Oil Based Paint Leaving Wrinkly Finish On Doors

dwbrooks

Hello Everyone,

I have six aluminium doors to paint, factory primed. No label specifing oil or latex. I decided to use oil base exterior paint on the sides exposed to the outside. I applied the paint with an airless.

Temp. was around 45 to 50 degrees during the day, Label on can said good to 40 degrees.

Nonetheless I knew drying time would be slow, I came back to the job 5 days later to check out the doors. What I discovered was not good. The paint had spider-webbed wrinkles all over it. I pushed my finger against the wrinkling and you can still move it, leading me to believe the top is dry and underneath its wet or at least not all the way dry.

These leaves me with two questions. What do you think caused this? How do I fix it? Heres my hunch on the cause and my solution.

The top of the paint dryed all the way and the bottom is still drying. I believe this is the problem that caused the wrinkling. Temp is just to low to provide good drying (Wet still after 5 days) What do you think? Is there another likely cause?

My solution is too paint the doors once heat is temped in. I was also told to go with latex because oil and aluminum can react funny, What do you think. I'm not sure what the best way to get partly dried oil base off the doors. I was thinking scraping it off with a razor and then sanding once the majority is off. What would you recommend. Can I use a torch or is that not advisiable since it isnt all the way dry?

Teetorbilt

Sounds typical of oil over latex. Some of the real painters may say otherwise.

I'd start scraping ASAP and be thinking of a chemical stripper for any place that did dry. I believe that this is going to be a mess any way that you go about it.

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ProWallGuy

Yepper, start scraping and scrub off the rest with lacquer thinner. You will probably take off the factory prime too, but oh well.

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phinsher

If its still not dry you may be able to remove it with mineral spirits or a "hotter" solvent like naptha or if necessary move up to Lacquer thinner. The wrinkling is probably caused for the reason you stated. Sun or wind probably quickly dried just the surface and the low temps just didn't allow the entire coating to dry. Applying it too heavy will also cause the wrinkling (for the same reason).
So, remove what you can, take them inside where its nice and warm if possible and try it again.

dwbrooks

What do I need to do to prevent the same result from happening. Just use latex instead?

glock40

I feel the wether played a serious part. If it is 45 to 50 in the day time well what about at night it has to drop much less which will not allow it to dry and cause moister runs.

phinsher

just paint them inside where the temps are 55 + day and night. If possible crank the heat up higher just to get them dry so you can re-install them sooner.

Bret

I had a similar problem this year with painting steel doors. I had 16 steel entrance doors to apply two coats of white to. Wanting to save some money, I used some paint I had in stock to basecoat it. Thirteen of the doors got basecoated with Sherwin-Williams MACH-7 oil enamel and the remaining three were basecoated with Sherwin-Williams Industrial Enamel. The finish coat was Sherwin-Williams Pro Classic Acrylic Enamel (waterborne). The next day, I noticed the top coat on three doors that had the Industrial Enamel basecoat had spider-webbed and would slide around. (a crackled antique finish ).
I took one of the doors to the S-W store and the manager called corporate tech support. They contributed it to either 1) laq thinner was not completely dried before applying basecoat, or 2) I applied the waterborne topcoat before the oil base was completely dry, or 3) the driers in the allready opened can of Industrial Enamel had evaporated and were not present, making the paint bad.
To answer you question, I was advised to strip the doors down and start over. Not wanting to do through all that hell of a mess, I placed the doors in one unit and cranked up the heat to 80 degrees for a week. I lightly palm sanded the surface and added another two coats of waterborne Acrylic.
My point is, the basecoat will eventually dry, just give it time and plenty of heat. I hope everything works out for you.

Bret

dwbrooks

Thanks for all the great advice. Brett I can see you were in a similiar sitution and thanks for the concern. My plan is to let them dry and sand them down. I really want things to go smoothly because this is my first yr going off on my own and this is the first builder I've landed, therefore I really hope to make a good impression. Thanks much for the help