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"The only way I've seen painters do the finish work on handrail/banister is sanding, sealing with a sanding sealer (two coats), staining, and then finishing"....staining and sanding sealer seem out of order to me....the idea is to stain the wood, tough to do through 2 coats of sealer.
Thanks all! I'm going to do the poly route on 11/21 before heading to NC for Thanksgiving (giving it a few days to dry without anyone home). I would say 90% of the project was fine, but that 10% seems to be mostly on the newel posts. The rails seem ok, but if rubbed hard enough, will transfer some black paint to a damp rag. End of the day, I think poly will be of huge help here, at least worth the effort in hopes to avoid the bigger ticket issue. IF it doesn't fix it, then I think I might take this opportunity to replace the banisters and newel posts outright with something a little more flashy. We actually like (and wanted) square newel posts instead, but wasn't worth the hassle or money if we could get away with the black paint routine. I think we can get there.
Interesting enough, we used this exact same paint, but white instead, for some dining room furniture that my wife inherited from her grandmother. Sanded, prepped, etc. Took her about a month. After it dried for a few days (two coats), my wife put out the items on the buffet and table top. The buffet had a lamp, and cloth thing, and a couple of candle holders. Shockingly, the lamp and the candle holders marked up the paint surface! Left rings. And the cloth was transferring color to the white paint, yet it felt completely dry.... So we rolled it one more time, let it sit for about a week, and this time covered the tops of the buffet and the table with two coats of a clear/satin poly-acrylic. Dried in about a day, put the stuff back on, and no more issues. I'm thinking the same here for the stairs.
I think I've got the wrong primer, like you guys have said. Always learn something new, and I'm definitely learning on these projects, and coming to understand the importance of a poly (never really used it before this year).
Thanks Gemstone1, it was a hard year of DIY around our place, but really enjoying the benefits now. We can't wait to get the holiday gear out and go full-on Griswald!
Wanted to come back to this one with update. Polyurethane was the missing ingredient indeed. I was able to get a fresh coat of black on the banister and newel posts, followed by three coats of Helsman semi-gloss polyurethane, which dried each time in about 2 hours. Crisis averted now, all is good with Griswald-land... will post a couple of photos once we get the Christmas gear up, which will be my own personal reward this year, as last year’s gear was my motivation this year to take on this insanity myself this year.
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