Stair Banister Paint Process

[jonnyollet]

Hi all,

Looking for some guidance regarding painting my stair banister and newel posts.
I have stripped it down to bare wood and want to understand the best process and products to get it looking at its best.

Initial thoughts are:
1) 1x coat primer
2) 2x coats undercoat
3) 2x coats topcoat

Questions would be:
a) Is this the correct process?
b) Would you use oil/solvent based or water based products? Appreciate solvent based will smell more, but looking for the most durable finish.
c) Any recommendations for primer and/or undercoat? I've heard BIN Zinsser mentioned, but also heard this is a spot primer and as such dries quite brittle.
d) Would you add a clear protective varnish or lacquer over the topcoat?

Thanks in advance

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Looking for some guidance regarding painting my stair banister and newel posts.
I have stripped it down to bare wood and want to understand the best process and products to get it looking at its best.

Best process, IMHO, is not to paint any heavy wear items at all, like the banister rail. Just varnish. Painted, they soon suffer wear, and begin to look terrible. Varnish them once, and it's done for life.

 

[Wayners]

When I paint stairs with old gloss or bare wood I would warm some BIN spray cans and spray spindles.
3 is normally enough then brush and roll the rest.
Would take about 10 minutes to get a coat on spindles with spray cans so a huge time saver and easy job.
BIN has poor opacity but don't worry about that, just get a covering on.
Then for opacity acrylic primer undercoat or whatever your top coat paint advises as an undercoat.
Then 2 top coats.
Yeah BIN is hard and won't denib so you need to get a coat on tidy.
Other alternative is BIN Aqua which has great opacity but I have limited experience with it. I'm using mostly as an adhesion primer over old gloss.