Jay something you might try before starting over is to give the surface a
coat of plain ol sheet rock mud. It sticks to most anything, it dries
fairly fast, is easy to apply, can be sanded to a feather edge and is cheap.
It does shrink and you may have to apply several coats, sanding between
coats. Just go after it much like you would get a sheet rock wall ready to
paint. After the mud job give it a coat or two of a good primer ( I have
had good luck with Kiltz) Then top coat it with the paint of your choice.
Sheet rock mud and paint get along just fine, millions of square feet of
wall surface indicate the combination works.
Earl Creel

"Jay Chan" wrote in message
ups.com...
I have mistakenly applied water-based latex primer on my particle
board book case that I am building. Now the areas where I have
applied water-based latex primer have raised grain excessively. I
have tried sanding the raised grain. But I can only sand away the
high spots, and I cannot sand enough to remove the low spots (primer
keeps clogging the sand paper doesn't help either).

Yes, I should have used oil based primer. I have applied oil base
primer in one small area of the book case, and it turns out very nice
after I have sanded the area. But this is too late now because I have
already used the water based primer on most of the book case. I
cannot turn back the clock, I need to find a way to "fix" the problem.

I can try aggressively sanding the surface. But I am afraid that the
sandpaper will keep clogging. And the heat that will generate from
aggressive sanding may not be good for the primer.

I can paint several more coats of latex primer, and hope this I will
fill up the low spots. But I am afraid that this is just wishful
thinking. The primer may simply follow the ups and downs of the
surface, and I may just waste my time.

I can use chemical to remove the primer, and do this over again. But
I am afraid that the chemical may raise the grain even more.

The only way that I can think of is to use a scrapper to manually
remove the primer, sand out the raise grain, and re-prime with oil
based primer. But I think this will be the last resolve.

Is there a better way to deal with this problem?

Thanks in advance.

Jay Chan