On May 19, 7:30 pm, RF wrote:

Robert, I am interested in your method of staining doors with SL. I am a
painter and have been given the job of staining Maple doors with light
brown mahogany SL with a spray gun(Capspray 8100 HVLP).

I had the same problems you had until I finally figured out what I was
doing wrong for MY style of finishing. Talking on the phone to the
Behlen's guys, this product represents a real hole in their
application experience.

I have used this method on raw wood as well as when refinishing and it
has worked well in every case. Now if I could just get BARRY to try
it with the MLC products...

You need to get some anhydrous (99.99% alcohol) from the paint store.
If you have a teflon lined cup, or poly cup liners, they are needed
now.

I mix my colors (I love their dark walnut with about 25% dark red
mahogany mixed in) in a small container. By volume, I thin with the
alcohol 50 to 75%. Yes, 75%. So you are shooting colored alcohol
when you get to 75%.

I determine the amount of thinning by how much color I want to
impart. A light color, go to 75%. More color, less thinning.

I spray the thinned dye on the wood, in alternating spray patterns so
that there will be no streaks. By experience (don't do this on your
cabinets the first time!) I know how much dye to apply. For medium
colors I usually apply about 4 coats of dye to the wood. It dries
fast, and you can recoat usually within 5 minutes or less to build up
the coating. I use my smallest tip on the HVLP which is 1 mm.

After spraying, get that stuff out of your gun and cup as soon as
possible. If you have a liner or teflon lined cup, it won't matter.
But if you have an aluminum cup, there is some kind of electrolytic
response and it will make little crumbles in your gun after a couple
of hours.

Dye used in this manner will fool you. It looks like a powder on the
wood. But when you spray on the finish, it immediately disperses into
the topcoat and penetrates the wood. Sometimes the resulting finish
is (honestly) really no less than amazing. Unlike stain, the dye does
not cause a loss of definition of the grain, so any swirls or burly
areas come out particularly nice.

And here's the big payoff. Since you are not applying it with a rag,
pad or brush, the dye goes on evenly and cannot blotch. (OK, it can,
but if it does you know the surface is contaminated.) The applied dye
particulates simply sit ON the wood until you apply the finish.
Being thinned to this degree, they are not wet long enough to
penetrate, and since there is only so much on the surface (as opposed
to a reservoir like a pad or rag) the wood can only pull in so much
dye. Hence, no blotches.

I don't personally know anyone that uses dye this way. I called
Behlen's, and the recommended against it although they didn't know
why. No one I know will even try this method. But I posted it on
the Woodweb finishing forum, and the guys that tried it there loved
it. I even got a few personal emails from them, including a couple
from their long time moderators that are finisihers themselves.

I have never used this method with a water based top coat as I am
still back in the stone age spraying NC products and solvent based
poly. But the guys on the Woodweb used water based with this method
and seemed very pleased.

As always, your mileage may vary on this, and practice on those scraps
first.

Let me know what you think if you try this.

Robert