Lacquer or Paint for Cabinets? What is a BETTER finish?

us here. We're just going to talk about the products. So, John, the first the very first thing we do is prime the cabinets and what do we use to prime them with? So, typically we will always whether we are doing a recotating over a previously lacquered job or it's a new wood, we will always prime with a a product called uh primer surfacer uh which is done by the Sheron Williams chemical coatings division. Um you know, we've used the lacquer underco before. To me, the primer surfacer has a couple of things going for it. one, I don't have to thin it in order to send it through an HVLP, which is is big. You know, every time you have to thin something, you do run the risk of degrading that product even a little bit. Um, that primer surfacer also tends to fill grain up. So, especially if we're we're working with uh like oak cabinets or something like that that are going from a lacquered oak to like a solid pigmented color, it t it doesn't fill that grain all the way, but it does help fill up those pores so you don't have that dark shadowing. Yep. So, we've had a lot of success with the the primer surfacer and we've had um a lot of success with it painting oak cabinets and oak cabinets are extremely grainy and um so it's worked out really well for us. And a quick disclaimer about primers, you you need to understand that whatever primer you do use needs to be it needs to work with the the lacquer system that you are using because depending on the system, certain primers or certain undercoaters won't work with certain top coats and you're going to run into a very big very expensive mess if you if you don't verify those things. So, wherever you're getting your lacquer and your undercoaters from, do make sure that everything will work together and play nicely. And I think you mentioned that was a Sherwood product. It is a um it's a Sher Williams product. Sherwood product and we don't have the can here. It's out in our van um cuz we're not using the primer in here cuz these are already um coated with lacquer. Now we'll talk about are the pigmented lacquers um that we you'll use for colored lacquers. And then we'll talk about just clear lacquer. And here's a product. This is the product we use if we're going to use a pigmented lacquer. So color this is kind of an olive green color. And it's a Sherwood product once again from Sherwin Williams. And it's a high build pre-c catalyzed lacquer. And if none of you know what pre-c catalyze means, it's different than a regular lacquer. Pre- catalyzed, they're adding a catalyst into it before they send us out of the store. So now it's catalyzed. Makes it harder and um it does have a pot life. So they'll usually write a date. This is we just pick this up. There's a date on there and there's an expiration date. So John, what does the catalyzation do to the lacquer? The catalyzation does a couple of things. Uh, one, it does make the product or the top coat more chemical resistant. And so, if you go on to like the the chemical coatings website for Sherman Williams, it'll tell you the tests they've done with certain stains. And so, uh, you know, if you use a a high quality lacquer like like this high build pre-cat lacquer, um, it's going to be much more resistant to, um, stains that you would encounter in a kitchen, chemical stains. Uh, it's going to stand up to those things. In fact, uh, one of the times that we, uh, one of the very first cabinet sets we did, we went, we did the cabinets, we installed them, we had a couple of doors we had to do, so we took them back to the shop, um, over the weekend to work on, came back, and the lady told us that she had been cooking in her brand new lacquer kitchen and spilled a whole bunch of pasta sauce all over the front of her cabinets and was absolutely amazed that it cleaned right off. There was no staining from the I think it's like the lycopines in the tomato or whatever will tend to stain your uh the your woodwork or your mill work or anything your Tupperware all red and there was no staining at all. Yeah. Yeah. And here's this is a question some people might ask too and it says Sherwood High Build and I've used a lot of lacquers in my career. I've used MRA lacquers and a whole array of lacquers from um Sher Williams and I've used some other lacquers, but we started using this product and this it's called a high build lacquer and there's a difference and there's a significant difference between the high build lacquer and say the MRE lacquer from Sherwin Williams which is another Sherwood product. But tell me what you um what you know about high build and why they call it high build. The high build is just like it sounds. It builds a thicker coating up on that lacquer and and it just it's a different look and and it's one that I think both of us prefer far and away over over the the normal lacquers, I guess. Uh where you your corners tend to build up a little bit more. You get that nice thick look. Even if you're using a clear coat, there's some depth to that coating that creates some warmth rather than it just looking like a clear put over the face of of whatever you're working with. I think John touched on it. What I like is it