When, How & Why to add Extra-Bond to Milk Paint

Sausha, from Sweet Pickins Furniture has a great tutorial on Extra Bond.  I’m back with another tutorial on Sweet Pickins Milk Paint – this time we will chat about the Extra – Bond.  We will cover all the whens, whys and hows.  If you have any questions just leave them in the comments so i can address them as others may have the same ones :)

What is it?

Extra – Bond is a water based polymer emulsion.  When added to milk paint, it gives greater adhesion to non-porous surfaces or previously finished pieces.  Its environmentally safe, non toxic and VOC free.  Clean up is easy since its a water based product – just simple soap and water will do.

Basically – it is recommended that if you are going to be using milk paint over a piece that has been previously painted, has an old finish on it (polyurethane, shellac) or will be painting a non porous surface such as glass, metal, laminate – this is the product you use to give the paint better adhesion and keep the paint from peeling off.

How to use it

Using the Extra Bond is really simple because there are no extra steps involved!

To use, you mix your milk paint according to the directions (add water and powder together) and then add your Extra Bond and mix.  Its important to mix up your milk paint 1st and then add the bond.  If you add the bond directly to your powder and then add water, it will be a clumpy mess.

When i know that i will be adding the bond, i do make my milk paint mixture slightly thicker than i would normally.  The bond wont thin out your paint too much, but it may just a little.  If it still too thick after adding the bond, you are fine to add more water.  The consistency should still be the same as if just using milk paint alone would (see tutorial here on mixing milk paint and getting the right consistency).

The directions call for adding 2 parts paint to one part of bond.  So if i have a cup of mixed paint, then i add a half cup of bond.   A lot of times when i know that i need bond, but i still want chipping, i add half or even a quarter of what the directions call for and that normally works.  Ive found in most cases that the Extra – Bond really makes the paint stick and i get very little to no natural chipping whatsoever.  If you have a surface that is a little iffy and think that you will need more bond, you can add up to a 1 to 1 ratio, so if you have one cup of paint, you can add 1 cup of bond.

Extra – Bond only needs to be used on the 1st coat of paint.  When using the bond in your 1st coat, it is recommended that you wait 2 hours before applying the 2nd coat of milk paint.  If you re-coat sooner, it may re-activate the bond from the 1st coat and cause the 1st coat to lift.  I don’t always wait the 2 hours and I’ve never really ran into this problem.

It is recommended that before painting with the milk paint/bond, that you thoroughly clean the surface 1st to remove all dirt and oils.  You need to use a good cleaner that wont leave behind an oily residue.  A product such as TSP works great for this.  If you use Extra – Bond over certain oil marks or dirt, or whatever foreign product that may be on the surface, the paint may stick in the beginning (or not) but may eventually begin to peel up.  You don’t want to paint a piece and a month later the milk paint begin to peel because its resisting the surface on the piece.  If you have properly prepped your piece prior to using the bond, the milk paint will not begin to peel down the road.

And the best part about using the Extra – Bond, you don’t need to prep your piece by sanding!!  The bond does the work for you!  That’s one of the main reasons i love working with milk paint.  It should be noted though, that if you are painting a piece with a high shine to it, that you lightly scuff sand it to knock down the shine and give the piece a little “tooth” for the paint to better adhere.

It is important to not let the bond freeze as it will no longer be usable.  Its also recommended to use it above 60 degrees so that the bond can cure.

Milk paint with the bond added will only last you a few hours especially if left uncovered.  It will start to gel and will no longer be usable – that’s why its important to only mix up what you will need with the 1st coat.

When & Why to use it

Like i said above, it is recommended that you use Extra – Bond when painting over a previously finished piece (polyurethane, shellac, waxed) or something that has already been painted.  Same goes for painting over laminate, metal or glass.  Basically if it has any bit of shine to it, that’s when i determine if i am going to use the bond.  You can paint cheap laminated Ikea type furniture with it as well (although i would sand it 1st to give it some tooth and add more Extra – Bond than recommended).

Also – if you want the look of milk paint, but don’t want a chippy, distressed finish then you would want to use the Extra – Bond.

- Previously painted -

In this case, the dresser was painted with a thick coat of an oil based paint and was pretty shiny and i knew the milk paint would just flake off if i didn’t use the bond.  I also didn’t want to see the yellow showing through in my final finish.  If the paint had of been a flat finish and a darker color, such as brown or black, i would have skipped the bond.

Remember though, even when using the bond, your 1st coat of milk paint will only be as good as the finish that may already be on the piece.  In this case, the paint was in really bad shape on the sides and a lot of it had to be scraped off so that my milk paint wouldn’t just flake off with the peeling paint.  Milk paint even with the bond added is not going to make a bad peeling paint job go away.

- Previous Finish -

These are just a couple examples of pieces i have painted in the last few weeks that have a previous finish to them.  The tall dresser is a newer piece and has a clear coat of lacquer from the factory, its pretty shiny and not porous at all.  The 70′ies dresser is all wood, but has a super thick coat of shiny smooth lacquer.

Both of these pieces if just painted with milk paint alone would most likely just flake off.  And i didn’t want a chippy finish on either of them so i added the Extra – Bond.

You can see how shiny the old finish of the dresser was, milk paint with bond covers it right up with no prep work!!

- Skipping the Extra – Bond -

In the pic below, you can see what a finish looks like when bond wasn’t used.  This frame had a super thick shiny coat in most places and i wanted a chippy look.  So i skipped the bond and just sanded off the peeling paint after it dried because it resisted the smooth finish to give me the chippy look.

Milk paint is funny and unpredictable when not using the bond.  In some places it stuck like crazy and cant even be scraped off and in some places the paint just peeled right up.

This piece here had a semi-shiny old finish on it on most of the piece.  It was an older piece and i wanted the chippy look.  The milk paint did its thing like i wanted and chipped really well on both the top and bottom moldings.  But on the body of the chest, the milk paint didn’t chip much at all where the surface was a little more porous and the milk paint absorbed better so i had to manually distress it.

On this last piece, the finish was all gone and was very porous.  I knew that the milk paint would just get sucked up by the wood so i skipped the bond.  Because the milk paint adhered so well, i didn’t get any chipping and had to distress with my electric sander.

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I always think its important to have the Extra – Bond on hand, especially when 1st starting out with milk paint.  Milk paint is known for its unpredictability especially when skipping the bond, so by adding the bond you will have better control over the final results of your piece.

I would say that i only use bond about 25% of the time overall.  Sometimes i use it on every piece i do in a week, sometimes i will go a couple weeks without using it – it really just depends on the types of pieces that im working on.   I prefer the chippy look on a majority of my pieces so a lot of times i take a chance and skip the bond – sometimes it doesn’t work out so well and i have to go back and paint again with the bond!