Varnish over paint?

[Peakn]

I have salvaged an old table my partner liked, and painted it with a water based paint that she aquired because she liked the colour. Can i put a water based varnish that i have, over the painted timber ?

[Jason]

Hi @Peakn,

Welcome to Workshop. We're really happy to have you join us and trust that you'll get lots of helpful advice, information and inspiration for your home improvement projects from our clever members. Please post whenever you need assistance or have something to share. 

You might want to let us know exactly what type of varnish you want to use - it might help community members give a more accurate answer. In the meantime, I will tag some of of our resident paint experts to alert them to your post, including @MitchellM, @Simon, @Brad and @Rick64.

Thanks again for joining in the discussion on Workshop.

Jason

[MitchellM]

@Peakn Yes, you can as long as it is the same base and you sand the paint to remove some of the gloss level. 

Cabothane clear water based can be used over water based paint.

I've just spoken to Cabots, they say that it can go over, but the paint indeed does need to be sanded to remove most of the gloss, even if it is lowsheen. The other issue can be, if you put a very hot plate or mug on the table, the Cabothane can take the heat but the waterbased paint underneath may not. So you'll need to use table mats in that senario and give it two good coats when applying the cabothane.

The caveat to this is, it is at the users risk. 

Someone else may chime in with a product that is more suitable for the application, but Cabothane is your best bet in the Cabots/Feastwatson ranges.