Laundry room cabinets – day 10
I spent several hours, this morning, preparing to finish the cabinets. This required a good deal of cleaning and moving all my mobile tools to one side of my shop, so I could create a temporary spray booth.
Hanging plastic for a temporary spray booth
Once all the tools were relocated and the dust cleaned up, I hung two large sheets of plastic from the ceiling joists with spring clamps.
Prepping the shelves
Next, I prepped the shelves for spraying by attaching a board to the side, so that each shelf would stand on its rear edge. I set a couple of rows of painter’s pyramids along my knock-down work bench, to support the small door panels.
Door panels set on painter’s pyramids
I crammed as may components, as I could, into the spray booth and fired up my Earlex HVLP sprayer. I loaded it with a pint of semi-gloss polyurethane, and started on the cabinet boxes. I sprayed the bottom and the back first, then I tipped them up onto a couple sticks, and sprayed the other surfaces of the boxes.
Spraying the cabinet boxes
It gets a little cloudy because I don’t have a way to ventilate the plastic bubble that I am in. I do wear protective clothing and a respirator though.
First coat on boxes
When the boxes were done, I sprayed the back of the door panels, then flipped them over and sprayed the fronts.
Small door panels sprayed on both sides
I did the shelves and the large door panel last, then sealed off the spray booth to let the air settle.
Shelves and large panel done
I moved to the other side of my shop and brushed on the poly for the lower face frame.
Lower face frame coated by brush
I had to spill over into the garage to finish the structural frame-work, as well as the crown molding and the upper face frame.
Upper face frame, structural frame and crown brushed too
The whole thing took just over one pint of poly to cover. Hopefully I will be able to get a second coat on tomorrow. If everything looks good, then I am done with the finish. If it looks a little thin in places, I will apply a third coat.
Midnight Woodworking 