I'm surely Finishing-challenged, which spray setup is best?

[Nathan Conner]

I'm pretty much finishing-challenged. Most of my finishes are wipe-on poly, brush-on Deft, or rattle can Deft (didn't think you could screw that stuff up, did ya?). Most of them turn out poorly, due to any number of issues that have been plaguing me for years.

I have repaired the shop in the last few months. New roof, new walls and insulation, removed some doors. Now the shop can stay at a relatively reasonable temperature and humidity...that was a big part of my problem.

The other is the lack of patience. I get too antsy to see a finish on, and I'm breaking myself of that habit, realizing how much time I spend trying to repair poor finishes or poorly prepared projects. Second coats on too quickly, poorly prepared wood, sanding marks, cloudiness, sagging, pooling...the list seems endless.

Here's a hint. In the shop, I recently built two 4'x8' cabinets, oak ply and oak facing everywhere. The first was finished with Deft brush-on...lacquer? I think. Anyhow, I put 4 coats of this satin finish on, and it looked...meh. I noticed that the finish looked great in the areas that had been puttied/sanded where I'd filled the pin nail holes. And ONLY there. So, I decided to go after the second with some pore-filler. I just slopped it on like a blind monkey, trying for quick coverage, and not a lot else. Now, what do you think happened? I was tickled, I tell ya, to note that the second one looked better by a mile after one coat of pore filler, AND NOTHING ELSE, than the first one did with 4 carefully applied coats of Deft. So, I left the second one with the pore-filler alone, and it looks nicer. Everyone thinks so, so it's not just me.

(*sigh*)

The huge Cherry bed I put together over the winter got TWELVE coats of brush-on Pro-Fin over the course of 3 weeks in a heated, humidity-controlled empty room. It turned out, honestly, like crap. Blotchy, runny, drips, sags...it's all there. The classic "bad finish" example.

So. Apparently I need some practice, some knowledge, and...perhaps...some spray equipment? I'm not concerned with getting glass-smooth perfection on each and every project. I don't need to match finish with wood type, or work with dyes or stains. I prefer simple, natural. I have a cheap Husky "HVLP hybrid"? gun I picked up at Big Orange a couple of years ago, but a couple of failed attempts throwing gallons of sprayable "stuff" onto surrounding tools convinced me that "cheap" is not the way to go with guns.

I saw a cheap ACX plywood sandwich board this weekend outside of Powell's Technical with some lettering on it with a finish nicer than anything I could ever do. At least in my weird state, now. I tend to try different things in an attempt to make it look better than "that thing" I tried on the last project, but this gets me nothing but new types, and more new results that I don't like.

In all of this, my ideal situation is having a gun filled with (insert general-purpose lacquer? here) that I can grab and shoot with. Same results every time. Nothing fancy, just something slightly durable that won't ruin the piece I'm working on. Mostly domestic hardwoods - walnut, cherry, oak. The occasional exotic wood. I know some guys are going to scream that those are completely different, have different pore sizes, etc. I'd just like something I can shoot on quickly, with little clean-up, and practice at for a few years. I have scraps galore, and can practice all day long, but I want to ensure that I can repeat whatever it is I'm doing, and not switch back and forth all the time.

I have a large, fairly new IR compressor - 60 gallon, 6-10HP, and a water trap sitting right next to the regulator I can plug in to. So, I'm pretty sure that will run a good gun, and I doubt I'll need a turbine setup. But, I may be completely wrong.

Any suggestions on a decent gun/sprayer/combo/magic fix for my issues? Something I can practice with for hours and start to achieve the finishes I drool over? I see that Apollo, Devilbiss, Graco...they all seem to have decent equipment. I'm assuming HVLP or some hybrid would be easiest to use/maintain and keep the overspray to a minimum. I have decent ventilation when I need it, and a good respirator. No open flames or pilot lights or anything to worry about, and the shop is 100 yards from the house in the woods. No special finishing room set up yet, but if I get so inclined, it's easy to knock one together either in the shop or attached to it.

