Working with Target 6000

[Dave Cav]

I build one-off furniture. Lately I have been making a run of small Krenov style bathroom wall cabinets. I also do contemporary, A&C and Mission stuff. I don't have a booth, and for years have been working with variations of oil/varnish or wiping varnish mixtures. I have had pretty good results, but it's a lot of work and very slow. Last week after doing a lot of research I bought a Wagner conversion gun, a quart of Target 6000 WB lacquer and a quart of the amber WB shellac sealer. After a little practice I shot my most recent build, which has not been assembled yet so I could shoot all the pieces flat and not worry about corners. I'm pretty impressed with the speed and the results so far; I shot the shellac in one day, the lacquer the next (3 coats) and today I started sanding and rubbing it out. It's a lot faster, but the way I am doing it is still a lot of work and I'm going to wear my shoulders out. Here is my process:

First I widebelt sand all of the flat stock to 180, then ROS to 220. I generally wipe everything down with water to raise the grain, then sand again with 220. This gives me a really good base if I'm careful and don't ding or scratch the parts.

Next I shot a couple of coats of the WB shellac. It gave the grain a lot more definition, but I would like to warm it up a little, so should I put a little Transtint in the lacquer? How much? What colors? I shot two coats of shellac, but I think if I work on my application technique and gun settings I can get this to one coat next time.

(My spraying area is one end of the shop where I have a roll up door, and which is where I park my truck in the winter. Other than that it's just an open part of the shop the size of a one car garage.)

The next day I hand block sanded all of the pieces with yellow Norton 400 grit paper. It sanded easily, but even after 24 hours (temps in the high 70s, average humidity) I still had to peel brown boogers of shellac off of the sandpaper periodically. Is this normal?

After sanding the shellac, I shot the lacquer. I'm using gloss, straight from the can. I am still experimenting with the gun settings and film thickness, and I need to get a film thickness gauge, but I got decent results anyway. I shot three coats, about half an hour apart. The coats burned in very well and I had no drips, sags or uneven areas. Looking at the finished pieces today I was very pleased with the evenness of the finish, although it was pretty rough from dust nibs, and very glossy. Again, with a little practice I think I can get this down to two coats for a satisfactory result.

I hand block sanded the pieces with the 400 Norton again to knock down the dust nibs and to kill most of the gloss. Following that I rubbed it with a 3M burgundy pad on a block to even out the surface and kill any remaining gloss. Finally, I burnished it with a 3M ultrafine gray pad on a block, wiped it down and gave it a coat of wax. I have only waxed one piece so far but the result is pretty stunning. Even the burnished parts without any wax look and feel very nice, but they have a nearly flat, very low sheen satin finish and the wax really brings out the details of the grain.

So, the process is a LOT faster than oil/varnish stuff, and seems pretty foolproof. On the other hand, I'm still doing a LOT of hand sanding and rubbing, and as I said I'm wearing my 61 year old shoulders out. Any way to speed this up? Could I sand dust nibs down with a ROS and 400 or 600? I'm afraid it might leave swirl marks and cut through the finish pretty easily especially on edges and corners. How about using the ROS with the Scotchbrite pads? Is that going to leave swirls?

Finally, how can I turn my truck parking space into more of a spray booth to eliminate some of the dust? Bear in mind I need to use this area to park my truck and move in and out of the shop so it needs to be something easily put up and taken down and stored.

Thanks for reading through this and any advice you might offer.

[Jim Becker]

Yesterday...literally...I sprayed my latest tack trunk commission. Because the project specifications didn't call for my normal oil followed by dewaxed shellac followed by EM6000, I opted to put a few drops of amber into the EM6000 to warm it a little. (Normally, the shellac does that) The results were just great. I do use a white pad between coats to insure any small nubbies go away and get a very smooth finish as a result. Like you, I also use the 400 wet and dry after the first coat to eliminate any grain raise.

[Dave Cav]

Thanks, Jim; I was afraid this thread would die before I got any response. What particular amber dye product did you use? I have some Transtint powdered dyes that would require mixing and are more towards the red end so they probably aren't appropriate, and I have a pint of Behlen "maple brown" but I think it might be a little too brown. Transtint makes a premixed amber maple that looks like it might work but I haven't purchased any of that yet.

Otherwise I am very happy with how the Target 6000 went down and buffed out although I do need to get some 600 and 1000 paper as well as the 400 I used. Everyone who's seen the finished cabinet has been impressed with the sheen and smoothness of the finish.

[Mark Kornell]

I've sprayed and sanded a lot of shellac - it always gums up sandpaper. I think I read that this was due to heat from the sanding friction. The less sanding, the better.

You can also add tint (liquid) to shellac. Can be a bit tricky to spray an even pattern, though. More of an issue if you use a darker tint.

Re spray booth: I had a similar situation. I build a 2x4 + OSB sheath pony wall about 5' high, in 2 sections that spanned the width of the door opening. Installed a barn fan somewhere close to the middle, with a box to hold some air filters just in front of the fan. I'd open the overhead door, push the wall sections into place and drop the door down on top to "seal" it. Took all of 30 seconds to set up and tear down when done. Fan was just wired to be plugged into a nearby 120V outlet.

The barn fan was used to suck air for exhaust, which meant needing a make-up air source. Fortunately, I had a side door that could be opened. The filters in front of the fan were to try to keep the fan clean and not be ejecting finish outside. Nothing special about the filters, just the cheap generic ones designed to last about 30 days in your house furnace. While the construction of their cardboard frame was rather flimsy, the filter medium was quite effective. My brother made the mistake of parking his brand new, white trailer about 3 feet from the exhaust while I was spraying a gallon of darkly-tinted shellac. No overspray was observed.

Quick and dirty construction that was pretty effective for the 2 years I used it. Maybe $40 worth of lumber/sheet in it. The barn fan was the most expensive part, but you could probably get away with something like a household box fan.

[Dave Cav]

Thanks for the update on the shellac. It sounds like my stuff is acting normal. I haven't sprayed much shellac but I have brushed lots of it, mostly Zinnser stuff. I found that if it's cut and really fresh it sands very cleanly, but if it's starting to get old it gums up the paper. It looks like that is just the way the Target WB stuff works. It's not really even an annoyance, just an observation. The shellac "boogers" peel right off the sandpaper.

Good idea on the pony wall spray booth. Since you're only about an hour north of me your climate is a lot like mine so it should work. I'll see what I can put together. Already have a cheap box fan out in the shop.

[Jim Becker]

Thanks, Jim; I was afraid this thread would die before I got any response. What particular amber dye product did you use? I have some Transtint powdered dyes that would require mixing and are more towards the red end so they probably aren't appropriate, and I have a pint of Behlen "maple brown" but I think it might be a little too brown. Transtint makes a premixed amber maple that looks like it might work but I haven't purchased any of that yet.

The dyes I have are Transfast, I believe. I think it was some kind of honey amber...I didn't pay much attention to that! I just dumped a few drops in my gun before straining the finish in and then stirred it up before pressurizing and spraying. This is kinda like I cook...no real recipes. LOL