I went to Micheals Arts and craft store. I bought one bird feeder and one bird house. They are both unfinished, meaning they are plain wood and need Painting. Do I paint them with a base paint or just regular water proof paints? Do i need to finish them with a gloss or clear paint for weather proofing? What are the best paints suitable?
When making something for critters like birdhouses or feeding platforms, I generally use no finish at all. I leave the wood bare.
When it comes to the platform feeder, that means the platform itself is only going to last a couple of years, tops. Bird houses made from quality wood and well designed will last longer but still they’re only temporary. But a new platform is a simple square of plywood, no biggie. I go through about 10-15lbs of bird feed every week during the coldest part of winter, so I’m not coming out of left field, here.
If you insist on finishing them, then I recommend you sand all surfaces through 240-grit, apply a good exterior grade primer, and then come back with exterior grade color coat. I wouldn’t recommend a higher gloss than satin; I tend to think that higher glosses reradiate heat poorly and can cause overheating inside a birdhouse (although if you’re painting it very light colors then this is obviously less of a concern. I can’t remember where I read it but solar concentrator collector tubes are black chrome because they reradiate the heat much less than they absorb it. Hence the high gloss concern; I have no experimental proof to back up this hypothesis).
So for your primer, pretty much anything rated for exterior use will work: Kilz, Rust-o-leum, Krylon. Whatever. And when you come back with color, same goes. So long as it’s rated for exterior use, you should be good to go.
NOTE: my most effective birdhouses have been short sections of naturally-hollow cherry, with a roof and a floor added by my son. Chock-full of chickadees and titmice all summer long.
