Having trouble painting textured stucco "grooves"


  #1  
Old 10-19-16, 07:24 PM
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Having trouble painting textured stucco "grooves"

I am having trouble priming and painting textured stucco. I posted about this on again/off again project some time ago but last few days temperature cooled off a bit down in South Florida and rain stopped so I took the opportunity.

I went to Benjamin Moore and they recommended I use Aqua Lock primer and Ultra Spec exterior latex paint.

Here is a picture of the stucco I am trying to prime and paint.



The brown color is the existing wall color which I am keeping.





I have about eight such windows and doors to paint.

Since the dark brown color is the finished coat, I asked BM to tint the primer. They tinted it a light gray color and said it's the best they can do...so now I can't easily tell the difference between raw concrete and the primer . Is it true they cannot tint the primer anywhere close to the finished color?

First, I started with using a roller with 3/4" nap. That did not work too well and the primer did not get into the grooves. Even when I used a paint brush to brush the primer into the grooves it was a hit and miss.

Then I switched to the thickest 1-1/4" nap and that worked better, but still about 30% of the grooves were not primed.



As you can see, there are many grooves I can't get to - with the thick roller or with brush. If I push real hard on the roller, I can get more grooves primed, but it seems I end up getting lint from the roller.

Here are a few pictures of the primed wall, after I did the rolling, and after I hand brushed as best as I could. Still I can't get 100% coverage.









After I finished off the entire gallon of the Aqua Lock primer, I did a quick measurement and it covered only about 65 SQ FT.

My specific questions are:

(1) Is it possible to tint the primer closer to the dark brown finished color instead of "concrete gray"?

(2) The Aqua Lock primer seems very thick and viscous. Will using a different primer (something less thick) make it easier to prime and paint the grooves?

(3) Is there some special roller or brush I can use to obtain better results? Today it took me five hours to prime a mere 65 SF used up all one gallon and I still wasn't able to cover all the grooves. There has to be a better way...This house has over 450 linear feet of exterior wall with this texture painted and I am only patching about 40 linear feet of it and I am hitting my head against the wall.
 
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Old 10-20-16, 04:40 AM
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#1 - many primers won't take tint the same as finish paint. SWP has some primers that they only tint 1/2 formula which comes out a tad light [full formula tint would be too dark] I'm not all that familiar with BM's coatings but don't doubt what they said.

#2 - You should be able to thin it a little if needed. Thinned 10% will still allow the primer to bond well with the raw stucco and help it to 'run' into all the grooves and crevices.

#3 - When I lived in fla I painted a LOT of stucco. I always started out with a 1.5" lambswool cover and would discard it when it wore down to 1" Lambswool covers hold/disperse paint better than synthetic covers but wear faster [especially if dry rolled] The main thing is to apply the paint liberally! I generally slop it on so it will run into all the little grooves/crevices and then as it starts to soak in or set up go back with a drier roller and dress it up. I generally don't worry about what runs down onto the ground but if there is concrete/pavers you need to stop short and brush the bottom portion. If you have a brush handy you can knock out any runs before they reach the concrete. Usually there is no issue going back later [or before] and doing the brush work.

I prefer to roll out of a 5 gallon bucket rather than a tray as it's easier to fully load the roller and less likely to spill any paint when you move to the next section.
 
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Old 10-20-16, 05:09 AM
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Marksr thanks. I can only find 1-1/4" at the home centers. Let me see if I can get some 1.5" lambswool roller covers and see.

I wonder would a hand sprayer work better at getting into the grooves?
 
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Old 10-20-16, 05:49 AM
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Spraying will make it a little easier providing containing the overspray isn't a big deal. We often spray the paint on the stucco and then backroll ..... mostly for speed on new construction, rarely on repaints.

I don't know what the big box stores offer in roller covers. I've always bought lambswool covers at the paint store. I believe most of your issue has to do with technique rather than the cover. 1.25" cover should work.
 
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Old 10-20-16, 06:46 AM
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I just went to Benjamin Moore and got a 1.5" lambswool roller cover. I was talking to one of the employees there and he said I should have used a masonry sealer and not AquaLockPlus which is much thicker...but someone else at the store had recommended AquaLockPlus on Monday. I don't know.
 
