Greetings All: Trying to be proactive before painting a bathroom and found a dilemma. I understand that semi-gloss paint has to be lightly sanded or have a bonding primer painted over before new paint can be applied. So while sanding the semi-gloss trim I started wondering if I am going to put 2 or 3 coats over this bathroom does that mean I have to sand or prime between each coat? The dilemma being that when I painted the underside of my kitchen cabinets I used a bonding primer then did 3 coats of Valspar's lowest end semi-gloss and did not sand between them and at least one coat was done 24hrs after the other. Because it was low end paint I went into the project knowing there would be a need for more that one coat so did the coats thinly with a bush. I have had no issues with the paint and it gets wiped down often because of upsplash from prepping food on the counter underneath. So did I just luck out with the cabinets? Or was it the fact the paint was so low end it might not have be as semi-glossy? Or maybe it was the fact I used a brush? For this project I'll be using semi-gloss as well from another brands lowest end paint line but will be doing it with a roller and do plan on doing at least 2 coats over a primer. Is there really a need to sand or prime between coats of semi-gloss?

So I learned something new... We have a couple bollards at our congregation that were new about 4 yrs ago, and someone painted them safety yellow using what I assume was a DTM (direct to metal) oil based paint. But within about 1 year the paint was all peeling off in big chunks. It didn't take too much effort to scrape all the old paint off, the adhesion of any remaining paint was poor. This was due to the oily, slick surface (passivator) on the galvanizing. And turns out all alkyd oil based paints will eventually react with the zinc on the surface and peel. The passivator must be removed by [color=#333333]SSPC-SP7 (meaning, a certain level of brush off-blast cleaning). But apparently you can also successfully paint galvanized that has sufficiently weathered. The test is to see if you can chemically etch the galvanized with a solution of Copper Sulfate, salt and water. If it does NOT turn greenish black, the passivator remains on the surface and it must be removed by blasting. (Or weathering) If it weathers TOO much, the galvanized will get a white oxide which must also be removed to successfully paint the surface. So I mixed up about 70 mL of Copper Sulfate, 70 mL of salt and dissolved it in 700 mL of hot water. Sprayed it on the bollards with a spray bottle (gloves and goggles) and within a few seconds it was turning greenish black. And the whole surface seemed to take the etch evenly. This was no doubt due to about 6 months of weathering since we stripped the old paint. So the next step is to prime and paint, but this time I notice that Sherwin Williams recommends only water-based/ latex paints and primers. So we'll see how that holds up this time. I was wondering [utag=134565]marksr[/utag], what did you find to work well on new galvanized metal that you painted?[/color]