Target Coatings Emtech fisheye problems

[Jeff Roltgen]

I've copied/pasted message verbatim as uploaded to Target Coatings. As they've not responded to me in the recent past with questions, I'll see if anyone here has any enlightenment to offer, as I wait, wondering if they'll respond. Since it's not a glowing review of their product, I'm not holding my breath.

message to Target Coatings:

"EM7000 HBL Satin. Alder wood. Pre-stain conditioner, General Finishes gel stain. Dried 18 hours, per label. First coat: USH3132 (Emtech's water based shellac). 2 hour dry time. EM7000, 4 coats, approximately 2 hour dry time first two coats, overnight cure, sand, two more coats. Fisheye problem grows worse with each coat. Took blog advice, and started over.


Second attempt: Wide belt sand to bare wood, 180 grit. R/O to 220. NO conditioner this time - straight to General Finishes Antique Walnut Gel stain. Cure 48 hours. No oily smell, no oily residue on hands/paper wiped over cured stain. Wash with alcohol anyway. Apply USH3132 shellac as sealer/barrier coat. Wait 2 hours, apply 4 coats EM7000 HBL with 1 hour dry in between. As I approach 3rd/4th coat, again, fisheyes, worsening with each coat. Not as bad, but becoming more pronounced with each subsequent coat.


Advice?"



20 years professionally building/finishing furniture and cabinetry - never been instructed to go through such anal prep work before, yet the worst performance of any topcoat I've ever used. I haven't touched a solvent based topcoat in 2 years, tried close to a dozen brands of water-based intermittently over the last 10 years, and never experienced this much frustration with the results. = Ready to pour remainder into the next barrel of sawdust and put this miserable scenario behind me.




Anyone have the solution to EmTech's fish eye problem?

[Tom M King]

Did you use a tack cloth?

[John TenEyck]

Sorry to hear that Jeff. I've talked with Jeff Weiss at TC with a problem I had, with EM-9300, traded a couple of emails, too. Hopefully, he'll get back to you shortly. I'd encourage you to call him directly if you haven't already tried.

What are you doing between coats? And if you're using a compressor are you sure the air is clean?

John

[Jeff Roltgen]

Never use a tack cloth. Only cloth used was fresh clean cotton rag for alcohol wipe prior to the shellac barrier coat. Dusting between sanding coats is usually done with a water-moistened microfiber, but this stuff is tacky- doesn't powder up like other WB finishes, and I did not need to use it. Just knock off nibs with 600 grit grey Mirka sanding sponge and a quick wipe with a clean hand to pull the few particles off surface. I always do this after the microfiber to be sure any particles that can be felt are pulled off the surface.

Now looking closer at the spray gun. I don't use excessive amounts of lube - in fact, guilty of running it too dry most of the time. Air line is double filtered - one at the compressor and one in the spray booth integrated with regulator.
Nevertheless, scrubbed down with dawn dish soap to degrease, followed by acetone to be sure I've cleared any residue/contaminants the gun itself may be harboring, and preparing more sample blocks. I'll try a brush along side the spray applications to see if that makes a difference this time.

[Jeff Roltgen]

So- today's tests. On one end of the finishing room:

1 piece freshly sanded mahogany, 1 piece freshly sanded Alder.
- Stain 1 end of each
- wait 1 hour
- foam brush to apply to unstained, dry end of each board.
- what the heck - throw some on the 1 hour old stained ends, just for fun, throw brush away
- Coat #1 - looking good, even on stained ends (?!)
- grab new foam brush, apply coat 2 on unstained ends, then stained ends, throw brush away

Results: Wow - no fisheye on stained ends. Unstained sections? BIG fish eyes coming up on the un-stained Alder. What the?
Clearly not the spray gun. Hard to believe it's the stain at this point, and I certainly am not walking around the shop randomly dispensing silicone products. No other finish I've used displays even a hint of this behavior, having utilized all stated prep steps and sanding products for years working with water based topcoats.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the shop, I'm spraying a second sample of Target Coatings M9300 polycarbonate urethane, after a very thorough scrub-down of the gun. No fisheyes after 2 coats on raw, unstained ipe'. Guess I'll try the Alder - perhaps an incompatibility with the tannins in Alder?