I'd just like a good jumping-off point. Good equipment, decent finish material. Even if it's slightly difficult to apply, I'm happy to practice for as long as need be, but this hit-and-miss approach is really ruining lots of otherwise decent projects. My joinery is improving daily, but you couldn't ever tell, peering through such poor attempts at finish work.

Thanks for any advice...

[John Hemenway]

Have you considered a new hobby?

I've had really great results with Target Coatings, Ultimate Spray Lacquer thru a Wagner HVLP gun. It's very forgiving, easy to cleanup and dries fast. It's a water borne lacquer so no explosions, no lacquer thinner!

[Matt Meiser]

Personally where I'd start is with wipe-on finishes. I've finally learned to do a halfway decent job of spraying, but wipeon is still so easy. I really like the Minwax wipeon poly, but also have tried making my own by diluting regular Minwax poly with mineral spirits or naptha (can't remember which, but I found the "recipe" in the archives here.) Get good with that so that you can do a project without fear of finishing it. One nice thing about wipeon poly is that it dries fast--less dust, more coats per day.

Then move onto spraying on some shop projects or scrap. The USL is prety easy to spray as is Minwax Polycrylic. The worst part on them is the grain raising.

I cannot for the life of me get a good brushed finish. I always have some sort of problem. Shellac dries too fast on me, poly too slow.

[Steve Schoene]

Spraying isn't a panacea. If you can't get a nice looking finish with what appears (I haven't used Pro-Fin) to be a wiping varnish, you won't get one with a spray gun, just more frustration and a much bigger clean up job. While there is only fairly basic directions to be followed with a wipe on finish, with spray there is so much more to be considered. Controls on the compressor and on the gun, air filtration, ensuring the viscosity of the finish is correct, and, considerations of whether the materials you want to spray are explosive or not.

Your cherry bed is NOT a loss, it can yet, with a bit of care, be turned into a very nice professional looking project. You just need to finish the finish. As near as I can tell the Pro-Fin you used is a wiping varnish with a polyurethane resin. Perhaps, not what I would choose, but still retrievable. First let it really cure. A month would be OK. Then systematically start to remove the defects. A light touch with a card scraper is probably the best at removing sags and runs or drips. Then you can work on the dust nibs and similar small roughnesses with sandpaper about 400 grit which must be used on a block. You could use wet/dry paper lubricated with water but I recommend dry sanding so you can see what is happening. You can get this finish leveled to a very smooth defect free surface if you are willing. You may see some "topographical map" rings where you have cut through layers, but not to worry. One more coat will eliminate these. But this time, follow the instructions and put on the finish so there is just a damp layer. This won't have sags or runs--there can't be enough finish to do that. It may take two coats to get even sheen.

I also suggest some significant light positioned very low, just above the surfaces being finished so that you immediately see any defects as they occur.

Getting a good finish is NOT HARD, but it does require patience, and it requires reading and following all the directions. Manufacturers tell you how to use their products--they don't want you to fail. With a few exceptions where they tell you not to thin certain oil based products, they give good information on the labels and on the product data sheets on their web pages.

[Michael Disorbo]

I used wipe on poly for most of my furniture projects until this year. I hated to finish, takes so dang long. One coat, wait for it to dry, steel wool, another coat wait for it to dry. If you want something to look good you are putting at leadt 4 coats on and thats a lot of time. I did my kitchen this year and did not want to wipe finish on all those cabinets. So I decided to buy a Fuji turbine setup. Found a new one online for $549 and that was everything. Bought some waterborn shellec and USL from Target Coatings and it was the easiest thing I ever did. I can put 4 coats on in a day with no problem. I never sprayed anything before and it would be very hard to make a mistake with this setup.

I just did a bar top with a high gloss product from them and it looks like water. Any overspray dries before it hits the floor so all you have is dust when you are done. Don't cover any of my machine tops and nothing has ever rusted so you know its dry when it hits.

The turbine is small enough I can put in the cabinet when done. Clean up with the gun takes about 5 minutes.

