Painting a picket fence

KennyH1

I want to repaint a picket fence. Do I need to sand it down first or just wire brush it to get some of the dirt off?

sancho

What's on it now and what are you painting it with?

KennyH1

think there is a wood stain on it now but its not been stained/painted for quite a while.

Was going to paint it white using an exterior wood paint / wood shield.

tracey3596

OMG bless you!
From past experience, if your fence has had wood treatment on it before it SHOULD ( read: most probably will ) have been put onto exterior rough-sawn, treated (for exterior use) wood.
SO - if you want a shiny white picket fence - it's going to take LOTS of hard work. :eek:
A wire brush alone won't be enough and may well damage your fence; it will (probably) need smoothing - so yes, sanding. Do you realise how time-consuming this is, on a fence? ( I do! )
THEN - priming and undercoating before the finishing coats of whatever white finish you want can be applied, otherwise (believe me) the finish will NOT last!
If it's not done right first time, you WILL end up re-doing it much sooner than you really want to. Been there, done that. :mad:
So think carefully about whether you REALLY want it white ..... or just a different "wood" colour, since most modern fence treatments will cover what colour is on there already in two or three coats.
Of course, that's just MY experience and you'll probably get loads of conflicting answers which TBH a photo may help to avoid, since posters will be able to get an idea of your fence and what's involved.
HTH

nickj_2

tracey3596 wrote: »

OMG bless you!
From past experience, if your fence has had wood treatment on it before it SHOULD ( read: most probably will ) have been put onto exterior rough-sawn, treated (for exterior use) wood.
SO - if you want a shiny white picket fence - it's going to take LOTS of hard work. :eek:
A wire brush alone won't be enough and may well damage your fence; it will (probably) need smoothing - so yes, sanding. Do you realise how time-consuming this is, on a fence? ( I do! )
THEN - priming and undercoating before the finishing coats of whatever white finish you want can be applied, otherwise (believe me) the finish will NOT last!
If it's not done right first time, you WILL end up re-doing it much sooner than you really want to. Been there, done that. :mad:
So think carefully about whether you REALLY want it white ..... or just a different "wood" colour, since most modern fence treatments will cover what colour is on there already in two or three coats.
Of course, that's just MY experience and you'll probably get loads of conflicting answers which TBH a photo may help to avoid, since posters will be able to get an idea of your fence and what's involved.
HTH

you're living in the past ,

give it a good clean down , if it's really dirty you can give it a pressure wash if poss , then give it a couple of coats of bedec barn paint
no priming or undercoating required , much better than u/c and gloss

abankerbutnotafatcat

We did ours recently. It was rough wood that had previously been stained black. I'd estimate the last stain was 10 years ago. I scrubbed it with a nail brush and sugar soap to remove the worst of the dirt and more specifically the green stuff and then painted it with Sadolin exterior wood stain in Ebony it came up a treat!