Nothing to be unhappy with besides your self. Regal has a 1 hour recoat time it says that right on the can in large font. Big 18ft walls should have primed with guardz or an quality acrylic primer with some holdout going over an cured flat paint you wouldn't have had any issues but sure blame the paint.

 

This is the 548 1X paint and primer product. Called B Moore and was told not to recoat until next day. Also was told they are reformulating the matte finish at the end of the year due to the issues I and many others have experienced and I may have gotten a "bad batch". So now it's game on wasting more time supplying infor to B Moore and sending product while I wait for the rep to show up. Drywall had USG Firstcoat applied, which is an actrylic primer, so I have no idea what you are talking about.If the Regal Select Matte was such a wonderful product, then why is it getting reformulated already...obviously because it sucks and near impossibe to work with in terms of maintaining wet edge. Also ridiculously flawed when cutting in with a brush. Not our first rodeo housepainting so don't think "blame the paint" is an issue here.

 

Just going to say this as nicely as possible: Any painter worth their salt can apply any paint and make it look good so yeah I take as a red flag when a painter complains about a product when they've already admitted to doing little to no prep over a porous substrate.

Regal has been around for over 10 years so I'm not sure what you meant 'getting reformulated already'. It's being reformulated to make it more like regal classic which was discontinued from the east coast market in particular this last year. Again regal select has been around over a decade, its not a new product by any means and BM moves A LOT of it.

BTW you are completely full of it. BM recommends 1-2 hour recoat, they would not tell you 'next day' nor would they tell you its a bad batch without taking samples and sending to the lab. Your rep is going to tell you to prime the surface as you should have done in the first place like any other professional would have. Why you decided it was ok to paint a sheen over a contractors grade flat on a large wall is your own fault.

Regal is BM's most popular paint and most of users on here have used plenty of it, its properties are pretty well known at this point. It's a fast dry product but to say its 'impossible' to work with just ousts your agenda. I'm going to go out on a limb and say your just some salty SW fan boy who wants to see a check from BM so your on here looking for some confirmation of your own failures before the rep shows up.

 

I was told by a Ben Moore rep on the phone to go wet into dry, as in, cut everything in first, let it dry, and then roll, as it will "melt" the cuts. But their paints like say, Ben, to go wet on wet. Obviously depending on how fast you work, wet into wet can work with Regal, if it's a very small wall, but it will pull if rolled into a cut too soon.

What Coco is referring to is porosity. Even though it's been primed, by adding a flat paint, the flat paint will suck up any paint you put on faster. You can see it even in just comparing splashing water on a flat paint vs eggshell or satin. On eggshell or satin the water beads up, flat it gets absorbed.

So you have a couple different solutions you could do.

Prime the surface again with something with a high sheen like Gardz as Coco said, but even Zinsser Bullseye/Problock/etc works. As long as it's not a dead flat style primer.

Extend the paint with plain water (can should say up to 8oz per gallon allowed) or use BM's extender. (Would probably just use water.)

Switch to a thicker nap roller for a thicker mil layer of paint. I usually use 9/16". Your roller nap is not just determined by how rough or smooth the surface is (as in, popcorn needing a 1/2" nap or so roller) but your wall height. So let's say your average 3/8" roller like a Purdy can do 2 9" lines at 8 feet without reloading or going on too dry, well, with 18 feet, now it will not do even one line without coming out too dry. On a wall that high imo 14" or 18" rollers in 1/2" or so are a requirement, especially with a thicker paint like Regal. Also, if you've not used microfibers before they need to be fully 100% loaded with paint, as in, mess around with them in the tray for 2 minutes or so, and ideally they should be prewet and spun out before loading. You want it all the fibers totally saturated with paint, or else it will look like crap when you roll.

In your case to fix it, thankfully the matte is relatively forgiving of flaws. If it's at a point the drywall is trashed then you'd probably need to reskim it for absolute perfection (especially if it's a 1 million dollar house) but if that's not possible, I would just wait for it to cure up some, pole sand everything down to remove as much texture, brush marks, etc, as possible, prime again, paint again. (Including recutting everything in.)

If you find Regal Matte hard to work with, then don't use Aura. I've always been fairly OK with Regal Matte and any issues like you had, but my first time using Aura on really porous walls in a hot house I was cursing the paint every minute, and my boss wouldn't prime or add extender or water.

