Laundry room cabinets – day 11
Just a couple of hours in my shop today to finish up this project.
Sanding down the first coat
I took a scotch-brite scrub pad to all of the surfaces that were urethaned yesterday. This roughs up the surface a bit and knocks down the dust nibs that landed after I sprayed or brushed. I usually prefer steel wool, but that was in the cabinet that is buried behind my spray booth area. The steel wool is also a lot more mess to clean up. With a project this size, I would have a ton of broken steel wool bits everywhere.
Sanding down the first coat
Applying second coat
I won’t bore you with too many pictures. I sprayed everything in the spray booth and brushed everything outside it. I managed to use nearly every last drop of the second pint of polyurethane. I am getting better at estimating finish when I spray. Last time I had to go buy another pint…
Second coat applied with sprayer
With the urethaning done, I left my respirator on and donned some heavy-duty rubber gloves, to begin cleaning the sprayer. Cleaning is easy with water-based finish, you just fill the canister with water and spray. With the solvent based poly that I am using, I need lacquer thinner. It is the nastiest chemical in my house. I tried using the blue nitrile gloves before, but they just melted off my hands as soon as they got into the thinner. I did not need to linger long at this task. Just submerge everything and give it a quick brush off, the thinner does the rest.
Caustic cleanup…
I will probably take down the spray booth tomorrow, but I will let all of the cabinet parts cure for a couple of days. I don’t want to deliver the cabinets smelling like fresh sprayed poly. I also have a spot or two to touch up with the brush, I am sure. I also want to make a support bracket that I may not need, but I would rather have it, just in case.
Midnight Woodworking 