Front door paint?

[Pipps]

The front door of our home has recently become scratched so we would now like to fully repaint it.

The manufacturers of the door have quoted £35 for one litre of the paint recommended to recover it.

It is just a black front door with a semi-matt finish; nothing special. We would prefer to not spend £35.

Is there a cheaper paint more readily available that anyone might be able to recommend us please?

 

[dishman]

Is it a composite door?

If you attempted to paint that yourself...unless your have experience......it is likely you will end up with a lot of brush marks or roller stipple.

There is the risk that it will end up looking worse than the few scratches on what looks like a sprayed factory finish.

If it was me....I would be tempted to either

a) not be bothered....it's just a few scratches....not worth the hassle....

an alternative is:

b) Take it off it's hinges....prep it...mask it off..take all the door furniture off..and spray paint it. This may also involve sanding the existing layer, priming and a new spray coat in satin black.

But that is just based on the fact it looks like a composite (plastic) door with a seemingly good smooth layer existing layer.

p.s I'm not a pro.....

I posted a while back about ideas for painting my wooden 30s door to get a smooth gloss finish....
It's going to take me a lot of prep and about 4/5 layer of oil based paint with sanding between each coat and super fine filler after the first coats because of the uneven timber. Not like your situation though. Your existing surface looks smooth.

I have however been spraying radiators recently.....while a smelly faff, the finish is far superior to any brush finish my skills could achieve.

I just used spray paint from wilcos. Good stuff.

before, post sand


after (post primer and gloss white spray)

 

[opps]

Your door has been factory sprayed. If you hand paint it you will need to do all of the rails and styles. If you are careful you may not need to do the mouldings.

Have you checked to see if the paint can be applied by brush though? Is it the same paint they actually use to paint the door in the factory?

I suspect that the job is less straight forward than you think. You need to sand the scratches out. That process will leave you with lots of white visible areas. Black paint when applied by brush is pants at covering white, normally one uses grey undercoat first. You will need to remove the door furniture and refit it once the paint has cured sufficiently.

A professional decorator can paint one side of a door in 15ish minutes. The whole facing of the door will need sanding (15-30 mins). You may need undercoat plus two top coats. If the door has rubber seals in the frame, it can't be closed for a few hours.

The quickest but far from perfect option might be to use a car touch up pen. They are normally cellulose based so you will need some cellulose thinners to carefully wipe away any excess.

£35 for 1L, whilst not cheap, it is not excessive. I would guestimated that getting a pro to make the door look as good as new will cost £150-200. Living with the scratches is the cheapest option.

How were the scratches created in the first place? I am surprised that the door scratched quite so (seemingly) easily.

 

[scbk]

I wonder if the easiest thing to do would be treat it like scratches on a car? Touch up pen and T cut?

 

[opps]

I am not sure that will work. T-Cut works by removing some of the many thin layers of cellulose paint. We don't what paint was originally used.

Perhaps the OP should ask the manufacturer.

 

[Pipps]

The manufacturers first sent us a "touch up" pen - which we applied with the following results:

Clearly, this is now even worse than before. Which lead to us asking for a litre of paint and the £35 quote.

We have access to an airless paint sprayer which we could use to apply the manufacturer's original paint.

Our door seems to be the IG Doors NG17 with obscure glass as listed here. Would spraying it it be OK?

 

[dishman]

As per above.....as with anything....if you want to do it properly.....it needs more time...effort and preparation.

For a new layer of paint to properly adhere to the existing door....you need key the surface. The current surface may be too smooth for it to adhere well.

So...you need to commit the crime of vandalising your door further, by lightly sanding it all over with a fine sandpaper.

You then need to remove all the door furniture and mask off those areas you don't want to spray (glass etc). Needless to say this would work much better on the flat so less chance of overspraying and getting runs.

You then would have to consider a primer/undercoat....but...it may be OK to spray on top of the existing sanded layer.

The reason why the touch up pen did not match is because the black of your door has probably already faded due to slight bleaching from the sun.

 

[Pipps]

Thank you for the confirmation.

I will do exactly as you advise.

 

[opps]

Your door is GRP.

I have never sprayed a plastic door. I have however used exterior grade 2K paints on wooden doors. They cost much more than £35 per litre though.

It might be useful if you can get clarification on the paint used to factory spray the door and then find if it is the same paint that they are willing to sell you.

Either way though, you have scratches in your door. Unless you have diamond coated keys or you try using a stanley knife to unlock the door, I might be incline to suggest that the finish is not fit for purpose.

Waterbased finishes often fail near handles because of the fats in our skin. We brush against the paint, the paint becomes soft. Repeat and rinse (ie use over time), the paint is gone.

If the door s less than 6 years old, and hasn't been subjected to abuse, I would recommend invoking the relevant consumer law and consider taking the retailer to court, unfortunately your contract is with the retailer and not the manufacturer.

 

[dishman]

One thing you may want to try is finding something of similar material.

A PVC panel/length of facia or something and do some test sprays....

Sand the surface....use a primer spray...and two top coat sprays.

Either using your airless, mixing the paint yourself or even can variety.

If the cans say suitable for external use I don't see the problem. You might have more options with looking at different sheen levels of black with the can options.

Maybe try all the methods on the test pieces.

Like, I said....I'm far from a pro....just based on my recent experience and past question on here about door painting.