 

I was told by a Ben Moore rep on the phone to go wet into dry, as in, cut everything in first, let it dry, and then roll, as it will "melt" the cuts. But their paints like say, Ben, to go wet on wet. Obviously depending on how fast you work, wet into wet can work with Regal, if it's a very small wall, but it will pull if rolled into a cut too soon.

What Coco is referring to is porosity. Even though it's been primed, by adding a flat paint, the flat paint will suck up any paint you put on faster. You can see it even in just comparing splashing water on a flat paint vs eggshell or satin. On eggshell or satin the water beads up, flat it gets absorbed.

So you have a couple different solutions you could do.

Prime the surface again with something with a high sheen like Gardz as Coco said, but even Zinsser Bullseye/Problock/etc works. As long as it's not a dead flat style primer.

Extend the paint with plain water (can should say up to 8oz per gallon allowed) or use BM's extender. (Would probably just use water.)

Switch to a thicker nap roller for a thicker mil layer of paint. I usually use 9/16". Your roller nap is not just determined by how rough or smooth the surface is (as in, popcorn needing a 1/2" nap or so roller) but your wall height. So let's say your average 3/8" roller like a Purdy can do 2 9" lines at 8 feet without reloading or going on too dry, well, with 18 feet, now it will not do even one line without coming out too dry. On a wall that high imo 14" or 18" rollers in 1/2" or so are a requirement, especially with a thicker paint like Regal. Also, if you've not used microfibers before they need to be fully 100% loaded with paint, as in, mess around with them in the tray for 2 minutes or so, and ideally they should be prewet and spun out before loading. You want it all the fibers totally saturated with paint, or else it will look like crap when you roll.

In your case to fix it, thankfully the matte is relatively forgiving of flaws. If it's at a point the drywall is trashed then you'd probably need to reskim it for absolute perfection (especially if it's a 1 million dollar house) but if that's not possible, I would just wait for it to cure up some, pole sand everything down to remove as much texture, brush marks, etc, as possible, prime again, paint again. (Including recutting everything in.)

If you find Regal Matte hard to work with, then don't use Aura. I've always been fairly OK with Regal Matte and any issues like you had, but my first time using Aura on really porous walls in a hot house I was cursing the paint every minute, and my boss wouldn't prime or add extender or water.

Honestly I would just prime the surface with guardz and apply using a 1/2" microfiber. Cut in, let completely dry then continue to roll with a microfiber that's almost dripping wet with paint. I've personally painted many many 20ft+ walls and even large ceilings with regal pearl and ultrspec lowsheen over superspec 253 and ultraspec primer no problems. I would never try to do that over a cheap flat paint.

 

Ok, so priming and then applyng BM Regal Select Matte Paint and Primer? Just doesn't add up. What is the primer in this formulation doing then? Just some kind of marketing scheme that sells paint? The primer in it desn't do anything worthwhile?...especially in my application? Now I'm curious if I sand and recoat with the same product with a 1/2" or 9/16" microfiber roller after throwing some Flotrol in the mix if I can salvage this job.

Its pretty stupid in my opinion that a product sold on the consumer market can be so non-user friendly. Most folks I know grab a product at their local BM or SW store, grab some beer, and start rolling. Most, not all those folks end up with a nice finish....no drama. Others roll dry and their job looks like crap....their bad.

I placed a call to BM tech folks asking if I was barking up the right tree applying this product over the SuperSpec flat and got the green light from the tech rep...he actually enorsed the idea. So perhaps I caught the wrong person's ear, who knows.

In any event, I will be calling back into BM tomorrow because the rep I spoke to Friday who claimed he was going to send me an email with my case number, couldn't even get the email to me after I gave him my information and he spit it back to me correctly....UFB. He was the guy who made me aware of the "fact" BM is going to be reformulating the Regal Select Matte with higher VOC at the end f this year due to "issues" reported by numerous end users.

 

Paint & Primer in One is a marketing gimmick to entice DIY'ers. I could be wrong, but I think the big box stores were one of the first to use that phrase. I don't know of a single professional painter who believes the hype. BM eventually started adding that phrase to their products a while ago, probably due to the success it gained by other paint manufacturers. Paints can be "self-priming" or "self-sealing", but only under certain conditions. You've been given some great advice here by other members, so you might consider reviewing the thread from an objective standpoint. Hopefully you get it all sorted. You were either misinformed or just uniformed. Lots of great paints have a pretty steep learning curve. RS Matte is no different.

 

Lol, sooooo not a professional painter?

