I’ve got an old gallon can of latex white interior house paint (Sherwin Williams brand) labelled “Pure White Base X.” I know this is the stuff they add pigment to to mix up a custom color, but it appears to be unpigmented. Assuming it is, can I use it like plain old white latex paint? That’s what I really need.
Thanks, in advance.
Nope. You’d need to add white pigment to have a usable white paint. Paint base on its own looks white in the can, but it will dry more or less translucent - much like a glass of milk seems solid white, but the table is still visible if you spill it.
What? I’ve used white base paint many times to paint walls, and it’s just plain ol’ white paint. I don’t remember what brands, but the various ones you can buy at Home Depot.
I worked my way through most of college selling paint. (Monkey Wards)
Besides pre-mixed white, most paint series have two bases, light and dark. The light base has about half the white pigment that white paint would have, and the dark base has either none, or very little. The low end series might have only one base, and the high end series might add a medium as well.
Depending on the paint, a few off-white colors might be mixed starting with white paint, rather than color base. Saves having to fill out the mix with several full squirts of W colorant, when the color only needs a few drops of C. (I’m sort of depressed I still remember this stuff 30 years later)
The labeling of your can suggests to me that this might be your case, but you really need to contact S-W to be sure. Painting with color base can make a real mess. It may not even cure (dry) into a film that will stay on the wall, or might stay sticky even when dry.
The people in the paint department wouldn’t sell un-tinted base, but occasionally a customer would pull some off the floor and carry it to the cashier when we weren’t looking.
Most paint has a limited shelf life, even when stored at room temperature in full cans, and freezing just once will ruin latex paint. For the effort you will be investing, it might be worth buying some new paint as insurance. At least test it out on a scrap of cardboard first.
Also the more expensive brushes and roller covers usually produce better results for less effort.
Absolutely right. I too have used the base many times as white paint with excellent results. The concept that it dries clear is booogus. What if they put a few drops of yellow in it to tint it? How would that change the basic paint? It would not. There are many whites and the manufacturer has to establish a base from which to formulate the colors accurately so the store folks can make matching colors. That’s all that’s going on.
I wonder if the answer to this varies between manufacturers.
Why not just try it on some scrap? Or even just stir it up and see what the mixing stick looks like when it dries?
While I was doing handyman work a few years ago a client bought a 5 gallon bucket of what was labeled “white primer” from Home Despot that turned out to be clear base. Looked white enough in the bucket, but when applied it looked too thin. After a few minutes of drying it was totally clear.
I’d actually started in on some MDF baseboards when I realized that I wasn’t getting anywhere. It felt like I was going insane.
“White” comes in about 700 shades. times 4 glosses = 2800 possibilities.
If you just want some generic paint to cover something unpainted now in a mostly whitish color, go for it.
If you’re trying to match something which is already painted “white”, well you’re going to have epic fail.
Well, after reading all the give-and-take here I decided to just try the stuff on the baseboards of my room. It worked fine, just like plain old white paint.
Question answered. Thanks, everyone.