Paint Grade Cabinets

[Joe Stansley]

Hello All - need some advice on kitchen cabinets. Going to be remodeling our kitchen and am building the kitchen cabinets. Was originally going to do maple through and through but was overruled by a higher authority (yes I'm married). Anyway, looks like they will be paint grade and I'm leaning toward poplar for all exposed parts and birch ply for boxes. Any thoughts on good choices for paint grade cabinetry?

Thanks in advance

[Jefferey Scott]

Another hardwood to consider is soft maple. I think the birch ply and poplar would be fine though. I would recommend a domestic ply, I've had problems with the China birch ply in the past delaminating. I'm in the process of building my kitchen cabinets as we speak out of maple. Good luck on your project.

[Todd Burch]

Nothing wrong with that plan. If you aren't spraying, I would suggest rolling. Paint the boxes before you put the backs on whereever you can.

Welcome to SMC!

Todd

[Joe Stansley]

Thanks all. Alot of great information in these groups. Nothing beats all this experience. I am looking into spraying and from what I've read on it to date, it seems like it's possible with a 4 stage HVLP system. Putting a lot of effort into the construction and really want that professional looking finish.

[John Schweikert]

Joe, I'm building mudroom cabinetry currently. I used 3/4" birch ply for all the main pieces and 3/4" poplar for edge trim on the sides and seat. For the doors and drawer faces, I bought best grade 3/4' pine for the frames and 1/4" ply for the panels. I'm doing all this in bow roof shed which I built in January for the sole purchase of building a boat (Devlin Candlefish 16). But my wife has been working with an interior designer and creating a new mudroom space was a great idea and will help control the clutter from all the stuff we bring in daily; life with a 7 year old.

I've used several paint guns for compressors over the years with ok results, but I bought a Fuji Q4 turbine HVLP pressure feed system (sound volume is quite tolerable). Expensive and a beast in size of the gun and cup in hand, but the quality of the HVLP system is excellent. The mudroom cabinetry is giving me a good project to hone my skills with the new HVLP.

As mentioned by others on this forum, build with the cabinet back detached, spray finish everything then do the final assembly. I built the 8'6" h x 4' w x 2' deep unit and it is a tough spray job to get into all the nooks. I may have been better off with the gravity feed gun for size reasons to help get into corners and inside the cabinet top, but I'll see if the smaller cups with help me with the gun I have.

Doing all this has been a good warmup for boat building. All the skills (except glassing and epoxy) are being used in this cabinetry project. I'm using the boat strongback to hold the cabinetry laying on its back for spraying. Easier to get to all the areas than having it standing up.

Did a first scratch coat of primer to learn the Fuji gun. Heading to do some 220 sanding for a 2nd full primer coat and then final paint. Using Floetrol is essential, I was amazed at how well the primer self leveled before drying. Just one area inside the top cabinet was too heavy, nothing a little sanding won't fix.

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