How to Paint Cabinets Without Brush Marks! A Complete Guide to Easy Cabinet Painting.

This is Chris out of Hope Painter here on Paint Life TV. Today I got a really cool video. It's not about boxing, but this is all about cabinet painting. If you're a professional or a do-it-yourselfer you have any questions about painting cabinets, this is the video for you. It's not short. This is a long video cuz it's all about cabinet painting from the sanding to the prep to applying grain filler to spraying vertical to spraying horizontal. So, grab yourself a soda or grab yourself a beer, a bowl of popcorn or some chicken wings and check this video out cuz this is going to give you a lot of tips and tricks when it comes to painting cabinets like a pro. So, stay tuned for this video. One of the things I really like is is spraying with a remote pot. And this is a remote pot right here. Instead of having a cup gun, you know, this is a small cup gun, you can have one on the top or you can have like a quart pot on the bottom. It gives you a lot more flexibility if you don't have, you know, a cup attached to your gun and you're just using the gun itself and your hoses run to a remote pot. It's just going to make your gun more flexible. You're going to be able to get in and inside in and out of cabinets a lot easier. In the the Precision 5, they've come out with this system right here. This attaches to the top and your remote pot actually sits right here on this unit right here all in one and I don't have to have that remote um pot hanging from my belt or hanging from my pants pocket. This is an essential accessory, I think, when it comes to painting cabinets. I absolutely love this. Once you've tried this system, I don't think you'll ever go back. We're going to put this together. I'm going to show you what it looks like put together. Here's um a couple other accessories. We're always I don't think there's any time I'm ever using an HVLP sprayer and I'm not thinning my products. I'm always thinning them to some extent. And you really need a viscosity meter. Here's um a couple examples of some viscosity meters. This is a Ford 4 right here and um this one right here. This is a Zahn right here. As I believe this is a Zahn 2 and this is a Ford 4 Ford 4. I really like this. This is an Apollo Zahn 2. I really like the um viscosity meters right here that Apollo has cuz you can see it's got a nice long wire attached to it. You can easily dip it down in your products. You're not going to get your hands in it. And this is a great measuring tool. It's made out of metal. This thing is going to last you. You shouldn't have to ever buy, you know, more than one. These are two Ford 4s that I have that are plastic. They're going to do the same thing. They just got to they measure, you know, um a different um a different way. So, you if you're going to be um cross-referencing them, you need a cross-reference chart to cross-reference a Ford from a Zahn cuz the time tables are actually different. But, a must-have. You should always be thinning or almost always be thinning your products, especially latex products, when it comes to um using an HVLP sprayer. So, it's a must-have tool. Here's another must-have tool and it's a um mil thickness gauge. And you really should be knowing, you know, how much product you're actually spraying on your um surface or your substrate that you're spraying with. This is a mil thickness gauge. And if you've never used one, you know, um you I'll eventually show a video on how you use these things. But, um this is a little metal mil thickness gauge, but you really should have a mil thickness gauge and you should learn how to use them. So, those are two things right here. Here is another handy little device I'm going to show you and this is a um cone filter cup holder. And you really should be straining your paints, too. So, straining your paints could be messy, but you can take your remote pot, you can set it right under your cone filter and set this holder right there. Now, you can dump your product in there. You don't sit there and have to have hold that cone filter and it you can fill it up, walk off, go do whatever you need to do and just let it set there. This is another great tool, great accessory. I got this from Apollo right here. It has, you know, a couple different size stands. So, you can have a taller one or you can make it a shorter one. So, it's a it's a filter stand. Those are some accessories right there everybody should have with um you know, using a um HVLP sprayer. Another accessory that you should have, PPS cup system. This makes spraying the cleanup process a lot easier in interchanging from product. So, this is a PPS system right here. Um I've got a couple right here that step out of the screen. Here's some um liners that go into the PPS cups and they've got um little lids that go on them. They're sealed. These have been um sealed here. I was uh testing some products and, you know, several weeks old and they're still