Black Dog Salvage Furniture Paint Review | Black Sideboard

Black Dog Salvage Furniture Paint is a new line of paint at my local Woodcraft store.  I’ve been eyeing it for a few months now and after a long conversation with Woodcraft’s Regional Manager, decided to give it a try on the sideboard I found a few weeks ago.

Here’s how the sideboard looked when I brought it home.  If you missed the post on how and where I found it, you can read that here.  Scratched, chipping veneer in spots, a few cobwebs and lots of dust; but otherwise a very solid piece of furniture.

And did you notice the hardware?  IT’S ALL THERE!  That alone is a gold mine – literally – because under the years of patina, was beautiful antique brass.

Black Dog Salvage Furniture Paint

Black Dog Salvage Paint was developed by Black Dog Salvage of Roanoke, Virgina.   If you’re a DIY addict like myself, you’ve likely seen their television show of the same name.

Lead by their own furniture painter/artist Susan Hudson (aka Swooz), Black Dog Salvage worked very closely with Woodcraft’s Product Development team to develop a paint line that met all of the needs of furniture painters like Swooz and myself.

• A high quality furniture paint with low VOC and low odor.
• Strong adhesion to many surfaces like bare wood, stain, glass and including the more difficult ones like poly, lacquer, varnish, and metal.
• Self-leveling
• No priming needed
• Can be brushed or sprayed
• A mixable color pallette
• And one-coat coverage

Wow!  That’s a lot of claims to make with one paint.  So how did it do?  Let’s see…

Low Odor

Yes, this paint is very low odor.  As a matter of fact I could barely smell any paint at all.

Adhesion

This sideboard was mostly sanded down to bare wood.  I say, mostly because there were a few tight spots that had to be hand-sanded.  Even with that, there was still a small amount of poly and stain remaining in the grooves.

But, YES! this Black Dog Salvage Furniture Paint did adhere very well to all areas:  bare wood, poly, and stain.

The paint is most comparable to other Chalk paints.  I say this because of it’s adhesion ability, very matte finish that’s easily sanded and distressed if you prefer, and thick consistency.

The consistency of the paint was so thick, in fact, that at first the paint wouldn’t spread well.  The few inches where the wet brush landed on the furniture was the only coverage area.

I quickly realized though, that adding a little water thinned the paint just enough to make brushing go much more smoothly and the thinning did not affect the one-coat-coverage claim.

Update: Since writing this post and speaking with Woodcraft’s Regional Manager, he suggested warming the paint slightly as an alternative to watering it down.  To do this, run hot tap water directly from the faucet into a large container and set the sealed can of paint into the water so that the water comes about 3/4 of the way up the paint can.  Careful not to burn yourself.

Self-Leveling

When it comes to leveling ability, I compare every other paint to General Finishes Milk Paint.  It’s also sold at Woodcraft and is amazing!  You could be the most messy furniture painter on the planet and GF Milk Paint probably would not show it because it levels out so well.  It’s a very high standard to live up to.

The Black Dog Salvage Paint was a close second.  In comparision to other Chalk and even many enamel paints, it did very well.

As a matter of fact, a client of mine rubbed her hand along the surface and fell in love with the buttery smooth finish on this sideboard.  I have yet to try Black Dog’s Guard Dog topcoat over the Black Dog Salvage paint.  Instead, I applied four coats of General Finishes Flat-Out-Flat topcoat.

The surface is like butter!

No Priming Needed

The Black Dog Salvage paint was brushed directly onto the bare wood and adhered perfectly.

One-Coat Coverage

If I was going to give the coverage of this paint a rating, I would have to say it scored 9.5 out of 10 on the first coat.  Every paint claims to be one-coat coverage and it never is. This was the closest I’ve ever come to actually only needing to apply one coat!  Even with this dark black color.

I have to say I was actually surprised how well it did.

The only reason I applied a second coat was because I was working in my workshop where the lighting can have a lot of shadows.   The second coat was a ‘just-in-case” I missed a spot, but it really didn’t need it.

Can be Brushed or Sprayed

I brush on all of my paints so I cannot speak to the spraying abilities of Black Dog paint; but what I can say is when I thinned the paint with a little water it did very well.  There was no loss of color and it made the paint even easier to brush on.  So I imagine thinning the paint to spray it would be similar.

A Surprise…

The only issue I had was the thickness of the paint and the fact that it wouldn’t spread over a larger area.  This, combined with the fact that there’s always a small learning curve with a new paint, slowed down the process considerably.  But, like I stated earlier, thinning the paint with a little water helped the issue.

The inside behind the cabinet doors was stained in General Finishes Gel Stain and then clear-coated in Minwax Wipe-On polyurethane in a satin finish, going the extra mile to finish the inside as well as the outside makes a quality piece of furniture.

The color stain is Georgian Cherry – a very rich tone.   Love gel stains!  If you haven’t tried them, stop in to Woodcraft and pick up a can.  They’re fantastic!

Black Dog Salvage Furniture Paint absolutely lived up to its claims and is even priced under that of other popular Chalk paints.  I’m looking forward to trying some of their other colors.

According to Eastern Regional Manager Scott Dixon, he’s worked closely with Swooz to set up training sessions in Woodcraft’s area stores for training on the product.  They’ve spent a great deal of time talking about the various ways to show you, the customer/painter/artist, what this paint can do and how it performs.

Woodcraft is featuring a product demo this Saturday, September 16th at their Woburn, Massachusetts location.  See the product in action, ask questions and try it for yourself!

 

 

Disclosure:  This post contains affiliate links to products I use myself.