On 10/31/2009 7:43 PM Robatoy spake thus:
Yes, much more likely than shellac. Believe me, nobody has used shellac to finish kitchen cabinets in the last 50 years.
The finish is one of two things: varnish (oil-based) or lacquer. The suggestion to try lacquer thinner (in an inconspicuous spot) is a good one. If that doesn't soften the finish, then it's varnish.
If it's lacquer, you will definitely *not* be able to use polyurethane over it, at least not without some kind of intermediate coat.
You are about to go down a slippery slope many before you, including me, have faced.
You have a kitchen whose cabinets have collected 50+ years of crap and whose finish doesn't owe you anything.
Consider your options.
1) You can try to apply a finish without cleaning the old finish first.It will look like crap, but it will be cheap.
2) You can strip the old finish back to bare wood and refinish.Only problem is it will be time consuming, and as others have pointed out, dealing with chemical strippers will be a very nasty, and not inexpensive process.
3) You can do a "refacing" job.Remove all doors and use the wood to make shop jigs, replacing with MDF core, laminated.doors.
Scrape the face frames down to bare wood and reface with laminate.
The hardware may or may not need replacement.
Fastest way to get the job done.
Lower cost than new cabinets, but you have to be happy with a laminate kitchen.
4) You could replace cabinets with new.It will be the most expensive, but maybe it is worth it.
I chose 3 more than 30 years ago and didn't regret it.
YMMV
Depends on how long you plan to remain.
Lew
My dad took each of his cabinet doors down, glued on some ornamental trim (so it looked sort of like it had a "panel"--using door terminology) and used a 2-part antique finish (brush on one, and apply the other on with a wad of newspaper or something). The first coat was a dark olive. It looked pretty good during the 1970s. Probably out of style now, but it didn't look like crap--it looked more like he saved several thousand dollars. Maybe there is a variation which would be acceptable today, maybe not?
Bill
I'd take one of those cabinet doors with me to the lumber retailer so as to get the best match.
# 4 is the most disruptive as you also start messing with countertops and plumbing. A much more ambitious, and as you pointed out, expensive route to take.
# 3 is probably the most rewarding. Not too disruptive to daily life. You have all the dimensions of all the doors, so ordering from a variety of sources would be no problem. Cutting up a couple of 4x8 sheets of quality ply and taping the edges of the doors with veneer/ thermal tape is almost fun. Taping won't be needed if you use Baltic Birch multi-ply as those edges are quite decorative as they are. The cabinet frames... Lew suggested laminate.. that's a lot of work and you got to know what you're doing. Not a simple job. I would sand and paint the frames, after I plugged the hinge holes. (unless you're sure you can get fresh hinges with the same hole- spacing.) If the frames sand nicely and clean, maybe just a couple of coats of Polyshades.
Now let's see...what are the potential tool-buying plusses??? A Fein Multimaster? One of those super cool mini Porter Cable belt sanders? You really should spray the doors...... but a deft hand...(get it..DEFT) at brushing might work for you. Lightly sand between coats with a sponge....Outdoors...the stuff is stinky.
One job I saw done, the face of the door was natural maple veneer. The door edges painted in a medium brown polyshade and the frames of the cabinets a shade darker than the door edges. A nice 3-dimensional look to the job.
I don't believe you. :-) Mainly because I've seen plenty of examples myself.
Not necessarily true. Lacquer thinner won't touch shellac either, hence my suggestion to start with denatured alcohol. And there are really at least three possibilities here, not just two (more if you count those fancy catalyzed products, but I'll leave those out because I have no experience with them). Alcohol dissolves shellac, but won't touch either lacquer, alkyd (oil) varnishes, or polyurethane. Lacquer thinner will attack plenty of other finishes, not just lacquer. If the finish
*dissolves* then it's likely (but not necessarily) lacquer; but if it destroys it (not sure of the right word here; "congeals" comes to mind) it's likely something else. Most polyurethanes are resistant to lacquer thinner, but alkyd based varnishes (such as Behlen's "Rock Hard Table Top Varnish) are not. Mineral spirits (or most standard "paint thinners") aren't really useful for determining the nature of a cured finish, because won't dissolve any of those aforementioned.Why do you say that? There are plenty of lacquer based sealers out there, and nothing in a standard polyurethane finish (at least those thinned with mineral spirits) is going to attack a finish with a lacquer base. It's not as good as shellac as a sealer or base code for polyurethane (in my opinion), but as long as it's been suitably sanded then polyurethane sticks to it just fine.
It's really the applying of lacquer over an alkyd base that you want to avoid. The solvents in the lacquer will attack and curdle cured alkyd resins.
Hasn't happened in a production setting, that I know of, since 1976. Sanding sealers are lacquer based. I don't know anybody who has ever used shellac in a production set-up. Topcoats have been cat-lacquers for decades.
BUT!
I have run into all kinds of shellac in site-built kitchens.
On 11/1/2009 10:20 AM Steve Turner spake thus:
I say this from experience: a while back I applied a topcoat of finish to some friends' dining room table. I used oil-based (alkyd) varnish, assuming (foolishly as it turned out) that the finish was varnish.
WRONG. It was lacquer, and the result was that the varnish simple beaded up and formed ugly rivulets on the surface. I quickly sopped it all up, got a can of brushing lacquer and used that instead.
You really cannot apply varnish over lacquer. Don't believe me? try it sometime.
By the way, I challenge you to show us how there's anything resembling a significant use of shellac as a finish for things like kitchen cabinetry within the last 50 years. Sure, lots of manufacturers may use it as a sealer, but certainly not as a topcoat.
On 11/1/2009 1:02 PM Robatoy spake thus:
As a topcoat? I'm surprised. But I'll take your word for it.
On Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:09:35 -0500, the infamous -MIKE- scrawled the following:
Tell the guy with purple hands to do a whole body cleanse. He's probably picking up the tanning and the ammonia coming out of his pores is turning him purple. He needs to _detox_!
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
I use a lot of poplar. It machines beautifully, paints beautifully in the pigment of your imagination and is dimensionally very stable and cheap. Never had any nose issues with it, unlike teak and such. Padauk messes with my eyes. One of my guys' hands turn purple when he touches/sands oak.
After a day of handling green oak around the mill, the guys hands will be almost black, most use lemon juice to bleach their hands back to a normal color.
basilisk
I certainly don't doubt your experience, but yours differs from mine so at some level we must be talking apples and oranges. You don't describe exactly what product you were using, or what information you have that led you to believe the base coat was lacquer and not something else, so I don't know what to make of what you've told me.
I wouldn't have been making my original claims without already having done that (plenty of times), but I went ahead and did it again just to make sure I'm not yet getting senile.
I took a nice smooth piece of scrap walnut (bare, no existing finish) and sprayed it with about 8 or 10 coats of standard (Deft) nitrocellulose lacquer (three heavy coats, wait until dry, repeated two more times), let it cure for a week, then sanded it smooth with 320 grit until there was no gloss (you did do that on your friend's table, right?). I then applied a single nice wet coat of Behlen's Rockhard Table Top Varnish and let it dry. Perfection.
How the Behlen's product compares in composition to what you were using I have no idea. They don't list the ingredients on the can, but they claim it's a 'quality phenolic resin "short" oil varnish'. I've also seen it described as being alkyd based, and its behavior is consistent (in my experience) with other varnishes that I know to be alkyd based.
My experience here is the same as what Robatoy already described in his response.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.