Can You Paint Composite Decking With Chalk Paint?

This is a really specific one, but if you have found this article then it is obviously something you want to know. Can you paint composite decking with chalk paint? Well, I have some composite decking samples lying around along with some Rustoleum chalk paint. So let’s get it painted and see how well the chalk paint works.

Painting Composite Decking With Chalk Paint

So it’s time to do some painting. I just used a regular round chalk paint and as I said in the into the paint is Rustoleum’s chalk paint. The paint went onto the composite decking really well, no problems with painting it on or the coverage that it provided. Both were excellent.

Here you can see the sample fully covered and you can see just how well the paint has gone on.

Now all that’s left to do is let the chalk paint dry and then we can get on with some more testing!

So above you can see the fully dried paint. This has been left in the workshop for around a week in order to give it plenty of time to fully cure.

I really like how the paint looks on the composite decking. there are no visible paint lines at all, it looks great. I have found after painting quite a few different surfaces with chalk paint that texture really helps improve the finish. If the material you are painting has any texture at all then it always ends up looking better. The texture helps to hide any paintbrush lines and makes it much harder to tell if it even has been painted.

Scratch Testing The Composite Decking

So now I will try and scratch the paint off the decking. This is the most important test and should show us how well the paint has adhered to the composite decking.

For this test, I grabbed a large price of rough-cut c16 timber and rubbed it across the melamine surface. This is a really tough test to see how well the paint has adhered to the melamine.

I feel that rough cut c16 timber is a good test medium as it is not too hard but not too soft. If I used something really hard like metal then not much would stand up to it and the test would be pointless.

On the other hand, if I used something too soft it would never scratch anything and again it would be pointless.

You can see that the paint has scratched off on all the raised surfaces. This isn’t a great result for the chalk paint and shows that it wouldn’t really work for this use, at least not with more prep work first.

I think that with some primer put down first it will work a lot, lot better. I would recommend something like Zinsser Bulls-eye 123 for exterior priming.