Cabinet painting - prefinished?

[Actor123]

Hi all:

I posted this in al.home.repair, but it was suggested I might have better luck here.

Can anyone provide some guidance on a problem I'm having. I'm redoing basically every cabinet in the house (kitchen, bathrooms, etc.). I am going with a high quality maple cabinet, and want it finished in an antique white paint with perhaps a glaze. Right now, I am attempting to decide between completely custom, built and painted on site cabinets, and pre-finished, custom cabinets. The prefinished cabinets are dura supreme, which are measured on site, then built in a factory in Minnesota. I'm in california.

Because we are going to be using a painted finished, which chips and scratches easily, I am extremely concerned about durability. I am hearing completely different things from different people. Some say that pre-finished is the only way to go because they can apply various chemicals in minnesota that they can't in California, and these chemicals protect the finish a lot more. These people also say that pre-finished cabinets can have a "baked on finish" that you just cannot get with on-site application no matter what state you are in.

On the other side of the coin, the custom guys say that the whole "you can't apply such and such a chemical in California"-thing is an urban legend, and they are promising that they can make as durable a paint finish as I can possibly find with a pre-finished model.

Putting aside the entire custom vs. non-custom debates, as far as finished go, does anyone know the truth? Are there in fact things that are being done in out-of-state cabinets that can't or aren't done on in-state cabinets?

[nailshooter41]

SNIP

Now this should be an interesting thread. Doing a lot of finishing and refinishing, I hear a lot on the boards of some other sites. They all tell me there are certain things in CA that you can and cannot do as far as use of high pressure equipment, even to the point of having gun bodies indelibly etched as HVLP, and the air caps having the size and psi ratings on them. Anything else in professional or production work breaks the law. See for additional info here:

you cabinets are being made in a state with less stringent requirements, than they may be able to apply something that will cure harder than a field applied finish in CA. To get harder finishes, some of the finishers on WOODWEB claim to actually drive to neighboring states to pick up certain finishes that have been phased out of CA's market due to compliance issues.

Here are some ideas of the VOC requirements that are effective in some, but not all of CA as far as paint is concerned:

for the record, you can get a really tough, hard finish in the field. One that will last for years, but it depends on the finisher, his experience, his expertise in industrial finishing as well has having the correct equipment for application.

I don't know how durable a field applied paint/glaze finish would actually be compared to a shop applied finish. That type of finish is much different than paint alone or a clear finish. Many white glaze finsihes start out as plain white, a hand applied glaze, then a durable top coat (which in most cases adds amber to the white to make it antiqued) to finish.

I think your task will be to find the correct applicator as well as the correct finishing products.

The only thing I could see that would make the factory finish harder and more durable would be if they took the painted/glazed pieces and put them back on the finish line and hit them with some warmed pre cat lacquer and then rolled them down to the infrared drying area to cure. This would make them coated coated and cured in an almost (hopefully!) perfect environment for the clear finish.

Can't do that out in the field.

My 0.02.

Robert

[lwhaley]

It makes sense to me that a more durable finish can more likely be applied in a factory. This doesn't mean you can't have a very good finish applied onsite.

I live in Minnesota and though we are a liberal state it's nothing like California. The State of Minnesota doesn't like to put restrictions on people making money. We need the business too much!!! When tax paying businesses are making money the State tends to get out of the way and we have the Superfund sites to prove it.

Minnesotans are good hard-working folk who take pride in their work and you have my personal guarantee that any Minnesota company will provide excellent cabinets with durable finishes. Just give that factory a call and ask them how they apply the finish. You will get straight answers from a Minnesotan.