Advice on Finishing with Paint

[Ryan Dyer]

Hey guys,

I've completed some of the carcasses of my shop cabinets and i want to paint them. I can paint each piece individually since they bolt together.

Brushing is out the question...cant do it..rolling maybe but will be hard on the drawers which have a chambered edge, but i would rather spray...

I am painting small and large MDF panels.

I currently have a porter cable PSH1 and tcpglobal gravity feed hvlp with 2.0 and 2.5 mm tips. I started out spraying Zinnser cover stain which works good thinned with mineral spirites and Rustoleum Hammered Gray. The hammered looks cool and is very durable but im not happy with how its turning out nor the color scheme now that i see it, So im redoing it. It was sometimes textured, sometimes like glass. I think the heat here 108 has a lot ot do with it...i also dont like the smell nor the clean up so i want to go all water based this time around....i feel like im risking my health with oil and these solvents. I do wear a p100 respirator and googles.

I do have a spray booth that i made with 4 box fans w/furnace filters and a 10x10 popup text with sides..works great!



I want to go with easily accessibly water borne products. I have a dunn edwards and a sherwin williams somewhat close by. Im also considering using Behr Ultra which is even more convenient.

I have quite a bit to paint, and the gravity HVLP just isnt working that great with the oil bases stuff, based on the research i have done, acrylic is even harder to shoot.

Should i get a pressure cup style like the Wagner or should i get an airless like the graco true coat or project painter plus? I have never used a airless, will it give me a glass like surface?

I know a lot of you mention target coatings, im not against this, but its MUCH more expensive. Also is it worse then paint to my health? just wondering why places like HD or lowes or even the paint stores dont carry it. From the MSDS it looks liek its not, but i dont know much about MSDS though either.

EDIT: the current sale on target coatings def makes it more reasonable but the shipping is a killer...

[Devin Lamb]

I'm probably the last one who should be replying to you questions since I pretty much use oils exclusively. That said I have been trying to switch to water borne paints, but have had very mixed results with HVLP. I have been doing some research and have found that Benjamin Moore has come out with a thinner / extender for their water borne paints. I haven't tried it yet, but will be in the next week or so.

I tried the airless thing too, but just couldn't get it to lay down nicely. Most of the paints I tried that recommended airless spraying also recommended back brushing or rolling. Kinda defeats the purpose on small projects like cabinets ect.

Let me know if you need a link to the BM thinner.

[Ryan Dyer]

Devin,

What airless did you use?

[Jack Clark]

I want to go with easily accessibly water borne products. I have a dunn edwards and a sherwin williams somewhat close by. Im also considering using Behr Ultra which is even more convenient.

Ryan,

Here's what I have learned. Spraying conventional "off the shelf" waterborne paint with HVLP gear is difficult. The paints are basically designed for rolling, brushing or airless spray equipment. The Benjamin Moore Extender that Devin mentioned is a really good product, and I have found that it will thin those very thick paints to usable viscosities that work with HVLP spray rigs. The Benjamin Moore Extender doesn't seem to affect the sheen like Floetrol will sometimes.

Try to get your hands on a cheap Ford #4 viscosity cup (Amazon has them), and a copy of Jeff Jewitt's book Spray Fininshing Made Simple. I find that if I can thin the viscosity of a paint to where it takes about 30 to 50 seconds to drain from the Ford #4 cup, then it will spray beautifully with HVLP gear.

I really like that Benjamin Moore Extender product for thinning waterborne paint. It works exceedingly well with 100 percent acrylic paints. Their product number is 518-00.

It also solves the problem of paying high shipping costs for esoteric waterbased paints. ;)

[Ryan Dyer]

Jack,

Thanks for the info! I am about half way through Jeff Jewitt's book Spray Fininshing Made Simple :)

I used penetrol with the oil stuff and i did notice it effected the sheen, which is why i was trying to avoid an extender. I dont have a benjamin store close, but it think there is some hardware stores that sell that line somewhat close by. Have you used the BM extender with other brand paints?

Thanks!

[Devin Lamb]

Devin,

What airless did you use?

It was a Graco iirc. I borrowed it from a friend who was a painter. Wish I could remember the model, but seems my memory for those kinds of details is very short. Knowing him though, it wasn't a cheap model. Sorry I can't be more specific!

[Jack Clark]

Have you used the BM extender with other brand paints?

Yes.

The Ben Moore Extender works really well with a little known acrylic paint called Break-Through. PPG recently bought the small company that makes Break-Through (Vanex in Mt. Vernon, Illinois). But it is still available, and hopefully PPG won't mess with the basic formumla. Call around to your local paint stores to see if they carry Break-Through. Be forewarned, It's hard to find information about it. But boy, does it ever dry fast to a great pigmented topcoat (aka, painted surface). :) In your neck of the woods, I would think that most of your spraying should be done early in the cool of the morning.

I've also used the Ben Moore Extender quite successfully with a waterborne primer product called Insl-X STIX. Another odd name, indeed, but I was very pleased with how easily it sprayed and then dried to a primed surface.

The extender should work well with any 100 percent acrylic paint.

For cheaper paints that have some vinyl content, not sure.

Hope this helps.