Get Rid of Wood Grain on Cabinets! Factory Finish Cabinets EASY!

[Applause] [Music] all right we're on to applying our aquacoat now i'm going to give you some tips and tricks applying the aquacoat we've got all of our sanding done i started applying some of the aquacoat uh to get this stuff dry in it but i'm going to give you some tips and tricks applying it i've got my tools i pulled out one of my other tools that i really like for applying aquacoat and this is actually one of those things you apply your those glass covers on or your covers on your cell phones iphones and these things work absolutely great for applying aquacoat in small areas too but the process is pretty simple i've i like having a bucket of water i've got a bucket of water here warm water so i can continually clean my hands or clean my tools as i need to the aquacoat is a water-based coating so it cleans up really easy and your tools clean really easy but you don't want it drying on your tools or it won't go on smoothly so i'm going to start applying it and when i'm working on a little door like this i'm just going to use a small tool so i'll say i'm just going to scoop a little bit of the aqua coat up and i'm going to start applying it on my door and i like to go crossways on my very first coat so i'm going to crossways to get it down in that grain gonna work it in and then i'm just going to scrape it off i like to scrape it off going with the grain on my first coat i'm not going to leave very much behind the more you leave behind the more sanding you got to do a credit card works really really great because it's a nice sharp surface for taking off the excess and i'm just going to continue working right along working on these edges this process isn't a super fast process this does take time to do so you want to make sure if you're a professional painter and you're doing grain fillers make sure you bid it correctly and i typically on an average size kitchen i'm typically charging 500 extra on top of my bid if i got to do any grain filling because it is it's a process that does take time but your cabinets will look absolutely amazing if you take the time and fill the grain now once again it does come down to you know your customer what your customers expectations are there have been times that i have not filled the grain on cabinets because the customer's expectation they wanted to see the grain so i'm just going to continue working it in you do need to let it set about an hour before sanding and some of that is gonna be according to your temperatures i cranked up the temperature in here you know above 70 degrees so it'll dry a lot faster when you're working on these contoured surfaces it's you can scrape it off with a credit card or you can even wipe it off with a finger on a contoured surface like this i can take and wipe my finger on the edges just like that and that works really well too i'm gonna get the bulk of it off with a credit card and i do when i'm doing my sanding i'm gonna be sanding using a 320 grit you don't want to use anything too rough of sandpaper because it'll actually pull um too much of your aquacoat out of the grain so once i get the bulk of that off i'm going to wipe these rounded edges with my finger to smooth it out and we'll set that aside to dry so there's what it looks like now i got my drying rack right here i'll do one of the larger here's a larger one right here that's dry and we're going to sand that one here in a minute and i'll show you the second coat so about every couple every couple drawers or doors you're going to want to clean your tools because the aquacoat begins to dry on there so i'm going to hit it crossways this aquacup one of these quartz a quart does about an average size set of kitchen cabinets if you were doing just one vanity or a small really small cabinet a pint of it would be good enough if you're doing a really large set of kitchen cabinets or you want to buy more because you're doing multiple sets because you do a lot of kitchen cabinets you can get it in gallons also i'll leave a link down in the video the description where you can get this product if you're interested in using it once again i've used multiple grain fillers i've used some of the water-based not water based and this is by far the easiest grain filler i've ever used easiest to apply easiest to sand there if you have any questions about odor it's uh when it comes to painting kitchen cabinets if you're doing lacquers it's a really strong odor this product has a very very mild odor to it it's you can barely i can barely smell it at all so i'm gonna wipe it down with my finger you can wear gloves if you don't want to be getting this on your fingers and now i'm gonna clean after this door i'm going to clean my tools off so once again this stuff dries extremely fast so it just depends on you know how often you need to clean it just depends on how warm it is where you're at have yourself a nice you know table working surface that you can apply the stuff on i'll show you i got the door here so here's a raised panel door we're working on multiple projects i got this vanity makeover i'm working on and then i'm also working on another project it's a laundry room we're working on so now we got a raised panel door what i don't want to do is get my aqua coat in these edges if i'm not caulking my panels and i don't my panel so you got to be patient and you've got to be careful not to get it in there so just take your time and just work around those edges because if it gets in there it's um it just doesn't look good where it bridges the gap so i'm going to use something you know tight like this credit card i'm just going to take my time i'm going to go along my edges here and if you do get some in there i just would use my two-edged knife to scrape it out the blade so now i've got it on there i could use a larger tool to and there's the center panel right there now i can begin working on my edges and i'm going to be very careful working on this routed edge right here too i can use my finger i can use a tool i can cut a piece of my plastic that i have but once again usually the grain issue is not a problem on these routed edges but you can even use a rag i can take my wet rag just you'll wipe that routed edge just like that once again it's a water-based product so you can just wipe it off with a wet rag one of the big advantages using aquacoat now once i get it all over this panel i'm going to use my wet rag to wipe all these edges you can see i could take my tool here that contours to the edges also nice catch if you do wipe it with a wet rag it is going to slow down the dry time so