ready to go, can be used once again. That's part of the PPS system. So, there you have it. The remote pot setup that's actually on your sprayer now. Absolutely amazing um amazing unit. I got two other accessories I want to show you real quick and these are great accessories also to have with your HVLP sprayers. One of them is a blow-off tool. Now, you can use the hose on your HVLP sprayer and on the Apollo sprayer, this hose. Everything's coming through this hose. It's uh filtered air. So, you're not going to get any dust particles or any contaminants by blowing off with this tool and it's warm air. So, it's going to help dry your um project or your surface a little bit quicker. But, it's coming out of a very large orifice. This blow-off tool is excellent. I absolutely love this thing. Quick release. Stick it on there. Now, you have a smaller orifice, a better blow-off tool. And Apollo's made it so you've got a quick release attachment. You have two attachments right here on the top of your um sprayer, your HVLP sprayer. One for your gun and one for your blow-off tool just like that so it they won't get lost. That's a great accessory to have with your HVLP sprayer. And another thing is you're going to have to have every time at the end of the job, you need a great quality cleanup um kit. And the cleanup kit is going to have all kinds of brushes for all the little orifices and stuff inside this gun to clean it out properly. If you don't clean out your gun properly, you're just going to have problems next time you go and use it. Here's a cleanup kit that I have from Apollo right here. There's actually um two cleanup kits in here. So, there's a lot of different tools, different size brushes and stuff for cleaning these orifices, different size tools for getting in and cleaning out. You need to have some type of uh cleaning kit. There's even a pick inside this one. So, have a cleaning kit. Have those tools. So, there's some of the tools and accessories that you need to really have when it comes to um running an HVLP sprayer. A lot of these tools and accessories down in the video description below, I have links where you can get some of these accessories. I'm going to give you just a little brief history of how I used to paint cabinets. I've been doing it for over 18 years and we used to just take and search out and find as many 5-gallon buckets as we can, as many boxes as we can and we would spray our door drawer fronts or doors. We would spray them sitting on those buckets and boxes. We would let it dry, come back the next day, we would flip it, we would spray that side, we would let that dry, come back the next day and then we would rehang our doors. Now, that was a 3-day system. We eventually um designed this system how we can spray a door in one day hanging it. And that was um done with PVC pipe. We made it with PVC pipe. It was very unstable. Uh we used uh wooden hangers and had them break before. We had the the hangers come out here and we had them break here. That's why there's tape wrapped around them to make them stronger. It was a great system. It made us um money. It it turned our painting process from 3 days into 1 day. But, eventually um Paint Life saw the video and they manufactured this system right here that I'm surrounded by. They manufactured um better hangers. The system tears down extremely fast. You'll see here I'll break it down. It breaks down in about 5 minutes. It takes less than 10 minutes to set this system up. It comes in three bags. The whole system it's a extremely professional look when you walk into a house, you know, with the bags of poles going about this bag right here. The hangers are right here. It comes with 50 hangers. So, here's the hanger bag right here. And everything is very neatly organized. Everything goes together. No tools. This just sets in and everything's color-coded, too. So, it's really hard not to be able to figure out how to put it together. Cotter pin just puts in the part that spins. It's got notches for the hanger right here. So, the notches are really important that it doesn't slide around. It just goes in. Cotter pin goes in. It's got It comes with two wooden dowels so you can spin your door right here. I like to just take and stick tape around the dowel so it's a little bit tighter. Here's a door. So, here's the hanger itself. These hangers are absolutely incredible. The hangers themselves, we have a system by where we actually drill cup hooks right here. We'll and put cup hooks in the top of the doors. The wooden hangers, you see, when you hang um a door on there, door turns. It spins right here. So, it take up have lot more room and space for hanging your cabinet doors. The system with the hangers now in Paint Line, they don't spin. So, these hangers take up way less space. So, I can hang these things You can see they don't spin. They're fixed in place. I can hang them very tight together just like that. They're not going to spin, not going to touch each other. This is