Final coating on stain grade doors - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

Mike Finley · 09-20-2009, 09:26 AM

I have 3 solid cherry prehung doors to stain and 'poly'. Actually total doors were 6, but the other 3 were paint grade. Used my HVLP system on the paint grade as usual and those came out beautiful. Have done quite a bit of latex with the HVLP but no stain grade stuff yet. I tested some oak with some stain using the HVLP and finished it by spraying Shellac, all done quick just for a quick test to see how the sprayer would handle it, not really done with good drying times in between coats or any sanding in between, just wanted to see how it would look. I was suprised so far how nice it looked, the stain went on fine and I ended up shooting on about 3 coats of shellac in about 10 minutes, just letting coats get tacky between sprays, left it dry and the next day sanded with 220 grit and it's pretty damn nice.

So the question is what do you guys recommend or use regurally for the 'poly' coat when spraying. I've got to do the 3 doors, frames and casing here pretty soon and I don't want to screw up these expensive doors.

Shellac, varnish, poly, laquer?

I see some of these products come in different sheens and some have no specific sheen.

The stain part seems pretty simple, I will spray everything, let it dry and hit it with 220 grit then blow it off and spray the final 'poly' coatings.

The shellac seemed pretty simple, no sanding between coats, just a final at the end. Is that pretty typical or just what you find with shellac?

ModernStyle · 09-20-2009, 10:36 AM

You can get nice results with laquer w/ an airless. With an HVLP I would probably go with varnish or a poly, laquer is not as forgiving as either of those 2 products. I would try a wateborne poly because with the new laws coming it might be a good idea to familiarize yourself with the products now.