Extior Alkyd paint around window

[Diane Wirth]

Hello,

I just moved into my "new" or rather old house in Portland
Oregon last month. I noticed last week that the trim around
the upstairs east facing bedroom window is flaking off very
badly and needs to be repainted. All of the paint on the
bottom sill is flaking or has flaked off. The sides are about
50-50, and the top is fine (since it receives no sun).

I searched in the basement and found one of the two colors
used that the owner left for us. It is a semi-gloss alkyd
paint, forest green. The other color is a brick red, but I
can't find the matching paint.

I went to Miller's paints today to get a color match (this is
a highly regarded local Northwest paint store), and the clerk
encouraged me to abandon alkyd and go with a latex paint. His
reasoning was that alkyds would soon be banned all together and
that they weren't as high quality as modern latex paints.

But how can I switch? Or should I? Wouldn't I have to completely
strip the whole window frame to get rid of all the old oil paint
before I could convert to latex? Or can I just scrape as much
of the old paint off as I can, reprime and paint over with
latex?

Also, is there any advantage to sticking with oil for this
small amount of trim? I'm trying to balance the amount of work
(I'll have to do it myself) versus the long term benefits of
"doing it right" and saving myself more work down the road.

I also need to do this now, before the winter rains come, as
some bare wood is showing and I want to get it covered up ASAP.

Thanks for any help/advice. I can deal with interior painting,
but I have never before dealt with exterior painting issues.

Diane
--
Diane Wirth
diane...@yahoo.com

[Arthur Gostick]

if 50% of the paint is gone anyway then you need to prime it all. use a
super adherent latex primer like fresh start for ben moore and then use
a semi gloss latex. modern latex is better for outside than oil. it is
more flexible and expands and contracts better than oil.

ART

[Diane Wirth]

Thanks to those of you who replied (email and news). I ended up going with
an alkyd primer (2/3 people said to do this, if any alkyd paint remained).
And then I put on a 100% acrylic latex top coat (2 coats for green, 3
coats for the red).

It looks great. I just hope it lasts!

Regards,
Diane

In article <3BBA7D95...@home.com>, Arthur Gostick <agos...@home.com>
wrote:

> if 50% of the paint is gone anyway then you need to prime it all. use a
> super adherent latex primer like fresh start for ben moore and then use
> a semi gloss latex. modern latex is better for outside than oil. it is
> more flexible and expands and contracts better than oil.
>

--
Diane Wirth
diane...@yahoo.com