TL;DR: I learned a lot of hard lessons doing this the first time, was extra meticulous the second time around and everything was much better, but after 2 months curing, any items, heavy or light, still stick slightly to paint, even after short periods.
I painted some IKEA shelves for my office and was absolutely meticulous about how I prepared everything:
- I sanded very thoroughly
- tack clothed the surface before any application
- had a temp/humidity sensor in the finished, insulated garage and only painted on days above 60F and only when around 50% relative humidity, as read by sensor inside garage about 2ft from my working location
- used a pumpless spray gun (Graco TruCoat 360)
- was very meticulous about application and set up a paint booth in my garage, followed the application instructions from the spray gun for 50% spray overlap when applying paint
- used SW Extreme Bond Primer (rec from store owner when I was describing painting a laminate surface)
- waited about a week for the primer to cure
- then applied SW Emerald Urethane Enamel
- paint is dark teal and I understand dark colors take longer to dry/cure
- paint surfaces looked great, full coverage, and settled into a nice, smooth coat, and dried exactly how I was told it should look
- waited a full month with the shelves curing in the garage with a box fan on them the entire time (stood upright on their edges for most surface area to dry/cure, no painted surfaces were covered)
- every day, I would go into the garage, gently separate the shelves that were touching on minor edges and shift them to prevent any sticking or repeated paint contact (didn't have any tall skinny racks to hold the shelves for drying)
It's been about another month and still even light objects (empty vinyl sleeve laying flat) are still gently adhering to the painted surface, making that "tick" sound when an item is moved, picked up, or slid.
It doesn't feel tacky, but leaving anything on the shelves for any amount of time has them getting a little stuck. The vinyls I store in there have easily scratched the paint away just by sliding them in and out. Soft material Ikea pull containers (with an unfortunate protruding zipper nub) have also worn the paint away from just a couple of uses. Even the weight of the record player left lighter colored impressions in the paint surface (the feet are rubber with tiny nubs on them, the tiny nubs left the impressions).
This is my second attempt to paint shelves like this. First time, I knew nothing about paint and was given cheap wall paint by the paint kid at the hardware store and it was so cumbersome to fight the paint to get it to lay smooth that I put the project down for a year and a half and wound up buying a new set of shelves and painted those the right way with the lessons I learned.
The finish looks great, but the amount of time I spent doing this right is really feeling like a waste because of the tackiness and any items resting on the shelves is affecting the paint or the paint is scuffing/rubbing off super easily.
I've found old threads while searching and it was generally either people using too much paint or bad technique, so finding someone with my situation through Google has been very difficult (if anyone's even posted about this specific situation before). Or, the posts would be about cabinet carcases, not shelves, which is a different situation and wasn't helpful for me.
Besides just waiting more, is there anything to do about this? I have Minwax polycyclic satin finish topcoat that I could apply for the durability, but that was originally for use with a cheaper paint and I chose urethane enamel for its hardening properties so I wouldn't have to do a protective clear topcoat.
I can also upload some pictures for context and illustration, if necessary. There are also many more little details that I didn't include to try to keep this very long post from being even longer, so please do ask if you need any clarity or information.
Thank you!