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Fantastic, thanks. Sounds like undercoat will solve many of my problems. I'd been doing most of the other things.
The water-based acrylic undercoat is this stuff, right? https://www.duluxdecoratorcentre.co.uk/dulux-trade-quick-dry-undercoat
"quick dry" seems to be a Dulux euphemism for water basedWould you dilute either that or the satinwood? I haven't been
rhowe-
I think it's too risky to dilute it. Some people use a sponge and wet the surface they're painting, I've never had to do that, just keep moving at a reasonable pace and never go back over your work (difficult to resist when it's a drip on a door panel). You need to focus on completing the piece while keeping a wet edge to feather into, that gets harder to do with doors.
Quick drying often means water based, not exclusively though, and not all water based paints are quick drying. I have a few favourite eggshells, Little Green, Benjamin Moore & Ray Munn Porslin. For cheaper but decent finish there's Craig & Rose. Farrow & Ball is not too bad but the colour matching from tin to tin can be dodgy. Satinwood is not exactly eggshell though so you should probably carry on with that if you've started. I have Satinwood on a lot of my own woodwork but they had terrible problems with it ageing too fast in the early days and I'm not a huge fan of the slightly plastic finish it has, it's much more durable than eggshell though.
Airhead
For bare pine try zinnser cover stain as a primer followed by an undercoat that matches the top coat, so in this case dulux acrylic undercoat would be a good choice. There are non specific undercoats that are good like Zinnser 123 but they have their own quirks.
You might need 2 coats of undercoat to get a decent opaque covering, don't rely on the top coat to do that. Then apply the satinwood (which is one of the easiest acrylic paints) quickly and thinly, then one final coat which should be much easier to keep even. Never try to get opaque coverage by overloading the surface.
Denib with 240 grit between coats and use an acrylic brush (Wooster alpha is a good one). Don't paint from the pot, transfer what you need to a paint kettle and don't put it back in the main pot. Always stir or shake or both before you pour some out otherwise all the solids will be at the bottom of the pot.
Them's some pro tips for you but there's no beating experience and that just comes with hours on the job. Acrylic paint is not easy, especially in warm weather.
Avoid the Perma-White, its not the right paint for the job and its even harder to apply without curtaining on a door.
Forgot to say, use a bristle brush for solvent based paints, acrylic for acrylic paints.