Best Application of Dry Erase Paint

Introduction: Achieving a perfect installation of premium dry erase paint is easy if you follow the clear instructions that come with your paint kit or view the instructional video on our official website. Below are some additional tips on the importance of choosing a proper base coat, using the right amount of product, applying the paint within the six-month shelf life, and avoiding re-rolling over paint that’s already been applied.

Your base coat matters

You want the surface to which you’re applying the erasable coating to be as smooth and well-sealed as possible and to be completely dust free. The importance of a super clean surface before an application cannot be overstated, but it’s often overlooked. So, before applying your dry erase paint, even if your wall looks completely dust-free, make sure to take a slightly damp microfiber cloth and go over it thoroughly so that it’s squeaky clean, like the floor of a basketball court right before a game.

Also, it’s extremely important to apply an appropriate base paint under the high-quality top coat. ReMARKable Tintable Base Paint is the best product to use for this purpose, but certain types of water-based enamels with a satin or eggshell sheen may also be used. The proprietary Base Paint’s unique chemical formulation is guaranteed to always be consistent with respect to its ingredients and is designed to work in perfect synchrony with premium dry erase coatings, so it’s always the safest choice for use as a base coat. Other base paints may have their formulas unexpectedly changed by the manufacturers, so you can’t always be sure that these paints will be usable with the highest quality dry erase coatings.

However, if you do decide to use some type of satin or water-based eggshell enamel for your base paint, you’ll have to make sure that it contains only minimal amounts or no ingredients such as antimicrobial agents, anti-mildew agents, and several other chemicals detailed in the fourth section of our website’s FAQ section under the question “How do I prepare my surface before applying?” If paints with these additives are applied under our premium coating, they inevitably produce adverse chemical reactions and thus compromise the quality of the finished dry erase surface, making it challenging to write on and erase. For this reason, you’ll need to carefully check the contents of the base coat you plan to use or call our customer care team to be absolutely sure that the paint is acceptable because the support reps keep an up-to-date record of suitable substitute base coats, and if the one you’ve chosen is not on their list they can recommend some alternatives.

Make sure that you have the right amount of Dry Erase Paint

If you plan to coat a 50-square-foot surface, you should order one of our 50-square-foot kits and not a 35-square-foot kit in an attempt to try “stretching” the product to cover your area. It’s important that you get the proper amount of dry erase paint to coat your wall thoroughly. Round up when you’re making the measurements. If, for example, you need to cover 80 square feet of wall area to create your dry erase surface, then the size to buy to cover that area would be the 100-square-foot kit. Also, before application, you should only mix the exact amount of coating that you will need. So, when you measure the amounts of parts A and B before mixing, you should avoid “eyeballing” the quantities and instead use containers with volume markings on the sides to make sure you’ll end up with precisely the right amount of product to cover your surface. Also, be sure to thoroughly mix the parts for at least three minutes. The proper mixing ratio is 2:1 — one part of A with two parts of B.

Your goal should be to get every bit of the premium dry erase coating on the wall without applying it too heavily or too thinly; instead, apply a medium-heavy coat and avoid “dry rolling” or stretching the paint out as you might do with standard latex wall paint and then going back and re-rolling over the paint that’s already been applied.

Use the Dry Erase Paint within the recommended six-month shelf life

You’ll want to avoid using expired product, as dry erase paint that has been stored beyond its expiration date cannot be installed properly and is difficult to write on, erase, and maintain after it cures. If parts A and B of the product are left in storage too long before mixing, their chemical nature will change so they may coagulate or not combine properly when mixed, resulting in a blend that’s impossible to apply correctly, and hence an irregular, unusable, patchy-looking surface that will need to be recoated.

The best type of area in which to store dry erase paint in is a cool, dry spot that’s not exposed to extreme fluctuations in temperature. Thus, you should avoid keeping your paint kit in a location such as a garage, storage shed, carport, or barn that’s exposed to the elements and where the walls are thin and temperatures can get extremely high or low. In fact, the shelf life of our products can actually be reduced by storing them in such places, so find a cool, dry area in the interior of your home, office, or other building where the room temperatures don’t change significantly each day or with the seasons.

The suggested temperatures for storing our premium dry erase coatings are the following: Part A – lowest temperature – 7oC (44oF); highest temperature – 25oC (77oF); Part B – lowest temperature – 4.44oC (40oF); highest temperature – 50oC (122oF). If you stay within these limits when keeping your dry erase paint in storage, you should experience no problems with an application as long as you apply the product before the expiration date.

Avoid back-rolling and re-rolling.

When you get all the way across the wall you’re painting; even if you have a little bit of material left over, you should resist the urge to go back and re-roll or back-roll any areas where you’ve already applied the coating. Doing so will lift and agitate the product’s unique endothermic film, causing an inconsistent sheen and making parts of the finished surface hard to write on and erase.

Instead, you should continuously apply the dry erase paint in vertical sections 18″ to 27″ wide (i.e., two to three paint roller widths), maintaining a wet edge as you go. In other words, start at the left side of your wall and move along to the right side, overlapping two to three inches each time with your roller. This technique is essential because high-end dry erase paint goes into a film-forming process as soon as it’s applied to a surface, and the more quickly you can apply the coating without agitating the endothermic film being formed, the better and more durable your finished surface will be. So, just apply a section at a time and leave it alone, letting it set without going back and disturbing or re-agitating the film by attempting to re-roll to even out an area that might look irregular. This is okay to do because the dry erase coating is self-leveling. Give it 45 minutes to an hour and watch what happens. All the little uneven areas will even out on their own due to the nature of the paint’s chemical formulation.

When applying the coating, roll on a medium amount, just enough to avoid any drips and runs. Then, when you’re finished with the application, immediately and carefully remove the painter’s tape you used to mask off the painted area. If you see any small spots along the edges that you missed, you can quickly touch them up with a two-inch sponge brush, but hopefully, this will be unnecessary. Finally, wait a full 48 hours before starting to use your new dry erase wall for an endless variety of functions.