Home Improvement:
Spray Finishing
For Best results, you’ll
need a spray booth!
The finish that we choose is the same industrial
strength two-part post catalyzed conversion varnish
that is used on the pre-finished plywood that you
see in the Cabinet Construction page. It’s made by
ML Campbell. You can’t get this at Home Depot.
Since it is both flammable and noxious, a spray
booth with explosion-proof fan is practically
necessary.
Exotic Birdseye Maple
Once again on the birdseye veneer, but highlighting the shimmery varnish this time. You did go through the veneer page, right?
Although the finish is not at Home Depot, you can
get a portable garage for about $200 at Harbor
Freight. Instead of using the tarp that comes with it,
this is 6mil polyethylene sheeting from home depot,
hemmed together with staples. I also built light
wooden frames in the sides near the front to fit
standard furnace filters. The thing is to avoid
getting bugs in the finish and also to keep weather
out. A bonus is that I could put fluorescent lights
outside shining through the plastic to get a few more
hours in the night.
In the back of the garage is a wooden box with an
explosion proof fan that we found on Craigs List for
$175. It was old but it worked well. It never
exploded. The racks are also worth mentioning.
They are just 1/2” black iron pipes run through 2x4s
screwed together. The hangers are from Rockler
and worked out well - especially the cam ones for
cabinet doors.
A good respirator is absolutely key for this. The gun
is a Fuji HVLP setup with a light weight whip. Don’t
scrimp here.
Here’s a view of the drawers being sprayed. I had
removed the bottoms (which are prefinished) so that
I can easily get all the corners inside the drawer.
On the table in background of the photo is a
“VersaSpin” turntable with little pyramids that can be
used to prop up each drawer while spraying. Also
from Rockler
This is the piece of Sapele veneered MDF that
formed the soffit over the kitchen island. The
sprayer is pretty forgiving as long as you keep it
moving in a straight line with plenty of overlap and
without too thick a coating.
Storing all of these cabinet door parts after spraying
became a bit of a challenge. This stack, which
includes the Miele column freezer, refrigerator /
freezer panels, and many cabinet doors, started to
take over the living room.
Here’s the panel from the picture above, after
spraying, curing in the garage.
