Spraying Lacquer or Poly

[doug williams]

Bernie, I spray in my basement all the time. I have an old furnace blower rigged up, roll it over to a window which is replaced with a plywood blank for this operation. The key to this is to open another window to counter balance the static air flow from the blower out, to get the air moving in the right direction. There is no pilot light on anything for me to worry about. A friend of mine does it this way, which is where I gotthe idea. I have sprayed several pieces of furniture over several years this way and no problems. Knock on wood maybe. For small things, as was mentioned, maybe a window fan would work for you and by opening another window for air circulation would work. It dosen't take long to vent the fumes outside with my old furnace blower. I also wear a resporater when spraying bigger pieces that take 20 minites or more. Hope this helps Doug

[Clint Merrill]

This may work for you Bernie ? I use an air brush with a small compressor [Harbor Freight], very inexpensive. I make a spray booth from cardboard boxes and use small dowells or coat hangers punched in the sides across the opening to hold pens, hang ornaments, etc. [empty beer boxes work good,, LOL.] Seriously the box cavity catches all the over spray and seems to hold the odor down too. I do this on the kitchen table , fortunately have not had any spills or boo boo's. Hope this helps.

Clint

[Bernie Weishapl]

Thanks for the replies. My building I have is a metal building. I had this thing built with energy in mind. I have 6" insulated walls and 24" in the attic. There in one door on one end and a insulated garage door on the other. There are no windows. The heat I have is hanging from the ceiling and gets return air thru the flu pipe. Even on the coldest days the heat will only come on 4 or 5 times during the day. When I built the building in 1994 I had my clock repair shop only in mind with a small portion 12 X24 for doing some lite wood working mostly on clock cases and for missing case parts. I acquired a lathe some 10 yrs after I built it in 2004 to turn spindle columns for clocks. Yep that was the only thing I was going to use it for. Famous last words. So now I try to split time between my clock work and turning. I had thought about a high cfm bathroom fan running it thru the wall using 4" pvc pipe but a couple of friends of mine were concerned with spraying something as volitale as lacquer thru it around the motor. Anyway I am going to try the 3 water based finishes that I mentioned. I would like to be able to air brush these finishes but would still need some type of booth for over spray in which I think a bath fan would work fine with a filter before it and pvc to the outside. Thanks again for all the replies.

[Bill Wyko]

I wonder how well a dust collector hose near the spray field would work. Just an idea.

[robert baccus]

Warning!! spraying anything with a flamable solvent in a closed room is like playing with dynamite.-worse. when i was a kid i sprayed cars for spending money--anywhere-anytime. my dad took me to a service station that looked like a parking lot. kids spraying cars on a colds winter nite--wiped out 3 kids and a nice exxon station. just a spark! i was a demo. guy in the service and 100# of cr-3 would not have slicked off that building as well. the lift and a few pipes survived. i spray 12 months a year but with a good wall fan 12" behind the lathe.-------------old forester

[Bernie Weishapl]

Thanks again. Robert I understand. Actually I wore a respirator and it was the lingering fumes that got me. I will have some kind of exhaust shortly but also will be using water based products. Will still need a respirator for overspray but at least no fumes.

[Jamie Donaldson]

Bernie, try the new GF Woodturner's Finish as a faster drying version of the GF High Performance. I used High Performance for several years but didn't like the wait for the finish to dry, and the WF dries in minutes. It has not yellowing effect on light colored woods like any oil based finish, smells like water, and leaves a really hard finish depending on how many layers you build.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Thanks Jamie. I got some and have only used it on small stuff. I will have to try it on some bigger stuff and see how it turns out.

[robert baccus]

Bill, stop and think here, the laquere and solvent would be condensed into a small space and esentially stored. the motor or switch sparkor dust friction spark could get you. this sounds more dangerous. remember laquer is labeled "nitro-cellulose". also called gun cotton or smokeless gunpowder??? it is basically cotton disolved in nitric acid sometimes called nitroglycerine (sort of) dissolved in laquer thinner. and l. thinner, a volitile hyrocarbon is bad news and its resin GC is basically an explosive. a little simplified her but basically correct. this is far more dangerous than gasoline or natural gas and should be respected accordingly.----------------------old forester

[Eric Holmquist]

I've used both Vermont Natural Coatings PolyWhey and Target Coatings EM6000, and have been happy with both. It took me a bit of playing to get used to Waterborne finishes after using oil or solvent based finishes, but now I am quite happy with the results.

These two finishes are both very color neutral, I can spray them over airbrushed designs with no color shift. If I do a couple light mist coats over the airbrushing before applying the wet coats, the colors do not run / bleed.

I get a nice gloss finish which I can knock back if I want a more satin or matte look. No scary fumes or bad odors.

I use a conversion HVLP spray gun to apply the stuff.

If I want to use oil to bring out the figure before applying a top coat, I use an iterface layer of Shellac.

[Reid Strand]

For small turnings, if I really need to use laquer, I just get everything ready inside by the back door, step outside, spray, and bring it right back inside. still smells, but nothing like it would actually spraying inside. I've sprayed rattle can in below 0* F and it worked fine.