Finish advice please - large shelving project

[Jon Endres]

I am building a very large shelving project for retail wine display. Effectively it's 40 lineal feet of 18" deep by 72" tall shelving made from 18mm baltic birch plywood. I have a tight deadline and I am looking for a finish that would be easy to apply and reasonably fast-drying. Color is preferred to be a generic brown/walnut stain. I would like to spray and be done in one or two applications. Cost is not an object, although I don't really have the option of third-party finishing. Also, these shelves are to be assembled on-site, flat-pack ("Ikea") style, so everything will need to be prefinished and I might have to do some minor touchups. Overall surface to be stained/finished is about 1400 square feet.

Any recommendations? Looking at Rubio Monocoat but holy crap it will take me forever to hand-apply that much product.

[George Yetka]

I wouldnt do a waxed oil. You can hand apply a stain and use something like arm r seal for a top coat pretty quickly.

[andrew whicker]

I've been going down the finish rabbit hole and I am interested to see how either milesi or renner do with stains and clear coats (1k because I'm afraid of using a hardener for now)

But those brands seem to get a lot of positive reviews. I'm about to use a renner 1k for a paint finish.

Not sure if you have access to solvent based from milesi.

[Jon Endres]

Any experience with General Finishes water-based dye stains and a water-based flat topcoat? Looks like it could all be sprayed and dry time is pretty quick. I never seem to give myself enough time to do finish work.

I have used flat Arm-R-Seal with great success, I love the product but I am concerned about dry time and using oil over a water-based dye.

Also, for obvious reasons I'm avoiding the big-box one-coat "stain+poly" garbage that Behr, Minwax and Varathane pitch.

[John TenEyck]

Rubio would be a good choice because it's one coat and done. So even though you are applying it by hand, you only apply one coat.

But if you want the traditional approach, I would use a spray only or spray then wipe stain, followed by two coats of clearcoat. GF's WB Dye Stain works really well, and their Enduro Clear Poly would be a good choice as the topcoat. On Baltic birch plywood the dye stain may not give you a dark enough color. If so, I'd use GF's WB Stain as a spray then wipe stain, and then the Enduro Clear Poly. In both cases, you are looking at a minimum of 3 coats, and possibly 5 if you need two coats of color and 3 coats of clearcoat.

John

[John TenEyck]

There is no problem using ARS over a waterbased dye or pigment stain. Dry/cure time is long compared to any WB topcoat. If time is short, I would only use WB and/or Rubio or Osmo, etc.

John

[Michael Burnside]

Any recommendations? Looking at Rubio Monocoat but holy crap it will take me forever to hand-apply that much product.

100% I would do Rubio. I'd also use my random orbit sander and 3M/Maroon pad and go nuts (or automotive buffer). Then wipe off with a lint-free towel. I just did two 8 foot floating shelves liceity split. Sure, not compared to your project, but prep was slower than actually applying the finish and it looks spectacular.

Be sure to water-pop before hand.

[George Yetka]

100% I would do Rubio. I'd also use my random orbit sander and 3M/Maroon pad and go nuts (or automotive buffer). Then wipe off with a lint-free towel. I just did two 8 foot floating shelves liceity split. Sure, not compared to your project, but prep was slower than actually applying the finish and it looks spectacular.

Be sure to water-pop before hand.

How does rubio work on BB Ply?

[John TenEyck]

How does rubio work on BB Ply?

RM and Osmo work just fine on BB ply. This is Osmo Polyox.