I give up.

[John TenEyck]

Interesting stuff Jeff. The biggest problem I've had with WB finishes was with EM-9300 on white oak. If would not coat over the pores, no matter what I did including following all the recommendations from Jeff Weiss at TC. I ended up having to start over. GF's Exterior 450 flowed over the white oak beautifully. So maybe the alder is causing a problem with the EM-7000.

Besides two regulators/filters I use an inline filter at the gun inlet to add one more line of defense against oil getting into the gun. I use Devilbiss gun lube every time I take my gun apart when I put it back together. Never had a fisheye problem. No silicone in my shop either.

John

[Tom M King]

Very interesting! Thanks for posting.

[Jeff Roltgen]

Back to the M9300. 4th coat on ipe', and all is well. Decided to try the M9300 on some Alder. Sure enough - fish eyes on the raw, unstained alder again. This time, same gun, same product, same atmospheric conditions, full moon, 50% relative humidity, 70 degrees, dedicated finishing room, blah, blah, blah........

So- until someone at Target responds to my message, emailed and voice mailed now, I'm left to conclude:
- Appears to be a definite problem with Alder with 2 of their lines of product
- Love the look on pieces like the ipe
- Leveling properties are very, very nice
- I'm doing this for a living, and cannot afford to play roulette with fussy finishes that harbor conflicts with certain, undisclosed species of wood., and all other manner of violations that can be contributed to the end user, blah, blah, blah,....

= I cannot recommend any of their products. Will try to use up what I have left (quite a bit, unfortunately) on secondary items, like drawers. (maybe it will get along with maple okay???)
If it's this dang fussy during application, how could I possibly put any faith in its longevity?

Back to my quest for the ultimate water based top coat. So far, Masters Armor by Old Masters is my go-to flat finish (WB Poly), and Diamond Vogel Aquinity for satin sheen (WB lacquer).
(Masters Armor satin is quite cloudy by comparison.)

Hope this helps others who may be struggling with similar issues.

[John TenEyck]

Either there's something strange about the alder you have or TC's products aren't compatible with it. The proof positive test would be to spray a piece of the alder with another company's WB product. In that regard, GF's Enduro Clear Poly is my favorite all around finish. It sprays great - on anything - is dead clear, flows out beautifully, and is durable against most things. If you haven't tried it yet you might want to. Lenmar Duralaq WB is another really easy to spray WB. It's my low cost choice when chemical durability is not of great concern. Also, the white pigment version of it is awesome. It's the lowest viscosity pigmented product I've ever sprayed, lower than BIN shellac based pigmented primer, flows out great, dries fast, and is very hard. Like the clear, it's a great value. And both Duralaq WB products can be custom color tinted by BM to any of their 3000+ colors.

John

[Prashun Patel]

Here's my non-scientific, talking-out-of-school SWAG:

Your problem happens only on later coats of the 7000 - regardless of the prep you do. I think the problem is the 7000. It differs from the other finishes in that it has a higher resin content.

First, are you sure these are classic "fish eyes"? That is, failure of the finish to coalesce around areas of perceived contamination? Or are they solvent-pops or alligatoring? (Apologies for asking basic q's to a pro....)

If it's some kind of pop, my theory is that it is drying fast enough to trap solvent. The subsequent coats are partially dissolving the not-yet-cured resin, then re-hardening, allowing trapped solvent to come up through the semi-hard coats, causing the blemishes.

This has happened to me when I recoat too quickly over generous coats.

I'm just grasping here. I cannot explain why your mahogany did not fail - since it has open grain. I wonder though if it's a red herring that it's happening only on the alder. I wonder if you'd get a similar fail on other woods eventually.

I guess all this is to say, dial back the thickness of the 7000 and perhaps give even more time to dry?

[John TenEyck]

It happened on alder with the EM-9300, too.

