This is an interesting but often avoided subject. For those who are doing “paint grade” or considering it, please tune in to this discussion.

Cabinet makers finish their cabinets either in stain and clear coat or in “paint grade.” We are going to talk about the pigmented primer/color coat process…with or without a glaze and a clear coat on top of that. The primer and the color coat will be the main focus. “Paint grade” or painted cabinets are a significant part of the kitchen/bathroom cabinet market in some areas. There is an uncertainty about how to accomplish this finish process. We’ll talk about glazing in another installment.

No self respecting auto body repair person or professional house painter would consider a project done correctly without applying both a primer and a color coat. Yet I find more and more cabinet finishers who want to skip that first step and go right to applying the color.

Allow me two stories to show you the pitfalls.

Client #1 asked me if he could use a clear lacquer sealer instead of a primer as a base coat under his color coat. Somehow the issue that he had constructed his cabinets from paint-grade poplar didn’t come up in that conversation. This fellow is an experienced builder with years of experience and one I respect. I said yes, he could do that. Then, a week later came the follow-up phone call complaining that he couldn’t achieve a consistent color. He had dark areas, stripes, and areas of discoloration. No matter how many coats he put on, these color variations remained. There was little doubt that the light and dark spots that are so characteristic of poplar were telegraphing through the color.

In the second story, I was older and wiser. I had learned from my earlier transgression and I made certain to tell client #2 to apply a primer first and then apply his color coat. With client #2, I got several follow-up calls. The first one concerned the fact that he was a quart short and they needed another gallon of color. Then came call #2. This time the client told me that can #2 didn’t match can #1. There’s a lesson here. It’s better to have two quarts too much than one pint too little!

Knowing well that I do make an occasional mistake, I asked for wet and dry samples from both cans so that I could be certain that I fixed can #2. When that material arrived, I put both cans in the mixer and made sure that they were well agitated before I did anything. There wasn’t much left in can #1. While they were in the mixer, I took a look at the dry samples that he sent. Sure enough, one was whiter that the other. The whiter one came from can #1. It looked like he might be right and that I might have made a mistake in tinting.

Next week, I will tell you how I solved this problem.

Until next time…spray on!