Expert: Eileen Cronk - 9/25/2008

Question
Hi, I just finished painting a dining room table and chairs.
First I sanded the chairs and table legs then removed the dust
with a cloth.  Next,I painted the furniture with black
acrylic paint.  It has been five days and the paint is still
tacky to the touch.  Should I just wait for more drying time
or strip the black and start over?

Answer
Hi Linda
Nice to hear from you.
Oh gosh this is strange.
Acrylic paint usually dries in hours.
I would wait a bit longer as its going to be a miserable job removing black paint from this set.
I feel this is a problem coming from the underlying finish and I'm thinking it could be because the table should have been cleaned down with mineral spirits before sanding.
I don't feel its the black paint. Even if it was really old paint, this paint still dries even over an oil based finish.
But give it some more time before you get the paint stripper out.
Let me know how you make out and it would be helpful for others if you could let us know if this table had paint on before or was originally a clear coat of some kind.
Also did you ever detect any stickiness before the table was painted?
Kind Regards
Eileen