Need Help Determining Best Way To Tint Existing Kitchen Cabinets

[Dom Garafalo]

After doing a significant amount of searching on the internet and talking with some local paint stores my head is spinning and I need the benefit of the experience and expertise on this forum.

Without going into a lot of superfluous and boring detail I'll try to state what I'm trying to do.

Simply stated:

"I have 60 year old solid maple or birch kitchen cabinets in excellent condition finished in a clear satin poly or varnish that I want to tint (or whatever the correct term is) to a color close to a merlot/Bordeaux with a satin finish"


I have heard or read about several approaches to accomplish this but the one that seems to make the most sense is to apply a couple coats of tinted Zinsser SealCoat, because its clear can be tinted and sticks to anything and anything sticks to it, then apply a satin topcoat of either oil based or water based poly. I would hope to apply it with a compressor driven HVLP gun and some areas with a brush.

Does this approach make sense? If not, why not and what do you recommend?

Thank you

[Curt Harms]

That seems like a reasonable approach to me but lord knows I'm no expert on that stuff. I'd try to get some scrap with a finish as close to the existing cabinets as possible to experiment with. If the finish were original on your cabinets I don't know that they'd be polyurethane, when did polyurethane come on the scene? If you're using a shellac toner it might not matter. Once you get the color close, maybe you could try a bit on an unseen part of the existing cabinets. I imagine the shellac toner would come off with alcohol if need be.

[Rich Engelhardt]

After doing a significant amount of searching on the internet and talking with some local paint stores my head is spinning

That doesn't surprise me all that much.
I'm 63 and worked in a paint store from the late 1960's through the early 1980's. A lot of my customers back then (the professional painters) had hands on experience putting the initial finishes on stuff like that. Those guys are long gone now - they were middle age back when I started...and just about all the people my age that would have worked with them have retired or moved on.

There's a dozen ways to skin this cat & none of them turn out well.

What you are after is what has been called over the years a "varnish stain". The most current version of it is called Poly Shades.

What you're planning on doing substitutes shellac and universal colorant for "varnish" and "stain".

This isn't the same as using the colored shellac as a "toner" since you are trying to "jump" down way too many shades in color.

What you have are 60 year old Birch plywood doors & pine face frames, finished with a coat of orange shellac for color and one or two coats of clear shellac for protection. That was the common finish for all kitchens and baths and trim in the post WWII building boom from the late 40's, through the early 1960's.
(In the mid 60's, the scheme changed to a darker shade of brown, but, that's beyond the scope of this thread.)

Going down to a Merlot/Burgandy is quite a leap.

Here's what I'd try myself if I wanted to do it as simply as possible.
Go to a Restore or similar place that sells old reclaimed trim and such. They will probably have an old interior door (Birch hollow core) that matches your cabinets exactly that you can get for a few bucks.
Find a place that sells Old Master's oil based wiping stain. It has to be the oil based wiping stain, not the gel or the water based or the penetrating, the oil based wiping.
Select a color that comes close to what you want.

Lightly scuff sand a small portion of the door you bought and wipe on some of the stain with a rag. Wipe it off, wipe it around, wipe it with the grain, ,,,,play with it for effect and color. Let it dry 24 hours then apply a coat of clear satin and see what it looks like.

If you can't find Old Masters, then you can substitute Rustoleum Ultimate Wood Stain for it. Lowes should have the Rustoleum.

What you need to be aware of right off the bat is that you're going to be heavily masking the wood grain no matter what you do - toner or wiping stain.
In this case, I lean towards a wiping stain because it's heavier bodied and you can use that feature to put in a simulated wood grain by using your wiping technique.

Toner just goes on and what it is is what you get.

[Dom Garafalo]

Thank you both for your responses. I'll see if I can find used doors or kitchen cabinets finished similar to the ones I have to experiment with. In the meantime, as a starting point, I've been putting clear satin oil poly on AC plywood pieces as a way to simulate the existing finish and coloring. While its not a perfect match, its close enough to work with considering the significant color change I'm after.

What you need to be aware of right off the bat is that you're going to be heavily masking the wood grain no matter what you do - toner or wiping stain

I do realize this which is ok since my primary goal is to try and get the coloring of the existing cabinets close to a merlot/Bordeaux color without looking like they were painted.

Rich, I will try finding Old Master's wiping stain and try it which is an interesting approach. If needed, I wonder if multiple coats can be applied to darken the color before topcoating?

[Scott Holmes]

A seal coat of shellac then a toner is the way to go... That being said it is a process that takes a bit of touch. Toners do not hide the grain as a wiping stain will hide the grain. Maple or birch cabinets don't have really proximate grain anyway...

The shellac is to seal in anything on the wood cabinets AFTER a thorough cleaning. Silicone is your number 1 enemy.

