[Bob Carriere]

I need to repaint the floor of my large enclosed deck....... previously painted Grey with special deck/veranda oil based paint. Now I find out that all household paint in Canada is water base ONLY....... and the water base paint will not adhere to oil paint unless the floor is sanded and or primed...... 3 times the work and twice the cost.

Some searching shows that equipment (farm) oil paint is still available from TSC and Canadian Tire........ Tremclade is still available in oil and now in water based but you have to settle for existing color mix. CTC also sells Armour Coat oil based paint as a house brand....... and if you find a large enough CTC and a competent sales clerk....... they can mix Armour Coat to any shade available in the Premier Paint line they sell....comes in light and dark base shade and mixed the traditional way. I am now aware of any flat shades but they do have semigloss.

Years ago when we painted M37 with our own mix of Tremclad we used plain old gasoline as a reducer and it produced a nice semigloss shade that gradually faded to almost flat.

So back to my deck, I need to get 4 gallons of Terracota red which they will mix for me...... but the advice of the CTC paint guy was to bring my wife to select what shade of terracotta she really wants.......

Now milk paint is available from Toronto suppliers but is only suitable for new wooden surfaces but very durable.

I have been told that most of the states have also banned oil based paint for household paint but that Vermont has not enacted the ban YET.....

Most of the military paints available in flat from the States are still available .... the issue is what do you declare at the border crossing and shipping commercially maybe an issue for the future.

We may have to come up with our own mixing formula using basic red, blue, yellow and make sure the red is Red Oxide to get a semi gloss/semi flat finish if the US suppliers dry up.

I am not sure if the automotive water based paint, without the top clear coat, is adequate to seal the metal from water....... current red oxide, also flat grey and black primers will allow surface rust bloom to occur if not sealed with a top coat.

Choice of words is a short term solution to get around legal issues.... for example POR 15 is defined as a "coating" not a paint...... and at least so far, farm equipment oil paint, is still available.

Cheers