going to typically be set up in a spray booth. The sprayer is going to spray. He's going to hand it outside the spray booth. The hanger is going to The guy, he's going to take and hang it on a drying rack usually in a separate room for them to dry. Probably my favorite accessory is the two-tier system. This is one of the You know, ones I um called Paint Line up and told them, "You know, we got all these drawer fronts and the drawer fronts are only about this tall. They only take up that space." I said, "It'd be really nice to be able to utilize the space below and hang another row of drawer fronts." So, I was literally like that I think that same day they came up with a you know, uh engineer drawing of the system and here it is. I'll show you. It comes This is the two-tier uh system right here. It's four pieces and these are the tops and this is the middle right here and this is what's going to create the second tier. So, I'm just going to take my first drying rack. I'm going to take that off. All you got to do is take top off, just slide this piece out. I can put it anywhere I want to create my second tier. This could be like if you're doing your small parts, drawer fronts. Now, I can take and hang your small door. Now, I'm going to hang a large door down here. Two-tier system right here. So, height extender. Here's a height extender. So, this is what it looks like right here. So, the height extender, I'm just going to take my top off. Just stick a height extender in. And what this would, you know, come to play is we've done it in the past. I've done some um shutters. So, some plantation shutters that were really tall. They were too tall to hang on the PSD our system as it stands now. So, the height extenders, this would have given us enough height to actually hang our and I'll put our plantation shutters on. So, you just take out top, this one. So, now it's just extended my height by a foot right here. Got a height extender in. I might just turn around and move my two-tier system. Now, I've got an extended height. So, that's another accessory that Paint Line has just recently come up with to make the system more versatile. Now, I'm going to show you the wave hanger. I know um there's a handful of people out there that do not like drilling holes in their cabinet doors. I've been doing it for probably 7 8 years, something like that. I've had one customer ever question it. The secret is on the top doors, screw your holes in the top. Bottom drawer or doors, screw your holes in the bottom and nobody will ever see them. So, the UFC hanger, this right here, this hanger goes right inside your round pin hooks. Just sets right inside there just like that. Now, you don't have to drill holes in your cabinet doors. Wave hanger goes along with this UFC system because the wave, it's going to just set in there just like that. No more drilling holes. The wave hanger is kind of just find, you know, where the hanger needs to hang cuz it's going to be The hole is going to be anywhere. So, you actually need a hanger like this wave hanger to be able to hang your doors. So, now wave hanger system, UFC hooks, no longer have to drill holes. In today, I'm going to talk about how to get a glassy smooth finish on wood oak grain cabinets. One of the products I use to achieve that glassy smooth finish is Aqua Coat. And this is a product I've been using for quite a few years. It used to be clear, so you would apply it on your surface and you really couldn't see where you went and where you needed to sand very well. Now, this has got a couple coats on it. Now, you can see it's white and it has this white pigment in it, so it's very easy to see where you've applied it and what you need to sand. It does bond a lot better than it used to and it has more solids in it, so you don't have to apply as many coats as you used to in the past. It comes in pints, it comes in quarts and it also comes in gallons right here. Here's a gallon of it. Uh average size kitchen cabinets is probably going to use about a quart. So, this is what you would use for average size uh set of kitchen cabinets. You can apply it on painted surfaces. So, if you make the mistake of applying or painting your cabinets before applying Aqua Coat and they look really grainy, you can put your Aqua Coat right over the top of a painted surface. The painted surface just needs to be cured. So, these are lacquered cabinets right here. We're going to sand them first, then clean them and then apply our Aqua Coat and I'm going to talk about the tools that we use to apply it right now. So, onto the tools that I use for applying the Aqua Coat, I like us an assortment of squeegees and I've got a set right here. These I purchased from a local hardware store. They're nice, flexible. I do like plastic or rubber squeegees versus metal cuz metal is more likely to scratch or gouge your surface. I got them with handles, got them without handles and then I also have some odd-shaped ones and these are kind of to use to