Multiwood Prime 2/pt Warm Weather Kit Smith's Epoxy

MultiWoodPrime, also known as Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer, glues paint to wood with a flexible epoxy glue made largely from the natural resins of wood itself.

MultiWoodPrime is a tough, flexible resin system carried into the wood by a solvent blend which dissolves the sap, oil and moisture found in wood. The resin system is derived from natural wood resin and, therefore, develops a chemical adhesive bond to the wood resin and wood fibers in the new wood. The resins from each form a bond which prevents coating adhesion failure.

The name MultiWoodPrime means what it says: it is a multi-functional primer, a claim meant to be taken by the user literally. MultiWoodPrime, in fact, performs the multiple functions of promoting topcoat adhesion, neutralizing wood acidity, sealing surface porosity, impregnating sub-surface porosity, blocking tannin bleed, resisting coating failure, and toughening up a soft surface so it can be lightly sanded.

"I have used it (MultiWoodPrime) on (boat) bottoms as well as almost everything else. It does two things very well. Firstly it soaks into the wood, gluing the grain together and taking up space so water can not. Secondly, because it is 'part of the wood' now it is the perfect 'primer' or paint base." R. W.

Why Aren't Other Primers Effective?

Because 1) the old, but still currently marketed primer formulations have not kept up with the changes effected by governmental legislation which forced topcoat manufacturers to remove key ingredients because of environmental issues, 2) no primer, old or new, was ever able to fully impregnate the porosity of old, weathered wood and new, sound wood, and 3) the quality of lumber being sold today is not the same as it was when the original primers were formulated.

Historically, a simple lead carbonate oil-based primer [White Lead] worked well on slowing-growing dense old-growth wood because the lead carbonate also functioned as a mild, but effective, fungicide. We all know government regulators removed the lead from all paint, but that wasn't all that changed. Concurrently the lumber industry developed fast-growing trees, and their wood was much more porous than the slow growing types. The industry-standard euphemism for this is "Second-growth" lumber. (In a way, it is similar to the difference between domesticated and wild animals; the wild ones are in many respects better-adapted to survive.) Lastly, latex paint replaced oil-based paint, with the latex paint manufacturers claiming their latex product could be used directly on wood as a primer, as well as a topcoat. After these three changes took place, consumers found their wood rotted more easily, paint did not prevent rot, and when rot developed under the layer of paint, the paint separated from the wood.
MultiWoodPrime, as opposed to other primers on the market, provides the ingredients needed and/or missing in common primers which fail to keep paint stuck to the wood after one or a few years. In this way MultiWoodPrime compensates for today's highly porous wood.

"(The Smith & Co. products) work! Restoring a 63 foot Alaskan Trawler, they saved me about two years and great expense. (I'd tell you to) use them-they are fantastic." Dave McGreenery