You can't go wrong with one of these, and it makes life so easy.

Mike

[Nathan Conner]

Lots of valuable info, guys. I have tried wipe-ons, on several projects. Mixed results, but never what I'd call "a really nice finish". The bed was a brush-on. It's not trashed, but it doesn't look very good in several areas. SWMBO says I'm being silly, of course, and that it looks wonderful, so I won't try to repair it, at least until my skills are better. The finish is almost 1 year old at this point, so plenty dry.

I like the idea of a fool-proof finish, but I think several things were in my way - I'm always on the verge of being "too cold" to put a finish on, and I know the shop has always been too humid, until now. It's repaired, so maybe that was the trick. (Except the bed, I obviously used too much on it). Another thought, I think I should toss my old finishes. Every one of them has frozen probably a dozen times, over the past winter or three. I'm sure that's not good for them. And I love the idea of a spray finish, but I may not be ready quite yet.

I'll chat around at some of the spray finish providers and see what they can show me or recommend. It may be that getting good with a wipe-on is a better option at this point. Most of my projects are smaller, anyhow.

Thanks for the opinions! Exactly what I needed.

[Nathan Conner]

Have you considered a new hobby?

Every. Single. Day.

[Nathan Conner]

Spraying isn't a panacea...Getting a good finish is NOT HARD, but it does require patience, and it requires reading and following all the directions.

You know, on the bed, I may have made a mistake by following advice given to me over the phone by a VERY competent cabinet-maker, who hadn't seen the project or my setup, but knows my limitations. His finishes are INCREDIBLE, but I think it's hard to get the meaning across well from several hundred miles away. When he said "Flood it for the first couple of coats, NEVER touch wood with steel wool, light coats after sanding until it looks good" (in a nutshell, it was easily a 30-minute instructional call) I think I misunderstood. The instructions on the ProFin said nothing about flooding, but I followed his direction to the letter. Maybe too closely, even when seeing poor results early on, having to oversand to level things out, trying to catch all the drips, runs down the vertical surfaces. I probably put a solid 35 hours into the bed finish with all the re-coating and sanding and cleaning. And probably only about 12 hours into construction and staining.

Not a panacea, but certainly not easy...for me.

I'll try, try, and try again. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually. If not, I'll give some expert finisher a truckload of projects to repair in a few years, and have some beautiful work to show for it!

On the plus side, of course, there's this: I've gotten so nervous about finishes, I put it off as long as I can, and have tended to be extra careful in all my joinery and prep work. For me, it's never "ready for [or 'to be ruined by'] a finish". So, the projects are turning out much better out of sheer procrastination.

Edit: By the way, here are a couple of shots of the bed. It wasn't all THAT bad...

[M Toupin]

Have you considered a new hobby?

I've had really great results with Target Coatings, Ultimate Spray Lacquer thru a Wagner HVLP gun. It's very forgiving, easy to cleanup and dries fast. It's a water borne lacquer so no explosions, no lacquer thinner!

Another recommendation for the Wagner and USL. The gun is reasonably priced and gives good results. USL is very easy to use and forgiving. It self levels and is as close to a fool proof finish as I've found. In short, it's become my finish of choice on anything sprayed. Shoots well straight out of the can with no thinning, no muss, no fuss.

Some have complained about USL raising the grain, I've never had a problem with it though I always shoot a coat or two of shellac first as a grain filler and overcoat, especially on anything with BOL. If your having problems with drips and runs you're using too high a fluid rate or your travel is too slow putting too much finish on in one coat. Two or three thin coats are MUCH better than one thick one no matter what finish you're using, spray or brush. If you're brushing make sure you have a quality brush. Cheap brushes result in crappy results, guaranteed. Spend the money on a decent brush and your finishes will improve dramatically!

Lastly, finishing is a learned skill. Keep at it, practice and work on improving each time and before you know it you'll have those perfect finishes too. I'll assure you, nobody here had perfect results the first time they tried either.

Mike