remove decals or window tinting on windows. I got them from a local window tinter. Very simple. In the past, I used to use just an old credit card to apply it with. It works very well cuz they're flexible. They're small and they bend really easily. I like to have a size that I can scoop out my Aqua Coat with a squeegee that will reach in and scoop it out. So, I like one that fits inside like a quart container. If I'm using a quart, this one will fit right in there. You'll do You'll want to do some sanding. You're going to need some glasses right here, safety glasses. I use a rag like a microfiber towel to apply it in hard to get areas. I've got a sander right here. I really like using the SurfPrep sander cuz it has these type of sponges that attach hook and loop right to the sander and it contours to routed edges or recessed panel doors very easily. It makes the sanding really fast and efficient. You're going to use 320 sandpaper to sand in between coats of Aqua Coat cuz you're typically going to apply at least two coats, sometimes three. One coat typically is not enough. I start off with either a 180 or a 150 grit to sand my doors to begin with, to start with. So, I'll sand them first, clean them off really well and then apply the second coat. I do When I start applying the Aqua Coat, I do like to wear rubber gloves. So, I got Raven gloves here. Just something that's throw away, disposable, easy to use and it's not going to cost a lot. They're the tools that I use and now we're going to move on to applying the product and we're going to show you how we go about doing that. The first step in applying your Aqua Coat is to sand your finish. So, we want to get that thing a nice profile so it bonds really well. I've got two right here that need to be sanded for their final coats. This will be a third coat. This will be two coats. But, here's my door right here that's just got a lacquered finish on it. I have a 1 180 grit sandpaper right here and I'm going to just sand this thing, get it nice and ready. I don't have to overly sand, just a really light fast sand. It's got a light sand on that. I'm going to wipe this thing down, get it ready to apply my Aqua Coat now. So, I'm going to just begin applying some on the inside. The tools and accessories you typically see in all of our videos, you can typically find those tools down in the video description in our videos down below. This stuff goes a long ways. You don't need to take a whole lot of off or out of the container. I'm going to begin just applying it on my surface. And I'm going to stay away. This is a raised panel door, so I'm going to stay away from the edges. I'm not going to be caulking the the raised panels on this. Sometimes we'll caulk the doors, the caulk the panels. And where we live, you can get away with doing that because the climate is very dry. And so, you can get away with caulking your panels. So, I'm just going to work it around close to the edges. And then that's going to be my first coat right there. That's on the center panel and you can see there where it's filled the grain. So, that's one coat. I can look at it right here. The outside, it's filled really good, but we'll go along the outside. Just set this down here. So, it is it looked pretty good, but now that I'm scraping some on, I can see it's filling quite a bit of grain in there. So, just keep applying that. Doesn't take a whole lot. It's doesn't have a strong odor. It is water-based, cleans up very nice and easy. So, I can get the edges. That looks pretty good. So, you can see now this door is getting pretty close to being finished. I can rub my routed edges with Aqua Coat on a rag. So, I got a microfiber cloth. If I'm really particular and I want to fill grain on the edges, I can just rub it on those edges. And then any hard to get areas, if I'm trying to get into a corner, I can use a rag or I can just use my finger. So, these little ingrain cuts right here, they're probably Look there. I'll show you that. And then I've got some routed edges right on here that it's built up. So, I'm wiping that down. Just like that. The product sands really, really easy and we're going to show you the sanding process. So, this one is just about ready to go. So, wipe this down. All my edges are just about hit. I've got one more edge right here. I'm going to set this thing aside and this takes about 45 minutes to dry and then we can sand it and then we'll move on to our second coat. So, I got two right here, two coats on this one, one coat on this one. I'm going to sand both of them and then we'll apply our final coat. So, I'm going to apply a third coat on this cuz this is a shelf that I want really, really glassy, glassy smooth. I'm going to apply just two coats on the cabinets. On to the sanding of our Aqua Coat that's already dry. I've got this shelf right here. I'm going to apply a different pad on here. This is a very super fine pad. It's a round 320 grit. You want to sand with a 320 grit in between coats. Once…