On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 19:05:11 -0800, "Ken"
scribbled this interesting note:

I'm about to paint my kitchen cabinets. Actually I did it once a number of
years ago. They were finished with varnish or polyurethane (not sure
which). I sanded, etched, and sprayed them with Zinsser, then with an oil
based enamel. They didn't turn out particularly well or bad for that
matter.

So anyway I need to re-do them and I'd like to do a better job than before.
Last time I bought a $100 Wagner airless sprayer.

So this time around I want suggestions. What material and what equipment.

Thanks
Ken


For painting kitchen cabinets, I'd use the same process I would any
other interior woodwork...

Sand, clean, prime with sandable primer. Depending upon the level of
finish I want, I may repeat this step up to two more times.

After all the priming has been done, clean them well. Use a tack-cloth
to get all the dust off. Let the dust settle for a day and do it
again. Then, after masking off all the rest of the house (a closed
doorway or drop cloth tacked up across an open doorway will do the
trick) and after masking off all the surrounding areas that I didn't
want painted, I'd begin with a high quality oil based enamel. If I
want an exceptional finish, I use a sprayer and thin the paint just a
bit. If I want to rush, I use Japan Dryer so the paint dries faster-it
lessens the amount of time between coats.

Spray a coat. Let it dry. Sand, clean, repeat. Two or three times.
Thin coats are better than heavy, unless you are a good judge of when
to stop spraying, in which case you spray until the paint flows
together, and then stop.

It is lucky you are doing this yourself. The cost in this kind of
project is the labor, not the materials and equipment. As for the
equipment, I like a HVLP sprayer.

Good luck

--
John Willis

(Remove the Primes before e-mailing me)