Painting and sealing timing on DIY enclosure

[Matty06]

Building a plywood enclosure. Currently it's primed. Painting next and then sealing with poly. Do you wait for for each "layer" to offgas before going to the next? In other words, should I go ahead and paint (primed 24 hours ago) and then poly when paint is dry or should I wait for primer to offgas before painting and then wait for paint to offgas before sealing...

 

[Claudiusx]

Hi there,

Sorry this is a late response, i'm sure you've already gone and finished your project already. For anyone else,

When paint and primering, you typically wait to paint until the primer has dried to the touch. Unless your primer says something different.

As far as using a poly, you will want to follow the directions on the specific poly (or other sealer you have) as some have different directions.

However, if you are going to poly (or another type of sealant) ontop of paint, you do need to let the paint fully cure. Otherwise the off-gassing of the paint will mess with the curing of the poly.
That being said, paint is a form of sealant, so you don't actually need to seal over the paint in your enclosure unless you want to.

-Brandon