John

[Jeff Roltgen]

Prashun,
I appreciate the interest. I had very high hopes for these products - lots of anecdotal examples of wonderful results, superior durability. In short, I want them to work. This is frustrating, as I mentioned, as I do this full time and utilize the same basic prep techniques that have been in play for a solid decade, in terms of machinery and material handling, so I feel this removes a ton of wild-card possibilities as to where the true problem is rooted.
I can answer that it is definitely not alligatoring/crazing/cracking. Not sure about the rapid-coating resulting in trapped off-gasses, but I've adhered fairly close to prescribed dry times, which are different for each of the tested products. I also live on the high plains, where we are currently enjoying a drought with 4" below average rainfall this year. I haven't mowed the lawn in a month!
A picture should state the rest. This would be coat #4 of the M-9300 within a few moments of spraying:

fisheye on alder.jpg

This would be #1 of about 7-8 obvious fisheyes on this 2.5 x16" sample of alder.
For what it's worth, I just sanded one end of it, applied Master's Armor Flat right over the M9300 coats. No more fish eyes.

[Jeff Roltgen]

Just took a look at the now 4-day cured M9300 on the ipe' sample. While it did not display the same behavior as shown above on the Alder with the wet finish, this is what the fisheyes look like after curing. Interesting that it dried with a satisfactory look, but after curing, it is quite evenly pock-marked as shown:

Ipe M9300.jpg

Very tough to photo, but the two darker dots along left side are representative of what you can see dispersed evenly throughout entire surface sheen, when viewed with the naked eye. Yes, that's a dust nib dead center. I had re-jointed and sanded the face of this one after setting outdoors for a previous durability test, as it's supposed to be an exterior finish. First try was 4 coats, cured for a week, then set outside for a week. First light rain it received, it peeled like a 5 day old sunburn = yet another complete failure of what is touted to be an ultimate line of water based finishes.

Again, I liked what I heard and read about the products. The manufacturer's blogs and information played straight into my methodology, including offering a water-based shellac sealer/barrier coat product. Really wish it would have worked.
Yes, I did leave phone message in addition to my emailed inquiries/requests for help.
Still, no reply.

[Jeff Roltgen]

Jeff at Target Coatings called this morning. Very good visit about the issues, and we've resolved a couple points:

1> 7000 series High Build lacquer is being partially refunded (a token gesture to offset my time/trouble) in addition to a new gallon being shipped to replace. He suspects something was amiss with that particular lot#. Replacement gallon will be tested by lab to assure no contaminants prior to shipping.
2> 9300 series - Like all finishes, full cure takes some time, especially with water based topcoats. He is advising I use the catalyst, warm the product to ~85 degrees in a bath of warm water prior to spraying, as it really optimizes chemical reaction and flow out. 100 to 150 hours minimum cure time before testing for durability, etc.

John: reminds me of your recent post about re-testing a sample. Prescribed cure time = not so good results. Extended, long term cure = much better results, and I'm finding that trend seems to hold true with almost all finishes I've tested recently.

So- some redemption on the part of Target Coatings. I need to exercise more patience with them and the finishes. Please factor this to temper some of my statements above. Still would like these products to work, and given that I'll have replacement, I might as well try some of the suggestions/remedies and will post results. Hopefully the products redeem themselves with these few adjustments as I proceed, and I must make a clear statement: Target Coatings does stand behind their products.

Heads Up: He advised me not to get too attached to their water-based shellac. Raw material costs are skyrocketing it right out of affordability, so likely discontinuing at first of the new year.
= go back to Zinnser Seal Coat 50% reduction with alcohol. Evidently needs cutting, due to ammonia component in mfg that can act adversely with ph balance of the wet coat, which causes alligatoring/crazing. I've experienced this with another brand after sealing with full strength shellac bonder/barrier coat.

[roger wiegand]

Evidently needs cutting, due to ammonia component in mfg that can act adversely with ph balance of the wet coat, which causes alligatoring/crazing. I've experienced this with another brand after sealing with full strength shellac bonder/barrier coat.

I'd like to know more about this, as I've started using SealCoat as a convenient alternative to making up my shellac from flakes. Is it ammonia per se? That's surprising because ammonia is volatile and should evaporate off; is it a timing thing? (I am slow and things tend to sit a while between coats most of the time.) I haven't seen a problem, but I also have little experience. I'd just as soon avoid a problem though. Like many, I already hate finishing enough.