Over past few days have been painting a large bedroom with Farrow and Ball estate emulsion. The walls were previously painted with a similar colour except for one new wall which was painted with a 'for new plaster' paint provided by the customer. When I quoted I had a minor disagreement over the number of coats, the customer reckoned that one will be fine but i wanted to do 2. Husband agreed with me! I caulked with my usual polyfilla caulk and used a good quality, used 12" microfibre roller but found that the paint had a very translucent appearance whilst drying, and looked patchy. This morning after 3 coats yesterday it looks OK, but not perfect. Funny thing is that the new wall with the biggext colour change - white to yellowish covered first coat, as did the radiators. Also that caulk crazed like hell. I suspect that I may be needed again as the customer has other rooms that need painting but dread having to use this paint again. Is this normal for F+B Estate Emulsion?? What influences caulk crazing - the paint or the caulk - normally don't see this problem too much. If I suggest Dulux for the next one will you see much of a difference room to room?
F&B estate emulsion seems to vary in coverage depending on the colour, with, as you say, 3 coats sometimes needed to get decent coverage. Sometimes the stuff looks good after 1 coat. I normally tell the customer this plus that F&B is grossly overpriced when I quote. I only ever quote for two coats but tell the customer that if 3 are needed it will cost extra. After 2 coats I ask what they think before going any further. Forget the translucent look while drying - wait for it to dry out properly before deciding whether it looks ok. Not sure what you mean by ''Polyfilla caulk''. Do you mean filler or do you mean caulk
he means the caulk made by polycell, it's called pollyfilla caulk and it's the only one i use. it's very nice to work with and doesn't crack much at all. i stopped using F+B a long time ago as it's more often than not 3 coats. i hate the stuff. usually it's for one wall so i use dulux "feature" wall from focus now
also i forgot to mention, try using a 4" sponge roller and take your time. helps a lot for trying to get even coverage
Wow what a wind up I have just read the F and B data sheets for emulsion and you are meant to prime / undercoat ANY filler!!! http://www.farrow-ball.com/productadvice/advicesheets/EstateEmulsion.pdf What a pain in the quote. You may find it useful to know that you can ring up a Johnstones suppliers and they will colour match any Fand B colour name you give them. You can get a sample pot and colour match too. BB, always full of good advice, is also right about coverage. F and B paints are EXTREMELY variable in coverage. Importantly remember Pointing - a good useful off white, is absolutely dreadful and took £80 out of my back pocket on an exterior as I needed 3 coats of it instead of 2. Crazing is caused by the shrinkage of the paint as it dries. It will be influenced by the percentage of silicon in the caulk - more silicon more crazing. I would look around to see if you can colour match in a flat matt with the usual brands, if they insist on throwing money away just colour match and top coat with the F and B.
I have to use F& B a lot. As already mentioned the coulours vary enourmously in coverage. The estate emulsion, some of it is in my opinion an excelent product. The Pink is better than dulux. (No really). Tip for you, just get it mixed up in a leyland base and off you go. I don't get these problems anyway because if you give the wall two coats of leyland super latex first of similar you will find your colour works better and has a deeper, fuller tone. The wall is chemically clean and will accept the new paint beautifully and you can see where you need to fill. The easy filler then needs to be spot primed. Of course filler needs to be under-coated! Basic really. The worst is Fired earth, that really is ****. Another tip is leave your caulk over night. I have found this prevents cracking.
Spot on about Fired Earth, barn raiser - stuffs a nightmare. I did a room in dark red with that stuff. After 4 coats it still looked carp (but the customer seemed happy enough with it) Some of the F&B paints are cracking paints - just seems to be the luck of the draw what your customer wants I would be very careful though about buying Johnstones, Leyland etc paints that your supplier says he can mix in F&B colours. Sometimes the shade is quite different and even if it's pretty close, your customer may imagine it is'nt the same as the F&B colour and not be happy, even if they agreed to use it as an aternative to F&B
I used F&B for the first time the other week. Needed 3 coats plus a mist coat over new plaster, but then again, find I'm having to 3 coat a lot with Crown and Dulux. Thought it was lovely stuff to use though and gave a nice finish. Emulsion crazing on caulk is a big problem. What I do is use a fitch and give it a couple of coats of Zinnser. Pain, but it does the job.
Thanks for the comments, at least it confirms I'm not going mad. Yes it was polycell's caulk, but I doubt it contains any silicone - the crazing will be caused by either the shrinkage of the caulk as it cures or the paint. In this case i caulked on the morning of day one and painted on day two. I like the idea of getting a paint matched to F+B and then use it as first coat, with F+B on top, will suggest that to the next customer - probably saves money too!
Overcoating the caulk in Zinnser with a fitch. Mardyoldgit I have never done that but what an excellent idea... Sometimes these forums through up really useful little tips like that. Nice one.
Yes Barn Raiser undercoat your filler for oil based and acrylic top coats, but not for common emulsions aside from F and B, though of course you should mist coat polyfiller and similar powdery fillers. You can prime caulk for emulsion if you want to but you will, 100% definitely, find yourself in a very small minority. All the best.
we got caught badly with f&b "bookroom red" the filler just kept on grinning through,had to use "stainstop" on the filler patches after coats of paint.nightmare.
only had to use F&B once so far, and wasn't too impressed. A dark green colour, it took 3 coats to cover a magnolia base and I couldn't help feeling I'd could've got it colour matched into Dulux for half the price and better opacity as well!
I usually offer a colour match with Crown from my local supplier, I find the match better vs the Dulux colours & a bit cheaper. Customer gets the choice of F&B paint cost or a colour match. Last one I did was a match for the Pigeon grey. Cost was less by far & customer decided to go the colour match way. Matched the colour card exactly & covered in 1 coat, but got 2. Jockster
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