Dealing With Low VOC Lacquer

[Mike Leonardo]

My woodworking and finishing comes in fits and spurts. I've been doing a remodel and replacing my paint grade molding with stain grade oak. This has been my first project using the current Low VOC lacquer available in California. Apparently in order to meet the VOCs they no longer use lacquer thinner as a carrier for the finish, they use acetone. Acetone evaporates so fast the finish is almost dry when it hits the surface and you end up with a number of finishing issues, some of which just take developing new techniques.

Besides the warm look of traditional lacquer, one of the great things about that finish was not needing to sand between coats. Unlike poly, traditional lacquer will "melt" into the prior coat. The acetone evaporates too quickly to allow that. I have had some success re-coating within 30 minutes but much longer and you need to sand between coats.

It also tends to orange peel and to blush even in low humidity conditions. On oak, it tends to create bubbles in the open grain areas. All of these issues are due to the acetone-created quick drying of the top surface, before the underlying material has dried.

I've been able to overcome most of these issues by quickly re-coating, lowering the spray gun pressure, using retarder, and spraying very light coats. But there is one problem I've had trouble completely eliminating.

With traditional lacquer, you don't usually have to tack off the dust from sanding the first coat of sanding sealer. The next coat melts it. I typically tack anyway, but I'm not picky about it. With this new lacquer there is almost no melting so tacking is critical. However, I can't get everything out of the open grain areas of the oak. It makes the open grain areas "whiteish" depending on how much material is left. It can look really bad with dark stains. I like the open grain look of oak so grain filling isn't a viable solution, plus that would take forever and I have a lot of trim. I also don't want to switch to a lighter stain. Its too late anyway as much of the house is already stained the darker color.

Has anyone had this problem? Any suggested solutions? I have considered trying to shoot a coat of just thinner after I tack, but did I mention you can't buy that in CA either? They sell a lacquer thinner for clean up but it smells suspiciously like acetone.

[Jim Becker]

You might want to try one of the great water borne finishing products as a replacement for solvent-based lacquer. Some, such as Target EM6000 still have the "burn in" feature and they are all easy to spray, often with the same or similar gun setup you might have used for traditional lacquer. And most have zero VOC or close to it. You may need to "warm" the workpiece first or very slightly tint the finish to get the same look, but many of us already do that as a matter of course.

[Jamie Buxton]

Paint thinner in California doesn't work well either. I now smuggle it in. Whenever I or a friend drive to Oregon or Nevada, I bring back a couple quarts of the old good stuff. You could consider doing the same with lacquer.

[Mike Leonardo]

I swore I'd never convert to water based finishes, but I once said that about water stains and now I'm a big fan for certain applications. I may need to do some experimenting as it seems the writing is on the wall for the demise of nitrocellulose lacquer.

Jamie's post made me laugh. I have had the same experience with paint thinner. I don't know what's in the CA formula but it NEVER dries and cannot be used to thin poly or oil based paint.

I wasn't ready to admit it, but I go to Nevada at least twice a year and certain thinning products may or may not follow me home. I've been searching for a Reno based store that sells lacquer but have not found one yet. Certain areas of CA allow 550 VOC products (its half that where I live) but I'm not sure where those are and if they have stores that sell 550 lacquer.

Regardless, as I said above, I suspect its all a short term solution until the next round of air quality regs.

[Jim Becker]

Mike, water borne products have come a LONG way in the recent decade so don't let "old" rumors and experiences keep you from trying them. It's the end result that counts and the whole finishing industry has been putting a huge amount of effort (and money) into making water borne products that perform.