Kitchen cabinet spraying info

[todd]

I'm about to venture into spraying a finish for the first time with some maple kitchen cabinets. I purchased a conversion varnish (Oxford EM8000 from Target Coatings) as well as their Ultima Spray Lacquer (both water-based). To warm it up a bit, I also bought some amber TransTint dye. I gather the conversion varnish is meant as a sealer. I'm looking for opinions on how many coats of each product to spray as well as which product I should tint. I will, of course, be testing this out on some scrap before turning myself loose on the cabinets. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

todd

[cm]

Todd,

We spray a lot of acrylic clear coatings from various manufactures and usually apply 4 - 5 coats. We have not used tint yet and would be interested in your results.

Craig

[Prometheus]

Slightly different products, but the way I've seen and done it is 2 coats of sealer, sand down the rough bits with 320, spray the tint, and then finish with 2 coats of top coat.

[Hambone Slim]

Never heard of conversion varnish as a sanding sealer for wb lacquer before. Sounds like a really bad idea. Try some large finish samples before trying that on the finished product.

IMO, sanding sealers are of little value, except as a production tool in high volume shops.

Lacquer adheres to wood really well, why stick conversion varnish between the wood and the lacquer? Just asking for trouble, IMO. Conversion varnish is another production shop item. If you're moving a lot of product through the spray room it can be handy stuff. Otherwise, stick with the lacquer.

For untinted wb lacquer, I usually spray two coats, sand with 320, then top coat. With tinted lacquer, spray two coats clear, sand, then spray 1 coat tinted, and top coat with one coat of clear.

-- Timothy Juvenal