To use undercoat or not?

A question about : To use undercoat or not?

I have stripped the wallpapers. In some walls, there are very fine hairline cracks.

Should I just paint 2 coats of emulsion (magnolia) on them or need to apply undercoat/primer first?

I see that undercoat is very expensive!

Also, I am not a fan of lining papers either.

Best answers:

• Don't undercoat, just do two coats! Obviously after stripping, sand the walls/clean the walls and fill if the holes are larger than hairline before painting.
• Undercoat/primer isn't for use on walls
  HTH
  Russ
• Undercoat is generally for wordwork if you are going to put gloss on top. It's not for emulsion on plaster!
• Wall prep is essential.
  Super clean and as flat as possible,
  Fill the cracks or they will come back with just a couple of coats of emulsion.
  also look at filling any dints as they will show in certain lights(you get shadows and they don't look good).
  depending on the state of the surface and the paint you plan to use a coat of light cheaper emulsion as a base to get much more even top coat.
• Use filler on the cracks. I find that flexible fillers work better as these cracks often expand and contract slightly with heat and moisture.
• Consider a very heavily embossed anaglypta type wallpaper to hide the cracks.
  If you want smooth walls then either spend the next decade filling and sanding them or spend approx Ј350k on re-plastering.
• Is it OK to use a less expensive (e.g. Crown) paint as first coat and more expensive (e.g. Dulux) as second coat?
  Or both coats have to be of same paint?
• We've had good results with coverage etc on new plaster with Leyland trade. Much cheaper than either of those