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Old 10-20-16, 07:07 AM
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IMO it isn't all that important what you use for the primer. Years ago before there was much in the way of a latex exterior primers we used to thin the finish paint 10% and use it for the primer. Back in the 80's I worked for an outfit in central fla that would mix whatever leftover paints they had into the stucco primer [providing the color wasn't too far off]
 
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Old 10-20-16, 11:23 AM
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Good news and bad news!

First the good news. After the Benjamin Moore guy told me the AquaLockPlus is the wrong product to use (which his fellow colleague recommended) and like I mentioned earlier I had a hard time seeing the tinted primer on the stucco because its gray on gray.

I instead went to the Home Depot and got the Behr multi surface primer instead mainly because their reviews said it bonded real well but the primer is not as thick as other primers. I wanted something more diluted that will run easily into the grooves and crevices. They matched my deep brown finished color then reduced the formula to 50% which turns out to be like caramel. I also bought a few of the 1.5" lambskin roller covers you suggested.

The combination worked very well. The rollers can now cover 80% of the grooves and I was able to use a brush to finish the priming. Many thanks to Marksr!

The bad news is it rained. Its not supposed to and I took two days off work to do this and in the middle of it the rain came. The walls are under the eave but still I think some drops might have hit the lower portion of the wall.
 
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Old 10-20-16, 11:52 AM
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I used to work for an outfit in fla that painted 100's of new construction homes each year. We for the most part ignored the weather forecast since most every afternoon is subject to a pop up rain shower. Unless the rain looked eminent we painted until it came [if it came] and then dealt with the aftermath.

A little bit of rain probably won't hurt as paint over stucco tends to dry quicker than over wood. The main concern is if the rain washes paint onto something else it's no big deal to touch up any areas where the rain marred the finish.
 
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Old 10-21-16, 06:57 PM
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Today is a much better day. The priming was done on Wednesday and Thursday, so today was the finished coat.

Still having some issues with not getting into the grooves, but I am getting a better handle on how to make it work.

Using the 1-1/2" lamb skin roller cover, I soaked it into the paint. Then I "pushed" the roller onto the textured wall. It was more pushing and less "rolling" as when the roller is so full of paint it won't even spin. That kind of pushed and saturated the paint onto the wall, by doing so I was able to cover close to 80% of the grooves and only the deep and narrow ones required special attention. I do have to use a glide brush to "thin" and even some saturated areas, but I am hand brushing all the grooves anyway. I also found out the really deep grooves I can get to by either stabbing the brush into the grooves, or press in and wiggle up and down slowly might do it. The result came out pretty good.

Two additional questions.

Is there any easy way to remove a roller cover from a roller after you rinsed it clean without splashing your face full of water? I have about six rollers of different sizes and it's always real tight and most times the cover won't come off unless you brute force it. Is there a better roller where you can lock and release the roller cover?

When I was applying the stucco texture with the grooves back in June/July, I used a blue bonding agent to coat the masonry wall before I put on the stucco mix. The bonding agent I used was a Lanco blue bonding agent.



I applied the bonding agent with a roller from a paint tray. After I finished and the bonding agent was dry and I put the tray away, that was 3 months ago.

Today when I poured new paint into that tray, after a while I noticed some blue streaks amongst the wet paint. It seems the new paint dissolves the bonding agent? How could that be? I quickly used up the paint in that tray and switched to a new tray. But I don't know if the paint might have been compromised by the blue bonding agent in any way...I hope not.
 
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Old 10-22-16, 03:13 AM
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You can usually rap the bend in the roller frame on the side of a bucket to get the cover loose. When that doesn't work a light tap at the end of the frame [where the cover slides on] generally works. Don't hit it too hard with the hammer or you might crack the plastic. Some covers/frame fit tighter than others, I'd rather struggle with removing the cover than have one that tries to walk off the frame while you are painting

I don't know a lot about bonding agents but it sounds like it never completely cured over the plastic tray and the fresh paint rewet it. I don't know if it would have any detrimental effects on the paint although since it was only a small amount - you should be ok.

I "pushed" the roller onto the textured wall. It was more pushing and less "rolling" as when the roller is so full of paint it won't even spin.
You shouldn't have to push the roller into the wall. Excess pressure will wear a lambswool cover out prematurely! It's ok for the fully loaded cover to slide when you first hit the stucco, it will start to roll shortly and when you've used up some of the paint you can roll over the portion where it slid.
 
 

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