Painting new solid wood kitchen doors

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Mr Chibs

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Morning all


I’m going to be making some door fronts up, shaker style, and will be making them out of solid wood, the intention is to have a painted finish.

When looking on the web, a lot of kitchen companies spray doors with polyurethane paint. Can you buy this paint in aerosols? If so from where?

I had a ‘rough’ cost for 22 fronts, and it was £1k+ from a kitchen company.

Any advice appreciated.
 
Polyurethane paint contains isocyanates so you can't buy that as an aerosol

Either paint by hand - base coat with a gloss roller and sand back, then brush by hand.

If you want to spray you could buy an HVLP turbine or maybe an electric gun but I've no experience with them.

You can spray paint formulated for brushing like Johnstones or sulus but it will need thinning.

Alternatively buy paint from a trade supplier made for spraying, either pre cat and thinners or water based. Bear in mind the paint is expensive and you need a lot. For 22 doors you could spend £200 on paint. You will need prob over 5 litres of primer and maybe 10 litres of top coat. Possibly less but you would use a lot in setting up and sprayouts.

Aerosols are no good, the viscosity of the paint is very low and the paint film is only a few microns.
 
I would strongly advise against spraying waterbased finishes. To begin with you will need either a 4 or 5 stage HVLP (way more expensive) or you will need an airless sprayer (faster rate of application but theoretically a very slightly lower quality of finish). Additionally, water based finishes breakdown when they come in to contact with the oils in peoples' fingers. Not so much of a problem if you have long bar handles but a PITA if you have small knobs.

The quote for a grand doesn't sound unreasonable. Assuming 3 coats both sides of the doors (and sanding/prep). 22 doors will take up a lot of drying space. Sure, you can hand paint the fronts in situ but you will need to remove them to paint the reverse side and the semi-invisible edge (assuming that they aren't butt hinged doors)

Two pack paints will be far more durable than any other finish but you won't be able to use them indoors because of the isocyanates. You are supposed to use a clean air supply when spraying with them. I must admit that I have used charcoal filtered masks when spraying with it outdoors but it is not advisable. That said, it is lovely to work with. Even a 3 stage HVLP will have no problems atomising it and it is touch dry after 20 to 30 minutes. Sandable after as little as an hour (if using mesh paper).
 
opps said:
strongly advise against spraying waterbased finishes. To begin with you will need either a 4 or 5 stage HVLP (way more expensive) or you will need an airless sprayer
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That's interesting, I didn't know that, I've not tried any budget turbines.

Most of my recent experience is spraying with Air Assisted Airless systems or a SATA HVLP gravity gun.

I suppose good old pre cat would work fine.


2k polyurethane is great, I've used it a few times, but my factory only had a spray shop set up for water based and it was never worth the upgrade cost.
 
Notch7 said:
That's interesting, I didn't know that, I've not tried any budget turbines.

Most of my recent experience is spraying with Air Assisted Airless systems or a SATA HVLP gravity gun.

I suppose good old pre cat would work fine.


2k polyurethane is great, I've used it a few times, but my factory only had a spray shop set up for water based and it was never worth the upgrade cost.
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My HVLP is a 15(?) year old turbine Fuji. I paid about £500 at the time and have spent another £300(?) upgrading to the non-bleed gun and extra hoses (so that the air from the turbine wasn't quite so warm when it reached the gun, with out the extra hose I found I was sending out dry spray on hot days). Turbine based HVLPs are great in so far as they are portable, but you need to place the unit outside of the spray zone so that it doesn't suck in dry spray. On warm days, the turbine sends very hot air down the line which is a PITA, hence I added another 15m hose to the existing 15m hose, and then a one metre whip hose to make the gun more flexible. Another advantage of having the turbine far away from you is that you don't have to listen to the awful noise.

Now that I was potentially 30m away from the turbine, I purchased some radio signal controlled plugs. The remotes sits in my pocket and I hit it to turn the turbine off and on accordingly.

If I didn't have a turbine based HVLP and wanted one, I would buy an Apollo rather than a Fuji because of delays with regards to spares (Fuji are Canadian and I believe that Axminster are the sole UK distributors) . I have only used a compressor based HVLP gun twice before but the compressor reservoir was about 8 ft tall. A big advantage was that the hose was much thinner. The hose on most turbine based systems is about 20/25(?)mm and with some of the cheaper systems they are very, very rigid. Hence I purchased a whip hose. The whip hose is only about 1.5m long and annoying it fails (read: splits quite easily).
 
Mr Chibs said:
Think DIY paint is out the question... unless it’s a roller.
:cautious:
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I spent many years as a cabinet painter. I painted raw MDF by hand and the intention was to make it look like it had been sprayed, with the last coat being applied by hand. I used to use Anza paint pads. They didn't have a foam backing (unlike all other paint pads on the market. The quality of finish was impressive. The pads were 170mm wide and helped me to ensure that my tramlines (read: brush marks) were parallel (and very slight).

I would never have considered using a roller unless I was going to brush the finish after applying it by roller (which I used to do before discovering the the pads).

BTW the pads are now hard to get hold of but they are still available, I can send you links if you want and tips on how to use them. the quality of finish will be superior to roller and or brush.
 
Sounds good, any links/tips will be greatly received.

Thanks (y)
 
Im going to start ding this myself next week

What is wrong with the Bedex multi surface paint - I ve seen a few others on the web claim great results with just one coat...
 
First I've heard of using that. The colour choice is a little small and I'd worry it would get scratched easily. But I'd be interested to hear if anyone had used this.

Perhaps I'll wait until you've done yours next week :LOL:

Thanks for the heads-up, I will get a proper colour chart from Bedec.
 
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