# Compatibility issues using precat primer



## Otto (20 Apr 2014)

Looking for a little advice here.
Big job in mostly MDF which is to be painted in a farrow & ball colour. There will be a lot of painting involved, in the hope of speeding it up, I am considering spraying the job with precatilysed primer for ease of application and speed of drying, and also in the hope that the MDF fibres won't swell like they would with a w/b primer. This would then be topcoated with a coloured interior satin paint by brush or roller. Does anyone know if there would be any issues with compatibility, or is there another, better way to go?
Thanks for any insights you can offer.


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## MrYorke (20 Apr 2014)

Why not spray a colour matched top coat if you have the facilities to spray the primer?


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## Otto (20 Apr 2014)

The topcoat is a Farrow & Ball colour, I can't get an exact match made up in a precat topcoat. RAL colours only.


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## doctor Bob (20 Apr 2014)

Otto":1la0s35n said:


> The topcoat is a Farrow & Ball colour, I can't get an exact match made up in a precat topcoat. RAL colours only.



Morrells match F & B colours, as do most suppliers


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## Drudgeon (20 Apr 2014)

Morrells seem to have most F&B colours already in the system and as 'approved' colours, although they are saying that there is a new directive from head office and they are now not supposed to be sending colour samples to head office to be matched, and they are now supposed to be colour matching in store, this seems a bit too hit and miss to me, not sure how long this is going to last, sorry to go off topic anyway, but as has already been said, Morrells should have the colour not he system.

There is a big advantage of finishing to a prime to be hand painted on site, which is you don't have to worry so much about any small knocks or marks that can happen either in transit or during the fixing process, although the finish i not quite as nice, but then many designers/architects will spec a hand painted finish on most traditional work.

Anyway, sorry but didn't reply to the original question, not there will be no compatibility issues, as I said above many many jobs go to site primed and are hand painted on site, most of them are pre cat primer.


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## RobinBHM (20 Apr 2014)

The fibres of MDF do tend to telegraph through when using water based products, but Ive found the final finish is ok provided care is taken to thoroughly sand back between coats and the use of MR mdf helps. 

There should not be any issues with using pre cat followed by a brush applied top coat, Alkyd or Acrylic. Always test a sample first though.

I spray the top coat colour and then a final hand brush on site -it saves a lot of time on site work since only the seen faces need to be brushed. 

Paint companies are a but nervous about colour matching, although a colour cant have a copyright, a name can, which makes putting 'FB dimity' on the tin and invoice a bit awkward. The colour should be a pretty good match though.


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## mailee (22 Apr 2014)

I always get my colours matched to F&B in 2K pretty good match too. :wink:


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## scholar (2 May 2014)

I have had F&B colour matched paint from Morrells - I would say the colour matching is as good as you could expect, but the finished product does not look the same - there is a lot of science and some black art involved in paint finishes as far as I can tell (I am no expert, but there was a good discussion on here a little while back why-use-farrow-and-ball-paint-t74542-30.html). I will still get this stuff from Morrells, so I do not mean any criticism, just that the composition of the paint, as well as the technical colour, does impact the final look.

I have only used water based paint and I understood that all water based colour matching is done at Morrells head office, whereas the other stuff can be done at the trade depots.

You can spray real F&B paint successfully, and I have done so recently with some exterior eggshell (F&B is all water based now). I have seen endless internet chat about problems with F&B paint (slow to dry etc etc) but it does seem that there are problems if you do not use a F&B primer. What I did in the recent case (some old and new timber window frames) was to do a base coat primer with Zinsser 123 (as I had some old resinous wood that would bleed through), then undercoat with F&B primer, then topcoat with F&B - possibly two coats of each, I don't remember now. That all worked well. If you speak to F&B they will say that you need to use the whole system.

Do keep us posted on how it goes.


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