Have you used a water based paint system on your bannister?

So on the back of advice here we have switched from planning on going oil based to deciding on water based. It was the yellowing factor that swayed it.

Some of you may remember the problem i encountered with water based paint - in that it marked up when certain metals touched it...




This was even after the piece had been painted 6-8 weeks.

Our thought process was that there isn't going to be too much metal banging on the surfaces that are getting painted.


So a bit delayed i know but after i'd started going with undercoat on some pieces, i realised the problem we could have on the stairs with the bannister -

If people drag their hands up it, their rings could/would mark it. Mine which is tungsten wont but my wifes which is palladium does. I've no idea about other metals.
I know it's easy to say - well don't drag your ring finger then, but then there's guests who will be in the house. I'm not saying they or anyone will 'drag' their ring finger, but it only needs slight pressure to leave marks i would imagine.


So basically i just wondered if any of you had done your stairs in water based paint & if so - how you guys got on as far as the marking goes i showed in those photos? No problem in reality or did you have some bother?

Thanks.

Gold marks water based in the same way, it does just wipe off easily though.

For ease of re-painting and the none yellowing I'd take that in exchange every day of the week!

Yeah I expect most metals will mark it. For some reason tungsten doesn't though no matter how hard I scrape & bash it.

Have you found a solution to wipe the marks off easier? I've found the light ones rub off with a fair amount of elbow grease & a cloth but the thicker/darker/heavier marks refuse to budge with this method.

Touch them up with paint if it's easier than slaving away with cleaning stuff.

Aye that's be the obvious one. I just saw where the previous owners had done that & it looked patchy as hell. Awful. I don't know if that's how it is or whether it's due to the person who did it doing a bad job.

Anyway if cleaning doesn't work I'll just have to paint over like you say.

CluelessDIYer1 said:

Aye that's be the obvious one. I just saw where the previous owners had done that & it looked patchy as hell. Awful. I don't know if that's how it is or whether it's due to the person who did it doing a bad job.

Anyway if cleaning doesn't work I'll just have to paint over like you say.

Click to expand...

It should not show, if you use the same paint as before and if you abrade the affected area lightly before touching up.

With oilbased paint it would show, because of the rapid discolouration of oil based trim paints over even a few weeks or months.