Refinishing Cabinet doors

[Edward P. Surowiec]

Hello All, I need your advice and comments regarding spray finish method & material, and how to make a dust free area for cabinet doors while drying. This is a DIY project and your recommendations / comments will be greatly appreciated.
1) Material recommendations ..... durability.... ease of application..... drying time?
2) What are key features of spray equipment ..... I will probably buy /rent a sprayer and sell it at completion.
3) How can I make a dust free area for cabinet doors while they dry?

Thanks
Ed:confused:

[Jeff Monson]

I prefer a water based top coat, I use Sherwin Williams chem aqua with great results. I know there are a lot of Target finishes fans here also, I know that is a great product also.

If you have an air compressor with a 20 gallon tank or larger, you can pick up an HVLP spray gun fairly reasonable. It will do a nice job of spraying laquers or clear top coats.

I usually spray in my garage, I worry more about overspray getting on things than dust in the finished product. Most top coats dry very fast, especially laquers. I plastic off an area and sweep the floor, I never notice dust in my final finish.

[Todd Burch]

"dust free" - don't even try to go there! And it's not just for drying, but while finishing too.

You can certainly clean your drying area, mop the floor, close it off, and not generate dust while the finish cures. (I never mop, I do clean, and I don't do things that will create dust while finishing or drying, like shake a rag, turn on a fan, use the air hose, shuffle my feet, move fast, etc.)

It's a matter of time and money. And floor space. You can take the time, and buy the plastic, and hang it and tape it all off. But, how to do you move your wet pieces to that drying area? Problem solved: you just finish in that area also. Now it has to be bigger. And have more light. And plenty of space to spread everything out. This is a snowball. Do you plastic your whole shop???

A faster drying finish means less dust. The longer drying, the more chance of dust settling into it.

I spray, literally, in my backyard, unless I *HAVE* to spray *NOW* and the weather sucks, and then I spray in the shop. For the finished product, you can't tell the difference, and believe me - my shop is D.U.S.T.Y. But, you don't kick it up, and don't blow stuff off the with air hose, and you shut the shop down until the finish is dry enough to not catch any more dust. For my lacquer spray finishes, that's about 30 minutes - not so bad. For enamel or varnish - that's the rest of the day.

Do I get dust nibs - yes. Do most of them come out after I run my hand across them? yes. Do I sand between coats to remove dust nibs? yes. Do I occasionally get the dust nib from hell? Not often, and so far, not in the final coat!. knock on wood. (But the final coat is always the fastest to dry, too.)

It can take years to develop the experience needed to do this fast and effectively, so I oftentimes sigh when this question is asked (and it's asked often) with having invested about 10 minutes of research, and that being the time it took to type out the question. But, you gotta start somewhere.

Todd