Water or Solvent based paint?
Dulux high gloss
The need for water based finish products becomes clearer each year, and for more than just health reasons.

For a start as a tradesman the quicker drying acrylic paints would allow me to get two good coats of paint on per day, opposed to the one I get with the solvent equivalent. The also don't yellow like a solvent paint and they are often far tougher than solvents; which is always a bonus when you have a busy household. And then there's the main issue of the water based paints being better for my health and the customers health, they also produce far less of those headache inducing fumes. Boy the amount of times I've had to sit on the doorstep to drag some fresh air into my lungs after I've been solvent glossing on a hot day.

Dulux diamond satinwood
So the picture looks all rosy, acrylic is tougher, doesn't yellow, produces less headaches and dries far quicker. What am I waiting for, what's the problem?

The finish. I recently spent a small fortune purchasing water based satins and glosses in order to find which is the best for coverage, shine and flow. You can read the advertising spiel all day long, but they don't really tell you the whole truth and manufacturers are certainly not going to admit that the acrylic (water based) finish products are far inferior to solvent based products. But they are, fair and square; at least as far as finish quality is concerned.

So what paints did I test? Johnstone's Aqua undercoat and gloss, ICI Glidden's acrylic gloss, Dulux's Aquatech undercoat and gloss and Diamond acrylic satin. For the solvent based paints I used the following; Johnstone's professional gloss, Dulux undercoat, satinwood and high gloss, ICI Glidden's undercoat, satin and high gloss. Please note that these were all trade versions and paid for with my own cash!

Glidden acrylic gloss
I used all products at the same location on architrave that had been previously paint and as result been sanded down until the surface was 'lovely' and smooth but adequately keyed. I also tried all the products on architrave that had been what I call 'ghost sanding'. You know when you visit a job and the paint has flaked because the previous surface has not been keyed correctly and you instantly think 'cowboy!'. Well I also used the paint of those kind of surfaces.

Johnstones water based gloss
What I found was that the water based products certainly had problems with covering power and flow. So even though you can get morecoats on in a day, you'll need those extra coats just to get some depth. They also didn't shine like a solvent gloss, no mirror finish more a high sheen if anything. They also cost a lot more than the standard solvent variants. I must add that the Dulux paints where the best, admittedly they were the most expensive on the test but they did offer the best finish for flow and shine. Glidden was pretty good but again the flow wasn't too hot so there were more brush marks visible. And all of the satins suffered greatly when the surface wasn't correctly prepared, but we should all prep correctly; so who cares?

As for the solvent paints? Really close between Dulux and Glidden. Since I first used Glidden I've pretty much fallen in love with their stuff, as long as it's at the right temperature the flow is exceptional and every bit as good as Dulux. The shine is superb and their satin finish has a nice look, albeit only in white. And a definitely rate Glidden's undercoat over Dulux's.

But I have to take my hat off to Dulux trade because no matter what you buy it's always pukka stuff, but for my money it'll be Glidden, I've never had a bad word to say about their products and they're very keenly priced.

How do you get the ideal finish with solvent paints? Well my formula is pretty standard really, and I'm sure most professional decorators would use the same. For both satin and gloss finishes I used a quality undercoat, followed by two coats of the finish paint with a light rub down between each and less than 24 hours apart to ensure a good stick. But satin is self-undercoating I hear you cry! And so it is, but have you compared the two; one undercoated one not? I can tell you the undercoated version is far nicer and most of my customers prefer the look.