What kind of paint do you use?

Hey guys, its been a long while since I been on these forums. Ive been really busy and I actually got some pics of a couple small jobs I finished, but I will have to post those later.

Anyway, I have an important question. I have a posible order for 2250 hollow core doors, but the client wants them painted white.

I've never painted wood before, so I dont know if I can use regular Acrylic/latex paint or if I have to use some other kind of paint. Also what kind of primer should I use, if I should use it at all. Any tips and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I have to give him the estimate in a couple days, so wish me luck.

Hello Allen,
I suggest you try to supply the doors with a coat of primer only, and not with a final finish applied.
Doors are best finished inplace.
Mounting the hardware & installation is going to damage the final finish and require the doors to be given another final topcoat.

Am I correct that you have two thousand two hundred and fifty doors?

That's roughly 250 gallons of finish coat, that he will in most probability have to pay for twice. That amounts to around $5000 assuming a cost of $20 a gallon. - 2250X about 21 square feet per side X 2 = about 94,500 square feet not counting the jambs. Divide that by roughly 400 square feet per gallon and add a nominal amount for waste - roughly 10%. (overspray mainly).

With that number of pieces to finish, you're in a production environment. the only practical way to apply the finish is going to be via airless spray.

I recommend making a trip to a (few) local paint store(s) and ask their advice as to what products they carry that would work the best.
Find one that caters to the professional/commercial trade.

This isn't really a question that can be best answered on a forum.
You're potentially looking at $10K worth of finishing materials. That can make a big dent in the profitability if anything goes wrong.

The other thing you need to consider is how many you can finish at one time and how much space you have to do it in.
Since pretty much all other work has to cease in order to keep dust down, you could be looking at tieing up your shop for an enormous amount of time. A door is about 3'X7'. That takes up a fair amount of floor space if you finish them flat.
Figure about 25 or so per every 25'X25' area. Figure in a 4 hour dry time for the finish in order to handle it, and you can only turn out 50 sides per 8 hour day. You have 2250 doors X 2 sides = 4500. if you can only do 50 per day, you're looking @ 90 days to finish all the sides.
Can you afford to stop all other production for 3 months?

yeah you read that right. It's a lot of frickin' doors. He is only going to give me 32 to start though if he likes my price. He is building 280 houses with 8 doors a piece. I just finally got my shop running a couple months ago so this is a big break for me if I can get this job.

Anyway thanks for the advice, I am going to try to get some sleep now. If there are any production guys that can give me any more advice, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Hello Allen,
I believe Jason Roehl works in a production environment, based on some of the comments I've seen him post.
I don't want to volunteer someone else, but perhaps he'll be good enough to add some advice as to how best to approach it from a production viewpoint.

Best of luck w/the endeavour.

Cover all the details & you should be ok.
I believe Sherwin Williams and ICI both have operations in Mexico (I noticed you say that's where you are currently). Either of them should be able to make a good specific recommendation as to what to use and how best to apply it.