My buddies and have been doing doing some amateur drywall finishing and ran against some hard deadlines, so we have to rush the job a bit. Needless to say, the work is by amatuers and it showed.
After doing some research here and on the Sherwin Williams website, I came across a primer they have called Preprite High Build surfacer/primer. Supposedly, the stuff is supposed to cover up minor finish flaws, level out nice and provide a good base for paint on new drywall construction.
Sherwin sold it to me for a little under $16.00 a gallon, and it can be tinted a bit. About 400sf per gallon on the coverage. We used 1/2″ nap rollers and glopped it on thick. The stuff has the consistency of nacho cheese and I was worried about how it would spread at first. My and 5 friends threw on 1600sf in 90 minutes and I can tell you that the results are PHENOMENAL. Some of the junk work in some of the inside corners is still visible, but most everything else has gone away. Air bubbles in the mud, inadequately filled screw holes, drag marks that didn’t sand out all the way, small gouges, etc. It all just disappeared.
The spec sheet can be found here:
http://www.sherwin.com/pdf/products/preprite_highbuild_primer.pdf
So far we’ve got one coat of Promar 200 flat on all of the walls. We’re using a peanut butter shade of brown, so it’s pretty dark. One coat and the hide over the (somewhat tinted) primer is pretty good. One more coat and it’s going to look great.
In conclusion: If you are ever concerned about the quality of your drywall finish prior to priming, use the SW Preprite High Build, you won’t be sorry.
A side note: If you go into Sherwin Williams and don’t have a commercial account that will get you a discount, try this: When they ask you if you “have an account with us”, tell them you are either “an architect”, or “a designer”, or “a specifier”, and they will automatically give you the discount. I think it may be around 20% on most everything. Just look sheepish and say “I left my discount card at the office” for good measure. Works every time for me (I am, however, an architect, and I did indeed leave my card at the office)…
Good luck!
Replies
Good to know. PHENOMENAL is quite a complement to give a product.
Have to try it sometime. Thanks for the tip. View Image
Peace out.
"Sherwin sold it to me for a little under $16.00 a gallon"
At first I thought that you got it in gallons, but after reading it I suspect that you just put it in that term for comparision.
I had a job last summer that wanted to use it on on DAP, but only had about 50 sq ft to finish and they only sold it in 5 gal containers.
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.