Sanding Painted Cabinet Doors | Master Cabinet Painting

this is Chris yah hope and I've got Sherry with me here from Unita and you need to match the scratch and that's what this is all about so we're going to be talking about how to get the perfect finish on a painted cabinet door there can be some difference when it comes to a stained and lacquered door versus a painted door we've got a 3x4 Senter here this is the best sander you'll ever use when it comes to painting cabinets and then all the abrasives that go along with it can be a little bit confusing but sher's going to break it down and make it very simple so we have a lot of stuff we have interface pads we have pad Savers um I don't see one around here but we've got um film Tech we've got um ecostorm we've got closed cell sponges open cell sponges we got eadig sponges Sher can you break this down how we would sand this store and make it simple and easy to do for our viewers sure so this is basically a Shaker door with a profile inside so with the Shaker door that's perfect for the 3x4 because that means I can get in corner to corner right the fastest way that I found to be able to do this is with the 10 mm right the 10 mm is nice because it keeps me up above the wood if I bump the sander into the wood I don't do any damage versus the 5 mm and this the 5 mm is is fine on flights but this is just a better situation for the 10 mil but what we want to do is we want to sand the 10 mil and with a a painted door you want to start with a a fine right we want to start around a 220 grit 180 to 220 grit scratch and the reason being is a factory cabinet usually has a clear coat on over the the paint so we're going to again we need to take that back down we need to get that shiny surface look off of it and we need to put a scratch in it so that our next coat will adhere so with this one I'm going to go with the 10 mm fine I can do both the center panel and the rails and styles with this right right so I'll just sand [Music] this so I saw um you do like kind of a specific pattern you went around the square and you went side to side and worked your way up I mean is that best to do can I just randomly sand around or you can randomly sand around the reason I do what I do is because I want to follow that pattern because I want to make sure I don't miss a spot right so if I follow that pattern I know I'm going to hit that spot um you know and and same thing with the rails and styles and when we're sanding on on raw wood when we're in a factory um you know we are looking to take out cross grain and so it it's trained into my mind now to make that pass around the racetrack and so so we call it we'll go around the racetrack a couple of times and concentrate on the the cross grain right so I kind of follow that when I'm doing in the Finish room when I'm sanding in the Finish room I just keep that in mind now this could be done we could break out the half inch right you could take it with the sander and break out the half inch for me again there's some things that I want to hand sand and I just want to be able to do this real fast right and I can do that just that fast it doesn't have to be an aggressive uh scratch it just has to be enough for the next coat to hear and so I just do the same thing here I just the same thing all the way around so sorry I could this silence perfect time I guess like I always thought you had to do this but you don't have to do that so cuz um I guess my understanding is all you're doing is just putting a scratch on there for your coating to bite to right we're not taking off finish right and and that's the big a big misconception is people want to level and this is not this is not the area where we level we level prior to finish we're leveling when it's barewood right yep so um good information so is this door ready to go now it's ready to go it's ready to go so on the back side of this um cuz we we always paint the fronts and backs to the doors there's no like contoured profile this is really like a a shaker style door now it's basically the same as the opposite side okay right and you said um the only difference is is that because you you missing that profile right so you're just going to come in with this this here so you do need to hit that side you do need to hit that because if you don't you'll actually be able to feel a rougher surface there okay A lot of times I don't even know what people are talking about when I'm learning something new you said rails and styles right what's a rail and what's a style rails Styles yep so here's your rail here's your style I mean when I heard that term the first time I'm like what the heck are he talking about and so um I like to just point that stuff out so if you didn't know now you know what we're talking about when it comes to rails and styles so so also wanted to just ask like one question you you said um something about orbiting and stuff is this is this a orbiting sander it is an orbiting sander but it's what we call a direct drive so it is orbiting in a circle it is not it doesn't have that random pattern okay in the past Square Sanders were vibrating Sanders so what would happen is you put them in and they were just moving up and down right and so you would get a very uneven scratch with the orbital sander we actually do get a very uniform scratch it's a much better scratch okay and it's not a random orbit s right okay and one other question I want to ask you this does have a plus and a minus so you can adjust the speed of the sander um and then it has a minus in the middle but that's the onoff button do you ever mess around with I I do sometimes I do mess around in depending on what we're sanding so if we're um we were at a cabinet shop a couple weeks ago and we got into a situation where we needed to be a little less aggressive on MDF or hdf doors right and so we actually turned the speed down a little bit on a new mtic standard because it's very variable speed same thing with this we can turn it down a little bit and it gives us a nice even surface the only time I Really Turn it down is when I'm running on hdf or MDF because I it's I need that to be burnished CU I know it's like I always run it at full speed but there was one time I kind of I was messing around and experimenting with it and when I started to turn it down I started to see swirls is that typical that's typical and the one thing with the 3x4 and if you go back to some of our other videos we talked about that non-woven the unon pad that will take out swirls these Sanders are because they are a direct drive they are indicative of swirls so it's really with the sponge it is a lot less if you're using the right sponge on the right substrate and that's the big thing is that if you don't if you use a half inch you're probably going to get the swirls but the 10 mm and 5 mm you shouldn't see it much in the fence yeah and I know if you do see swirls now before you refinish it I know there's a time I was painting some white doors I could see the swirls in the right light and I'm like oh the paint's just going to fill it right in don't think that don't go down that path cuz it's not going to fill it in you will see the swirls you got to get the swirls out before you Reco it so there you have we've got the scenario how to properly sand a painted door now we're going to talk about how you go about you know prepping and sanding a be wood door so if you want to see that and get some tips and tricks on how to do a barewood door stay tuned for this video right here on paint Life TV ow