Can You Use Zinsser Bulls Eye 123 On MDF?

Looking to paint some MDF and wondering whether Zinsser 123 will work well as a primer on MDF. Well luckily for you I was wondering the exact same thing and decided to do some tests and try it out.

So keep reading to see my test painting MDF with Bulls Eye 123.

Testing Zinsser Bulls Eye 123 On MDF

As you can see in the above photo I have a square of green MDF and a tin of bull’s eye 123. I will be painting the sample piece and seeing how well it covers the MDF as well as how well it adheres.

Things to potentially look out for are the paint not sticking (adhering) to the MDF, the paint being sucked in (especially on the sides), and the paint not colour covering the green MDF well. Let’s find out how I got on!

Here it is straight after I had finished painting. The Bulls Eye is still wet here but so far so good, no signs of the paint soaking in too much on the cut edge.

I will let the Zinsser primer dry and then apply a second coat to half of the sample so we can compare and contrast one coat to two.

Looking at the two coats from above the difference in colour blocking is fairly obvious. The green is still coming through quite strongly with only a single coat of Zinsser but with two coats it is fairly white although it could be better.

From the side, it is more of the same but you can start to see here how one coat has actually soaked into the MDF quite a bit.

Look at the area of green right in the middle of the one-coat sample piece.

Testing Adhesion Of Bulls Eye On MDF

Now it is time to see how well the Zinsser 123 has stuck to the MDF. The top surface of this MDF is quite shiny so some paints can have a tough time sticking to it.

I have painted the Zinsser Bulls Eye 123 with a regular emulsion to simulate it being painted up and finished in a home, now we can see how well it has worked.

I will do a scrape test to find out how well it has stuck. I will run a rough-sawn piece of timber across the paint and see if any scrapes off.

Above you can see the rough-cut timber I will scrape all across the surface of the sample to test whether the paint has stuck to it or not.

After going over the MDF a few times with the rough edge you can see that nothing has happened, the paint is definitely stuck on there and will not flake off easily.

So time to get a bit more aggressive with the test. This time I will be really scraping and pushing hard and using the corners to try and gouge the paint off the MDF.

So this is after attacking the piece very strongly, there is still no sign of the paint stripping off or peeling. You can see lots of marks in the paint from how aggressively I was scraping but the Bulls Eye has stood firm.

Conclusion

Can you use Zinsser Bulls Eye 123 on MDF? Yes, you can. The paint went on well, covered well, and also adhered really well. I would recommend you use two coats of bulls eye for full colour blocking.