priming

i dont know about paints. when i started to make speaker cabinets a long time ago, i would pile on the gloss or flat enamel on bare wood hoping to achieve a smooth finish. well, i applied coat after coat and end up dissatisfied. i discovered 'masilya' or plasolux putty used by the local painters and soon tried using it with great results.

i never got the art of painting down till i was in college and i have never learned so much as before i started out hanging on forum.drumshed.org. so what's the schinizzle on paints?

sand the wood smooth first. then apply primer using a brush, spray or roller. i did mine using rollers. why? because its very fast, evenly-applied and cheap. of course you can spray the primer but then i have to invest on a compressor and gun or pay some guy to do it. whatever method you use doesnt matter since we are still going to sand the primer and apply putty. also, use white primer if available, white helps bring out whatever color you want on top.

why put primer? well primers have high solid contents that if you apply them on wood, they close the wood grains. before i used putty, i pile on the paint to get a glossy effect but i noticed that the paint sips through the wood so you have to do several coats of paint. by using a primer first, you can settle for one or coats of paint because the paint is no longer sucked by the wood.

here's a pick of two shells with primer, the left one already has putty and the right one had its first coat of primer:


notice the one on the left is actually smoother because of the putty.

now you dont have to apply another coat of primer, well for me at least. its really personal preference if you want to use more than one coat of primer.

here is another pic of the covered tom holders of the bass drum without putty yet. oh yeah before i forget, you have to sand the primer too before applying putty.


then after your first putty coat, sand the shell again before applying another coat of putty. do this until you are satisfied. i had to do this 4 times to get a very even surface.

next step is applying the color.