Ballpoint pen ink (oil-based) will bleed thru latex paint. Even thru the second coat..
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No
you're not. I didn't know it. Then, it is smart to clean the walls before you paint them.
bleeding ballpoint pen.
You didn't say when you found out about that little phenomena.
IIRC, it was only about 40 years ago when I found out the hard way. The owner would leave detailed instructions and sketches on the walls in each room after each visit he made to the job site.
Just so you know
......so will Sharpie markers.
Shellac, pigmented or not, usually stops that foolishness.
For future reference, pencil is generally the best choice for those notes on "to be painted" surfaces.
Jim
Rubbing alcohol or denatured will remove most of sharpie or pencil graphite. The alcohol in the shellac can partly disolve the sharpie and mix it in so it takes two coats to seal that.
Never noticed that
Thanks for the info! Good to know.
I have usually "found" the bleed through at the primer stage, so the ink was already somewhat "impaired".
Worst Sharpie mishap was on a H4H house, we did not have a sheet metal break on site. A volunteer had a break at home and pre-cut and bent quite a few pieces of Al fascia wraps. Essentially they were custom fits / lengths.
In order to keep them organized, he drew a sketch of the house and numbered the pieces with Sharpie on the back side of each piece. He dropped the Al off on the site one day when nobody was around so he stashed them out back of the house along with his sketch.
The Al was neatly nested and bound with stretch wrap. It rained overnight and all the Al got wet - no problem right?
The "permanent" Sharpie transferred to the fronts of the pieces behind them so now we had numbers on front and back! We tried all kinds of solvents to remove the transfer - not much luck. Some of the marks we could hide behind the gutters, all of the gable rakes we scrapped -- live and learn.
Jim