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Stain Blocker is General Finishes' revolutionary water-based stain-blocking primer for interior projects. Stain Blocker can be used to protect pigmented finishes from stains, dyes, and wood tannin bleed-through.

GF Milk Paints are self-sealing so it is not necessary to use primer.

You may use a white pigmented stain-blocking primer if you need to cover grain, paint light or white color on dark wood, or if you're painting a wood that is known to bleed, such as pine or mahogany. We recommend using General Finishes Stain Blocker, Kilz or Zinsser white pigmented shellac-based primers.

ANSWER: Many mahogany pieces from the late 1920s to early 1930s have an aniline dye lacquer finish which can bleed through no matter how many times you paint or prime over it.

A primer is your best defense under light-colored paint.

Another technique to avoid the slight color change that sometimes occurs when applying topcoat is to add 10-15% of the paint you are using to your topcoat. This technique layers additional coats of color over your piece as well as providing the protection of a topcoat. If you don't like measuring, just add enough paint until you can see a bit of the hue in the topcoat. This method works with a brush or a spray gun.

To maintain the full-strength protection of the topcoat, DO NOT TINT YOUR FINAL COAT of topcoat.

Never guarantee a finish on this era of furniture. Inform your customers of this issue and steer customers away from using light colors. Many mahogany pieces from the late 1920's to early 1930's have an aniline dye lacquer finish which can bleed through no matter how many times you paint or prime over it. Although ideal coverage over an aniline dye lacquer can never be guaranteed, the following two products have been known to minimize bleed through:

Vinyl or paper veneers can be often found on the end returns of lower price-point cabinets. We cannot guarantee that our paints will adhere well to a paper veneer - we have no idea what the actual material is or what adhesives were used to apply the veneer to the surface. The resins and additives in our paints may break down the adhesives used for the veneer.

And Milk Paint does NOT adhere to vinyl.

The ability of a paint to "hide" (cover) the existing underlying finish color is dependent on a number of factors.

One factor is colorants and the other is filler. Colorants affect the viscosity of durable furniture paints, making some paints thinner than others. GF could add more filler, making Milk Paint similar to wall paint, but that would reduce the durability.

Bright, organic colors such as blues, greens, reds, yellows and whites are thinner. Unfortunately, this a problem common among highly durable paints in the industry.

It's Woodworker Wednesday and we're in love with the gorgeous work of Aleksandra Zee, woodworker and installation artist!

Today, we want to share this makeover of a dresser up-cycled with General Finishes. Stacey of Embracing Change decided to ditch her idea of painting the project white.