Pine knots, Osmo, sealer, paint conundrum

[Calum Bettison]

Hello all,

I’ve made some lovely traditional solid pine raised panelling for our tenement window reveal. It’s gone really well, but after looking at it for several weeks now, my partner and I have admitted to ourselves that it just looks too… ‘piney’.

So we would like to paint it.

My concern is that we have finished in Osmo Poly x, and I’m unsure of what next steps to take to ensure the knots don’t bleed through the topcoat of paint.

My gut said Zinsser BIN, although apparently it’s horrendously smelly, followed by our choice of top coat.

Can you use knotting sealer (can’t remember it’s proper name) over Osmo?

I can’t imagine the Osmo will provide any resistance to the knot sap, as it’s designed to be a porous product, but I could be wrong.

Any pointers would be much appreciated!

 

[niall Y]

A nice tidy bit of joinery there.

I have struggled in recent years with knotting, The knots just seem to bleed through irrespective of how long I leave it to dry, or how many coats I apply.
I've recently resorted to using aluminium primer as the knotting solution. I treat the knots with it first and when this is dry I apply it as an overall primer. So far, so good. You should be alright on top of Osmo as it is just a drying oil like linseed.

I have some off-white paint in a bedroom where it needs repainting as the knots are staining through. Here, I might experiment with Zinsser, using it like knotting . It's white to start with, so shouldn't take too many top coats to cover it over.

 

[Spectric]

Unfortunately it is the knots that make pine what it is, a scandanavian look. You will need to seal the knots and prime before painting and Zinser is a good choice but also look at Coo var . There knot sealer is also good.

https://www.coo-var.co.uk/all-products/specialist-primers/patent-knotting

and some more info

https://www.thedecoratorsforum.com/a-guide-to-undercoat-and-paint-primer/

 

[Spectric]

For some jobs where you do not want the pine look and knots then you need to use a different wood, Sapelle is a good choice but will cost a bit more.

 

[HOJ]

Very smart, to be honest it seems a shame to paint them.

 

[Gareth Thompson]

Smith & Rodgers Blockade is an alternative shellacbased primer, smell doesn't seemas bad but Zinseer now do a Waterbased equivalent product to BIN called Zinseer Aqua, its a great adhesion primer and knot blocker.

 

[Katomi woodsmith]

To be the cat amount the pigeons
I like the finish you have there, and would not cover it over
Sadly I can not offer any advice on how to solve you problem

 

[whereistheceilidh]

Looks great. Nice to see tenements cared for in that way.
If you have patience the'piney look' should develop a deeper warm glow from the sunlight...in a year or 2.
It would be a pity to paint. Knots can be a problem...especially in a warm window.
Personally I would just seal the wood & enjoy it over the years as you & it age.

 

[Jake]

Osmo is a wax-oil mixture and the waxy bit mostly gets left on the surface. If you do recoat, I would be using a solvent to try to strip the wax off first, the oil part has loads of driers in it (see MSDS and label) so should be fine for recoating. Shellac is a great mid layer between oil and other finishes, so BIN is a good idea. But I wouldn't trust wax to carry a film of anything on top of it.

 

[Calum Bettison]

Morning guys thanks for all the responses, some really helpful info to dig through.

We decided to use pine for a couple of reasons, mainly cost (it’s just bog standard par/pse from the builders merchant), and also I like that it’s a humble material, we didnt want it to be too fancy or showy.

In hindsight spending a little bit more on clear pine, or maybe Doug for or larch might have been a tidier choice.

Funnily enough, now we have the curtains up and the skirting fitted the room feels much more ‘together’ so after our paint wobble I think we’re going to leave it for now, see how we feel after living with it for a while! the fabric breaks up the tones of the room nicely and the skirting ties the panelling in and it somehow just all makes more sense!

I agree that it would be a shame to paint, it’s why we’ve held off for so long.

Either way I’ll post a pic here with the end result.

Thanks again for all the inout and advice!