On painting cabinets are most painting latex or some other finish? I spray mostly Lacquer but do some with S-W Emerald pretty hard finish.

I thought lacquer lost favor in the 80s for kitchen cabinets?

Well The S-W store still sells quite a bit of it here where I live I am using the white lacquer tinted to the color they want. What is most common in your area

Chris
Are you using just lacquer?
Most cabinets shop/manufacturer uses conversion varnish or pre-cat lacquer
Some are using 2K poly or a waterborne finish
I would definitely never use latex on cabinets
The SW emerald is good but that would not be my choice of finish for cabinets

I’m using Pre cat lacquer

Most common here is conversion varnish. I used precat on my home kitchen in 1990 and it has not held up well around the dishwasher, and range hood. All conversion varnish after that.

Chris,

Regardless if you use their products ML Campbell has a really good website that shows the differences between all of their products. If you click on “sell sheet” they list the results of the durability testing needed for KCMA approval.

It becomes very obvious which products provide the most protection. The waterbornes do very well.

As others have noted:
80’s were laquer
90’s precat,
2000’s CV & very good waterborne
2010’s CV, 2K poly, very, very good waterborne including 2K

My shop started using 90% wb in the early 2000’s. We used to use a fair amount of Muralo Ultra for interior cabinets. SW Proclassic waterborne was a similar next generation 100% acrylic interior trim paint. They were similar to the Pro waterborne products. Both of the web products were better in most respects than the oil based paints the good builders were using at the time.

Interior cabinets/millwork is not the same as kitchens & baths. Laquers do not like moisture. The original precats in the 90/2000’s also had some trouble around DW sometimes for some people.

ML Campbell