painting "wood" paneling

[mlb3c]

I just bought an older house that was built in the 50's. The basement had been converted to an apartment, previously. Most of the walls are wood or some kind of wood like material-not sure really. I thought it ugly and decided to paint. Most of the paneling did quite well but on other walls, the paneling was different looking. (not wood) I have asked others in diy stores and was told that if you sand the surface and prime the walls with stain resistant primer such as Kilz, then you can paint. When tested on a "test" piece, it worked fair, except very easy to scrape off--is this the best that it gets? or is there another alternative?

 

[Nestor_Kelebay]

KILZ (Original) by Masterchem is really meant to be a stain blocking primer more than anything else. Essentially it's an alkyd primer that uses a mixture of white spirits (mineral spirits) and naptha as it's thinner, and because naptha evaporates so rapidly, KILZ dries much faster than a regular alkyd primer.

If you have another "test piece" of that paneling, take it down to any home center along with some Q-tips. Get the guy at the paint counter to shake up a quart of Zinsser's Bullseye 123 and use a Q-tip to paint it on your test piece to see how well it sticks. 123 is a water based primer that's marketed primarily for it's ability to stick to a wide variety of hard-to-stick-to surfaces, including glazed ceramic wall tile, high gloss polyurethane and smooth galvanized metal. I think you'd do much better with a sticky primer like 123 than a stain killer like KILZ with a hard-to-stick-to surface to paint, but no stains to kill.