Varnish toners are VERY VERY difficult to use... 1. they as heavy bodied and tend to pool 2. they are very slow drying 3. spraying varnish in a house is a very bad idea... you will end up with varnish dust, a.k.a. a sticky mist EVERWHERE.


Toners should be sprayed; period. PolyShades is a varnish based toner that does not work well when brushed and shouldn't be sprayed (see above).


You can buy aerosol colored toners at several woodworking stores. PRACTICE will be your most important action. Toners should be applied (sprayed) lightly and evenly. Evenly is the key... Toners should only be applied to SEALED surfaces. Toners should be TOPCOATED.

Practice.

[Dom Garafalo]

Scott said -

A seal coat of shellac then a toner is the way to go...

Please explain this for me because I thought applying Zinsser's SealCoat with dye mixed in for changing the color was accomplishing both sealing and toning? Am I wrong?

[Scott Holmes]

You are correct... however if you seal it with shellac as a toner and you need to wipe it off (runs drips etc.) you will remove your sealers too. Your cabinets are most likely still "sealed" to some extent.

I suggested an aerosol pre-mixed toner, most are lacquer based. The shellac will act as a sealer AND more importantly a barrier coat from "no-telling-what" has been on those cabinets.

The lacquer based toner can be wipe off if need be. Then a final top coat of varnish or a "KMCA certified" finish is best for kitchen cabinets.

[Rich Engelhardt]

TI'll see if I can find used doors or kitchen cabinets finished similar to the ones I have to experiment with

Pity you aren't closer. I have 9 old doors right now that are Birch skins over a hollow core finished with Orange shellac. Plus, I have nearly a whole old birch ply/pine face frame kitchen I just removed.

Yes - more than one coat of Old Master's can be applied, but, I've never seen it needed with other brands of wiping stains.
Both Old Masters and Rustoleum Ultimate are very similar to the old Tripp brand I used by the boat load full years ago.

[ian maybury]

I know nothing about the detail of this sort of thing, so this is only to trigger discussion. I suspect that the big issue is that whatever colour change is required is going to come from what in effect is going to be a translucent paint film over your shellac barrier. It's not going to be absorbed into the wood - so it has to (a) leave the barrier undisturbed, and (be) be applied evenly/regularly to get a consistent look. (spray?)

I've seen a kitchen refinished commercially (no idea if they were experts), in that case the task was to lighten a dark tinted and probably reactive lacquer of some sort. They took the doors away, washed most of the coating off with a very strong solvent (which lightened the colour to something acceptable), and refinished with a clear coating. It came out fine, but the solvent washing must have been an abysmal job for whoever did it - even after refinishing there was quite a strong smell in the house for a few weeks. I mention it only in case there might be an option to in a similar manner wash off the original shellac coating (it must leave traces), and to refinish with the required tint.

Another option that has been popular over here has been to simply paint the kitchen. If the tint/colour required is very dark this might not look very different, and might (?) be a lot more straightforward to do?

[Dom Garafalo]

ian said -

Another option that has been popular over here has been to simply paint the kitchen. If the tint/colour required is very dark this might not look very different, and might (?) be a lot more straightforward to do?

This a very good point and an approach that I'm still seriously considering.

In fact, when I started this project I went to a couple of paint stores with a piece of wood I had stained to the approximate color I'm after by mixing two different Zar oil based stains together and was told the color couldn't be easily matched by the computer system.

What I haven't done yet, and may still do, is to take small wood pieces each with one of the stain colors and have paint made to each color and then play with mixing the two to together to see if I can arrive at the same ultimate color. If I can, this approach would clearly be the easiest and finding a friendly and doable approach is certainly one of my primary objectives. Though I wonder whether this will work? Anyone have an opinion or thoughts about this approach as a alternative?

I appreciate all of your comments.

Thank you

[Rich Engelhardt]

It's miserably difficult to match paint to wood colors.

[Phil Mueller]

Just a thought on the painting option. When we redid our kitchen we had a designer help with color choices. She preferred stain color to paint...a sort of warmer color palate. So instead of looking at paint chips, we went through wood stain chips. Because the stain chips are a more solid color representation, the paint store had little trouble matching it. My understanding is that stained wood is very difficult to match because of all the variation the wood causes.

[scott vroom]

Dom, posting pics of what you have would be useful.

All of the solutions offered seem akin to resurfacing your porcelain bathtub with those glazed finishes, i.e. patch jobs that will look like it. If you have face frames and slab doors, why not just remove the doors/drawers and sand everything down to bare wood, then proceed from there? You get the color desired and a new cabinet look.

[Dom Garafalo]

scott said -

why not just remove the doors/drawers and sand everything down to bare wood, then proceed from there?

I'm looking for a solution that doesn't involve removing all the old finish.

Here's a photo of a couple of the existing cabinets.

IMG_2056.jpg

[Rich Engelhardt]

I'm looking for a solution that doesn't involve removing all the old finish.

You could always replace the doors and drawer fronts & cover the face frames with a veneer.