For one week, my friend with me there as a supervisor have been constructing three packs and the progress we have made has been great without no rush by my one issue is the look. One layer of gray primer and two layers of black paint and some parts still have a slightly wood look. I’ve seen packs that elimanated this look so I was wonder what advice do I need to get rid of this? Will the clean coat help get rid of it when added? Should I sand more? What should I do???
Sanding, lots and lots of sanding using a very very fine and high-content sandpaper. There are some wooden parts on my pack as well, and for the most part, unless you’re looking very close, you can’t tell what parts they are. I used like, 2300 grit or something like that.
A sure fire way of getting rid of the wood grain is to coat all your parts with either regular Bondo or Bondo Spot Putty. This will involve lots of sanding but you can definitely eliminate the wood grain using this method.
-Eric
You’ll also want to go with more than one coat of primer. And yeah, lots of sanding with a really fine-grit sandpaper, and probably some bondo. Just keep in mind that paint does not cover imperfections; it actually makes them stand out. You can use that to your advantage, however, because you can use the primer to highlight the areas that still need work.
Once you’ve got the wood sanded as smooth as you can get it, hit if with a few coats of primer to highlight which areas still need to be sanded, and what needs to be filled in/built up with bondo or wood putty. After working on the problem areas, add a couple more primer coats again to highlight any remaining problem areas. Keep up this process until it looks nice and smooth. Then paint it with a coat or two of black paint.
Easiest way is “sanding sealer”
Get the straight up old fashion Shellac sanding sealer (there are other types), but there is a reason that shellac has been used to seal wood for 1000s of years, and is still being used today…
Brush on 2-3 heavy coats, it only takes about 15 minutes to dry (maybe 30 on a bad day) so you should be able to do it pretty fast… Sand with 150 grit paper in a circular motion, until smooth…
Apply 2 more coats and again sand smooth with 150 or even finer paper, then prime as normal and paint…
You might need to do one more coat of shellac, you should be able to tell after a good colored primer coat…
You should be able to get a mirror finish on wood void of all grain if you follow the above…
BTW yes it smells real bad and ventilation is needed as the alchohol used to make it liquid is some smelly stuff that will make you dizzy 
Also once dried it is non-toxic and cleans up (and can be removed) easily with common household ammonia…
Little factoid, shellac was the original coating (they now use wax) on M&Ms and was the reason they didn’t melt in your hands, it’s still used on some hard candies as it’s an FDA approved coating for food 
Pretty freaky…[/img]
Exoray is right about using the sealer, will also prevent moisture getting into the wood and swelling and contracting as bad. The sealer is to prevent moisture soaking into the wood, and creating a smooth pertective layer. The reason wood when painted has the wood look still is paint consit of a lot of moisture, the only solid is the pigment. So when painted it sinks into the wood.
Also Zinsser Bulls-Eye is great stuff, stong smell, but works really great.
Tell I worked in a paint store to long:P