 

For extender, I would just use water as it's free and won't void any warranty as the data sheet/back of the can approves water.

I will tell you I've had two similar experiences, besides with Aura.

First experience was the Aura house, my boss had Regal ceiling paint and it applied atrociously. I got a decent finish with a 9/16" microfiber roller in one room, but he wanted to use 3/8" Pro-Dooz rollers in the rest of the rooms (pretty similar but better slightly than your Purdys.) The room with the 9/16" it still dried crazily fast, about 30 seconds after applying it, it dried, I couldn't even backroll any lines/etc out.

Biggest problem was on a big long run of ceiling, about 40 feet continuously by 20 feet wide, open concept type first floor. We did use an 18" but it all dried so fast that there were boxes around every single recessed light. He did not want to prime, so we did two coats of ceiling paint with boxes around the lights. Then finally I convinced him to extend it at least if he wasn't going to prime, and we used 8-12 oz per gallon of Floetrol (did work, but might not with RS wall paint) he used Floetrol supposedly at the insistence of the BM store, but used BM extender in Aura. With Floetrol in it and a THIRD coat, it did end up looking decent. In a room with only Floetrol it worked fine in two coats and looked perfect. Good open time, etc. Problem is, the ceilings were all popcorn that had been scraped, and they were sprayed with a cheaper flat ceiling paint and no primer. House was very hot and dry inside, too.

Very nightmarish, though. Prior ceiling almost definitely wasn't primed. Painters before us actually used Regal Matte Classic in the early 2000s. I think they didn't prime either, but since the paint had longer working time, it went fine for them, no flashing/etc really. But we were going over a matte finish without a primer under it with Aura matte, with a dry and hot house. Awful combo. In the end a BM rep told my boss to prime everything and that it was conditions, kicked some free paint, and that was that. That house was something as even Advance was drying relatively quickly, I ended up even adding water to my Advance to get it to level better there.

-------

Second house, not nearly as bad. Regal Matte on walls over builder flat of some sort. I did all the smaller walls in the big open concept area with my normal 14" 9/16" nap roller, and didn't thin anything but did prewet the roller and it was fine. My boss did the higher 18-20' or so foot walls, cut and rolled them. It looked hideous after one or two coats. He used a 9" Pro-Dooz in 3/8" nap a bit like the OP here. Used my 14" and 9/16" nap cover and it all looked fine.

So OP, it will probably work out fine with a scuff sand and some extender. But in painting you want to do as many things as possible to guarantee success.

Or again, just drink more beer.

 

Do people still try to "keep a wet edge" with today's latex paint?!. I usually try to make sure my edges are dry before I roll. Also Super Spec 500 is not really a Sealer, it's more of a ceiling paint. At least thats what I use it for. Are you a contractor or just a home owner?

 

Considering the fact the product familarity was not there, all in all my son and his friend who are not professionals, but paint whole interiors of residential structures often, did well IMHO, cause it could have been a total disaster otherwise. I was in and out if this job, demanding speed and wet rollers, however the 16-18' walls contributed to the issues we had. I was joking that we needed a few Wagner power painter rollers...those ones where the paint would be automatically pumped to the covers. My son kept telling me to take control of his roller and I refused which looking back was stupid on my part. He described what he was feeling at which point I should have stopped the job altogether but was on a mission to get the paint on the walls and get it behind us. Knowing now from what this forum has revealed, I will probably take the reigns now and odds are I can pull off a good result. Two things made me question the product out of the gate...the 0 VOC (which I could give two craps about), and the paint/primer combo (if really legit anyway). Had I known the outcome of the event, I would have jumped on the Regal old formula versus this newer variant, as the distributor is still stocking the older formulation. I would have purchase additional material and stored it under the closest conditions to perfect I could achieve. OPen time of 30 seconds under weather conditions of 62 degrees with rain throughout this job would only seem to help open time....unless I'm missing something there. I could see if I was using a urethane something or other having the humidity help the cure, reducing open time. But even at that, the urethane open time would be plenty long versus 30 seconds of the Regal Select. Well, in the end, live and learn. However, after speking to another reputable distributor in North NJ, I was told I should have had no issues applying Regal Select over flat Ultra Spec 500. I'm sure others on this forum will tell me this other distributor is FOS and incompetent, but perhaps not.

 

Well, now that the OP has been outed as a DIY’er it opens up a whole host of possible reasons for the problems he encountered.

Dry brushing/ dry rolling, overworking the paint, wrong brushes/rollers for the job……


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