kind of rounds like if you have a 90° corner, it kind of just rounds that corner over and it just gives it a look that's just different than lacquers. So, we definitely like the high build lacquers. They just I I think they just have a look of it's more expensive. It kind of I look at it looks like quality. there there's a bit more depth of the color as well because that pigment has some room to work in and so it's not just a flat kind of uh two-dimensional um look. It it does have some kind of a depth to it if that makes sense. And the the labels look like this label looks different than that label. What happens is these are all custom tinted lacquers. When they make this color for us, they have to custom tint every single gallon every and every single time. If we run out of lacquer right here, we have to go back to the lacquer shop. They can't just squirt in a bunch of tent and just give us another gallon. We have to wait 4 days for them to custom tent another gallon to be exact. So, you definitely got to be careful. Um, always order way more than what you need and just throw that into your bid. But the the color the color matching is absolutely amazing. These guys are like dead on perfect. Yeah. This is what they do all day long, every day. And they're at least the guys in our shop are very very good at it. Yep. So the label looks different because they print up a label that's custom for each can because every can is a custom color. And um so now John has the clear coat. So it's the same product, but this is the Sher Williams clear coat. And what do we use? A clear coat versus um pigmented lacquers. So, a clear coat is uh something we would put over the top of if we were doing a lacquer package, like a trim package inside of a house where all of the mill work and doors and everything were done in a stain grade. You would stain them and then you would top well you would seal them with a vinyl sealer and then we would top coat them here with this high build uh pre-cat clear lacquer. And they have a I think two sheen maybe three sheen that they do. This is the I believe this is the dull rubbed effect. So, it's going to be kind of a low, less than a satin, but a little bit more than an eggshell. Yep. Um, and then here, this is the glaze right here. And, uh, the glaze, this is the Sherwood glaze. So, right here, this is the laundry room we're working on. It has a pigmented lacquer. It's kind of an olive color. Then, they glazed it and they use uh a lot of people are asking, we we glaze doors, kind of make them look antiqu. This is the glaze we use. We get asked about it quite a bit and they don't sell this stuff in your typical Sherwin Williams, right, Don? No, they don't. Well, they they have a couple of stock colors. So, typically they can get a hold of like Van Dyke Brown um and they'll keep that stocked uh depending on your store, but that's the only stock color they typically keep. But if you run into a retail Sheron Williams, are you going to find this in a retail Sher Williams? You will not find the pre-cat high build pigmented lacquer. Um you may find the clear lacquer again depending on the store. what they order in depending on the need and some of the other resources around them cuz they use different tents for these lacquers than um paints. And so we go to the Sher Williams cabinet division. It's a completely different store. All they deal with is lacquers and cabinet coatings and these type of lacquer coatings. So it's completely specialized. Um and this is the Sherwood Glaze. That's where that came from. We absolutely love the G glazes. We use them on um doors to glaze doors, doors that are all beat up and stuff um from the weather, sun, um water, and we use them to kind of get in this antique look, clear cut them, and make them look awesome. And we got videos showing you how we go about glazing doors. So, the products we've I think we've been using, how long we've been using the high build lacquers now? Maybe is it 3 years? Oh, it's it's been a little bit longer than that cuz we would use the clears on on like lacquer packages and things like that. So I want to say it's probably four or 5 years we've been using the high build clear and then probably the pigmented lacquers it's been about 3 years we've been working with them. So that's kind of what happens when you get old like time goes by a lot faster. You don't realize it together. It's just a big blur when you're over in your 50s. Um but uh I would say when it comes to rating the products we use them because we like them and I like the hydro uh lacquers a lot and um I think very highly of them. And when it comes to a star rating, I would probably give um these lacquers, one of the problems with is you can't get them now and you can't get them fast. So, you have to wait. So, I'd have to bump down the rating a little bit just cuz the accessessibility and um what what it causes the problems it causes with us. But, I think I'd give them probably, you know, um four stars. What would you rate them? Yeah, I definitely I'm probably four four and a half stars for something like this this Sherwood line. And it's the the high build line is just it's a high quality product. Uh some people ask