide to do a quick painting just to “tide it over”. The realities explained above often put me in the position of urging churches to resist the inclination to do a “quick” paint. Quick paintings usually mean bad preparation, and that just makes the endless cycle worse. My recommendations to wait are often met with incredulity, but I believe strongly in breaking the cycle, even if the building must look a bit shabby for a few years to do so.

Our standard process for painting is as follows. All wood is coarse sanded. This sanding is critical since a smooth glossy surface can lead to primer failure. All products are Sherwin-Williams best. First we prime with A-100 primer cut with penetrol, then we sand the primer. We then caulk with lifetime urethane caulk. This caulk is a bear to use but is the best. Two acrylic top coats finish the job. All coats are brushed in hard, with extra care taken to prime endgrain wherever practical. We even use putty knives to get the primer into cracks when appropriate. On new work we prime all wood all round and caulk it into place during installation. Not infrequently on restoration work, we remove the original wood for repair and priming, and reinstall as described above.

We believe that the methods explained above result in superior results. Please let us show you the pictures to prove it.