I recently built a table using plywood and started painting it with water-based paint using an HVLP sprayer. I've dealt with grain pop before, and thought I had it sorted by sanding and wet wiping, but my primer said otherwise. After doing some research, I found out that plywood tends to have more grain pop than solid wood, and I read that using an alcohol-based primer is the solution. I'm not too familiar with this kind of primer and would love to hear what you all can share about it!
2 Answers
You might want to consider using shellac as a primer since it’s alcohol-based. I’ve heard it works well for grain filling too. Just a thought!
I've had great success using thinned drywall mud as a grain filler before applying an alcohol-based primer like Zinsser BIN. This stuff sticks to almost anything, so you could mud over your current primer and use BIN afterward.
I just sanded the table again and flattened out the grain pop a bit, but I’ll definitely remember your advice. Is Zinsser the only brand for alcohol/shellac primers? I didn’t find much else during my search.
BIN is an amazing primer! It's fantastic for stain blocking and adheres to almost everything.
I saw a video that mentioned shellac primer being alcohol-based, so maybe that's a viable option. Thanks for the tip!