you got to definitely take that into consideration i'm going to try to scrape off more off this panel it's getting close to where i like it right there so that's the first coat we're going to be adding three coats on here then we'll begin working on our face frames now if you have a lot of dust definitely want to wipe things down get the dust off before you do in the aquaco these panels side panels are actually paper but there's some holes that i did fill i'm just running the aqua coat over but now i'm just going to do these face frames are definitely a lot faster see just working it in pressing it in that grain filling all that grain up scraping off the excess you can see why i used it when they first came out with this stuff it was clear and you couldn't actually see where the grain filler was and they improved it by making it white now you can see all the grain that it's filled i'm gonna clean my tools once again clean my hands now if you're working on a door like this and you know you got routed edges kind of complicated routed edges if you need to you'll scrape some out of the edges before it dries you can just use i just use my five and one to scrape it out of there so you don't have to sand it if you get some down inside your gaps right here you could just pull it out you know with the knife portion of your two-edged knife and that way it's not bridging that gap you don't want it to bridge the gap because it won't look as nice but that's drying right there pretty fast and we're going to be putting on another coat here soon all right so i'm just continuing right along here i'm going to clear my space a little bit here so i have more room we got a bunch of doors um larger doors we're going to be doing so we're not going to be doing any sanding until our first coat dries so that first coat you definitely want to let that first coat depending on you know temperature dry time you know as manufactured you know recommendations is an hour or more um i've seen it dry as quick as 30 minutes and and sandable so on your final coat your third coat if you're applying three coats or two coats you would if you have the ability to let it set overnight do a light sand with 320 i'm going to be using ekka silk so ekka silk uh very fine ecka silk is rated at 320 grit for contoured surfaces i'm using the half inch sponges i also have the five millimeter 10 millimeter if i'm doing just flat um surfaces like side panels and stuff the eckas silk i just use the 320 and this is um i'll be using my vacuum system the echo sand vacuum right there so i have a dust free environment when i'm sanding and i'm not making a lot of dust so we're going to continue working on some of these big doors check on how our drying's going on we got one of them this one has been over an hour i'm gonna sand this one and show you what it looks like doing the next coat all right so i got my sander set up here i'm gonna show you so this has got some routed um contoured edges on here i'm gonna take a half inch very fine sponge so it's 320. i'm just going to put that on here we're going to sand it once again it's just a light sand basically so your second coat bonds really well so you do a light sand but on any of the like heavy areas where there's too much aquaco you'll just sand that down a little bit more but [Music] so there's the door so that's sanded now and now i can apply my second coat of aqua coat like rubbing it down with a tack cloth to make sure all the dust is off of it so if you do get too much aquacoat on there a 320 is not going to take it down very fast you can use different grits i usually keep um some also some fine and medium grit sandpaper i've got it let's see if it's not it's not on the table right here i got super fine there i'm gonna grab some just in case you get some really heavy spots i just switch out my sandpaper really fast and that's what's great about the hook and loop uh three by four sander you can switch it really quick now we're going to apply a second coat and it's just the same way i can use a credit card i can use a tool i got multiple tools i'll show you using this tool here in just a second but i've got some flat areas i'm going to apply i went opposite direction last time when i applied it i'm gonna hit it going with the grain this time and then against the grain so two coats i'm gonna after i sand this coat i'm gonna turn on my inspection light i got right here i'm gonna check it out and see if two coats was enough to cover it or if i need to do a third coat i mean it looks like i've got it covered pretty good see i'll use this tool right here on these edges to scrape it out just so there's a second coat you can see it's a little bit more grain is showing up so a little bit more is filled all right so we've got a two our one coat on everything i've got two coats on some things i'm gonna do some sanding now i did find my fine so i've got a fine and um very fine sandpaper so if i got some places where there's a lot of aqua coat that i left behind i can use like a fine which is a 220. the very fine is a 320. so i'm gonna start sanding these i do have options where i can just use you know flat paper or i can use sponges i can use five mils or 10 ml sponges i think i'm going to hit these flat portions with my 5 mil sponge and here we go the sanding so i just got my ekasan 3x4 sander and my vacuum hooked up [Music] so you can see i'm sanding i'm using i switched to a half inch sponge to do the contoured edge portion right there makes it a lot easier but my 5 mil sponge or even just flat paper makes it a lot faster sanding the flat portions if you're using a the flat paper i don't have one i i ordered another one um having a pad saver underneath here will save your pad if you have somebody that's not using your sander properly goes through the paper and could end up destroying the hook and loop on the bottom portion so use a pad of a pad saver i do have a pad saver over here a sponge one a stiff sponge that you can use so basically it's just hook and loop on both sides you put it on put it on there and now if you burn through your paper it's going to save your pad from getting ruined so i could put you know my paper on there and i have now a sponge just like this sponge and i have a pad saver on it but i'm very careful when i'm sanding and once again i've got a pad saver coming because i can't find my other one but it's just going to make sanding your flat surfaces a lot faster and it's easy and quick to just switch from different styles of paper so when it comes to sanding typically when i'm doing cabinets or even in my trailer i only keep i keep the um flat um just paper