us, they're like, "Well, why lacquer instead of paint?" And and lacquer, I mean, it's more chemical resistant. You've got a high faster turnaround time because it dries um within 15 20 minutes. You can recode it. And so in here, it's uh if this was a latex paint we were working with, we would have to spray it and then we would have to come back the next day in order to come through and glaze it and then put a clear coat over the top. With the lacquer, it's going to take me 20 minutes to spray everything. And while I'm cleaning that out, um it'll dry up. I'll go through, I'll do the glaze. That'll take me about 30 minutes to glaze everything, give or take. And then I'm going to be able to just put a clear coat right over the top of all of that. And and so I've taken something that is instead of a 12-hour job or or a a 16- hour job and we've compressed it down into three four hours, which is a good way to help kind of keep that turnaround up and make money for your business. And here comes a helicopter probably to arrest John. Um we'll let the helicopter fly by. Um now, what were you just saying? So, a lot of people ask us about um why would we use a lacquer instead of a paint? Ah, yes. So, um and why would we? And so, John explained that a lot. And I wanted to touch one thing I wanted to touch on before I um I forget this thought. The lacquers speed. And so, we use them for speed and then I think the finish is is just far superior to latex paint. Way more durable. Way more durable. I've had a lot of experience. I've I've painted cabinets for probably 13 years or so with latex paints and I had success with them and I never had felt like I needed a change. And then when the first cabinets we painted with lacquer, I saw the quality, the difference, the finish was absolutely amazing, far superior. The durability, but then the speed was a big thing. And when we're painting cabinets, you need to be able to make money. And we did a test and we painted the cabinets in my house, which I don't think you can see this whole laundry room, but there's quite a few cabinets in this laundry room. And we wanted to see how fast we can paint. Probably about 25 drawers and about 20 probably about 25 drawers, 25 door fronts, plus all the boxes in his in his kitchen. Yep. We showed up, we masked everything off, created our booth, we sprayed two um primer coats, two top coats, and reinstalled the cabinets, put them back together, and we did it in one day. And that's not that's not typically what we do, but a full set of kitchen cabinets, we typically spend two days and and um get them done. And that's completely getting there, prepping them, stripping, setting up um our booth, spraying four coats, coming back the next day, hanging, and putting it all back together. And we're all said, done out of there in 2 days. Which the cabinets with latex paints, it was at least double that time. You got to stop. You got to spray one side. That's got to dry. You've got to mask that side off, flip it, and spray it so that the overspray doesn't kick around to the other side and give you a rough finish. And then you've got to let that sit and dry before you can put it up. You just It's so so much longer. And it's just not as good of a finish. Just not as good. And just when you take a cabinet door that's uh painted with these high build lacquers and you just rub on those doors and you compare that and rub on to a latex paint, far superior. We do have a gun. John has the gun. He's getting ready to use. We spray our cabinets if I mean we'll just tell you we just spray them with HVOP guns. Here's an HVOP gun. Um what gun is that, John? This is the Titan Magnum gun and it has a 3M PPS system uh cup on it and I I chose to go with this rather than a two quart remote pot because I'm not going to use that much. I'm doing a shelf and a couple of panels. And so I'm only going to use about a quart. And this gives me the ability to again because turn around and speed is so quick, I can just when I clean this out, throw this whole um liner system inside here out. And that saves me a bunch of time having to go through and flush a system out, especially if I'm going to be switching products through the day. Yep. There you go. Hopefully you've learned a little bit about what we use for painting cabinets and how we go about painting them. and with lacquers, uh, pigmented lacquers and glazes. If you have, please consider giving us a thumbs up. Please consider subscribing to our channel and following us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Instagram is Idaho Painter. Facebook is the idaho Painter. And um, don't forget we got a website, the idaho Painter.com. I guess you can go do stuff there. What can you do there, John? You know, we've got all sorts of tips and tricks. You can see kind of a compilation of the different videos and then we've also got our tool store on there, so you can see some of the products we use. And if you want to get a hold of them, that's an easy way to get a hold of them. If you want to buy paint by gear, half shirts, we sell it. We're the creators of it. So, um, if you want to help support us, you can purchase that. Anyways, once again, we'll see you on our next video. [Music]