sandpaper that's not a sponge and i always have the holes because i use it with vacuum or i keep the half inch sponges and if i need anything in between i'm using pad savers you know in between and there are other options there's what we call 10 millimeter they're a little bit stiffer and then there's five millimeter which are right here so you have multiple options of sanding with the three by four sander of different style pads but once again i typically only keep in stock in my trailer these two styles right here for doing cabinets so i do my flats with just the paper and then i do my contoured edges with the half inch sponges now we're going to get on i've got two coats on some stuff i'm going to apply a third coat on some some of the stuff and then a second coat on another i do gotta sand my face frame so i'm gonna stay on the face frame now here we are working on multiple projects so i've got our doors over here we're working on that we're already painted doors so i'm going to get i'm going to do fine flat on those edges we've got so fine as a 220 so i'm gonna throw a 220 on here you know i have a 220 somewhere here's my 220 right there first sand on these flat panels with a 220. all right so let's get on with our second coat the second coat is just a lot like the third coat but i am going to turn my inspection light on because i do want to see what um my first coat and my sanding has filled and how much more i do got to fill because you know if you're if you've got a good inspection light you can tell whether you need to add a third coat or not i got this door right here that's got two coats we're gonna take a look at it see what it looks like all right so this door right here we've got two coats on it it's been sanded two times i'm gonna take a look at this i'm just gonna use my inspection light i'm gonna look down the store and this actually looks pretty good i would say that that would probably be acceptable at two coats except i see a spot right here and here that i completely missed and so that's the value of an inspection light right here and once again this just comes down to customers expectations what do they expect you know out of this um makeover of this cabinet i'm gonna look at this one this one did have there was a lot of water damage on this one because it's a vanity so it's probably getting wet quite a bit it's one of the ones that doors that open up maybe it's where the toothbrushes were or something like that and so the grain was a lot deeper the finish was gone this this one right here is a drawer and this one is looks good i mean the whole thing looks like i don't even need any more right here this corner is a little bit light but i think my two top coats would actually fill that in but i'm just going to go apply um and that's only one code on that right here this one's one code i'm gonna just go and apply one more code on all these use my inspection light so i can see what's going on here and what i've missed and what i haven't missed i'm going to use a microfiber cloth to wipe these down get the dust off of them once again we've sanded in between coats so our aquacoat bonds well on the backsides of the doors i only do one coat on my backsides so now i can see i'm using my inspection light to to fill i just i hit those spots that i can see that i missed right here i can see i've you probably can't see it in the camera maybe you can maybe you can't but um see how good the camera man is so i'm gonna um get my knife and now i'm just going to scrape the whole top and what happens if you over sand you sand yo too much use too heavy of a grit you're going to remove too much of the aquacoat out of the grain and um you're not going to get you know really good results you do want to sand enough that you're you know getting rid of the peaks and valleys of the clear coat that was you know underneath and i try to keep it off my hands the best i can i always try to look you know neat and tidy for just in case that customer you know comes walking in and sees me working on their you know thousand dollar vanity or working on their ten thousand dollar kitchen cabinet paint job i might end up getting some questions you know in this video on how much i charge to do cabinets and i'll give you a little hint i charge per door or drawer front and now i have extra charges that i charge and one of them is if the cabinets are oak cabinets and i have to fill grain i have an additional charge of five hundred dollars just to fill the grain on the cabinets on a small set of kitchen cabinets and that grain filling process could run up to as high as a thousand dollars to fill the grain on the cabinets so you definitely if you run it if you've never done this on a set of kitchen cabinets before and you bit them the same way and you end up grain filling it's going to take you a lot more time and you'll probably end up losing money if if you don't add an additional charge to it so just cruising right along looking in my inspection light so you can see like on my ends right here right there i can fill that with my finger got that one done i can look at it in the light and you can even see if you got too heavy of aqua coat and i typically even on my first coat i'm typically using an inspection light on all my coats all the time but um it i didn't do it this time on the first coat because in the camera lighting it's kind of messes up our camera lighting and you couldn't see what's going on as well so i just did without the inspection light the very first time it doesn't the inspection light's not as important because you're just really put an aqua coat on the whole whole door because you got to get everything covered but you can see that's looking pretty good there i can see this whole side i missed so what happens when you're talking and videoing sometimes you have a tendency to miss things talking teaching educating all at the same time now i'm gonna gut this door here i'm gonna do second coat on this door and once again i'm not i um i do not taken um caulk floating panels anymore on doors um but and so i'm not caulking them on this door right here there is a time and a place for everything and there's a time and a place to caulk them and i agree with painters that do make the decision to caulk them but i'm not caulking these here and so i'm this is a real difficult situation to deal with right there because it's hard to get aqua coats on that routed edge without getting it in that crack because i don't want to get it in that crack this door this door looks pretty good now if you're trying to give yourself a guitar finish you know on these cabinets um you know one coat…