Herb,
No ill will taken. I appreciate the time you’ve taken and your suggestions are certainly valid
This may give you info you might be able to give me insight on or if it’s the nature of the beast of having an open booth.
Here’s a list of things I’ve done to try to control this issue
1. Blew out my shop and swept while the booth and makeup air was on to help draw the dust to my booth. I even bought a leaf blower to blow out areas better…..the best I could, with consideration I’m a custom cabinetry shop, who also offers professional refinishing. Waited til the next day to spray.
2. Previously wet down the entire flooring area in front and around my booth and then used liquid fabric softener in a bug pump sprayer and sprayed the floor, my saw horses and the walls/ceiling of my booth.
3. Brought my extension ladder to my shop to go 17 ft in the air to blow off my rafters, top of my light fixtures, etc, including my makeup air system where it blows the air into my shop
4. After scuff sanding, used a tack cloth to try to get all residual dust that didn’t come off, even tho the piece felt smooth. (I could very slightly feel little prickly areas even after that). I also tried it without using a tack cloth in case the tack cloth was causing static electricity. Does it?
5. I recently bought a chemical that has a static electrical charge to it that you put in a bug pump sprayer and spray the inside of your booth, the floors and the surrounding areas so any airborne dust, etc. would be attracted to it. This seemed to help, but the problem was still there
6. Next I went to Sherwin-Williams and bought a Tyvek suit and tried that. That, in combination with the chemical, appears to be working decently well, with the understanding of not having a closed booth.
7. Now this is where it gets interesting… When I start to spray a normal coat, overlapping my passes, I can see particulate in the finish. I then would take my gun tip cleaning needle and try to pick out that particulate. When I would try that, nothing would end up coming onto the needle itself, as it would just move that area around. If I didn’t do this soon enough, that impression would stay and the rest of the finish would not melt into it. Then I tried a crosshatch pattern to really cover the piece with chemical, i.e. a flat board such as a column and when I put the cross hatch pattern, I might see one or two areas and that is it over the cross of a big piece. It looked great and then as soon as it started to dry, area started to show but if I didn’t get to it soon enough, The finish would be drying and where I use the needle, would end up showing, as the finish would not melt into that area.
The very interesting part about this is, even after taking the needle to some areas while I had a very wet coat on it, I would allow it to dry for several hours and then come back to look at it. For instance, when I was done spraying yesterday, I did not look at it again until today. When I looked at the pieces today, they were practically flawless. You might, might find a particulate here or there, but not bad at all and overall, would likely be acceptable and a customer would never see it. I know a lot of this has to do with me being OCD, but also the quality of the work I do and what people are paying me to do these jobs, they deserve to have the best looking finish possible. I’m not sure if I mentioned, but I am using a Kremlin 15:1. I actually have three of them. One for solvent based pigment, one for a solvent based clears and one for water borne pigment. I don’t want to risk things getting really screwed up by switching back-and-forth with chemical, especially going from a solvent based to a waterborne. That to me is just a recipe for disaster.
8. Something else I noticed which I had never noticed before until I was spraying this ML Campbell pre-catalyzed lacquer paint is as soon as I sprayed a heavy coat on it and it looked very closely, I could see the finish with little popping areas kind of like the candy pop rocks Fizzing. I don’t know if that is static electricity or why that happens. I never noticed that before until I took a really close look at the paint I was spraying. As it was drying, it stopped.
To where I have it now, I think it’s pretty acceptable all things considered, but obviously, we as professional finishers always try to strive for the best.
I don’t know if what I have talked about above makes any sense or you can shed some light on this but I’m pretty much at a loss as to how I can get a flawless finish knowing I have an open booth. I have even sprayed that static electrical charge liquid onto my sprayer hose and onto my gun itself to hopefully attract any dust that may come about after I pull the trigger.
One other person asked me to post a picture and I completely forgot to take one but I will tomorrow.
As a sidenote, I am spraying on MDF and open to suggestions on how to get a slick as glass look to it just like a piece of laminate would be slick as glass. I know it’s not gonna be completely closed off like a piece of plastic would be, but I know it could look better than what it does and I am probably the only one who’s ever going to notice it. At the right angle, it kind of looks cloudy. Not in the sense of humidity.I know with glossy or finishes it would be more obvious. Fortunately, I am spraying a Matte sheen.
When you are spraying primer on MDF, what grit do you sand the MDF to before you would put a primer on? The doors for this job are a one piece RTF MDF and the center panel is obviously rougher than the smooth surface of the MDF that has not broken through. I typically would sand it to 220, with concern that if I sand it to 320 or 400 before I prime it, would I end up with adhesion issues because it would be too smooth. Is another option that after I spray my first coat of primer, to sand it back to burn through a decent amount of the primer to compress the primer and the pores of the MDF down into itself to create a slicker surface with say 320 or 400 and then spray my second coat of primer and once again go with 320 or 400, but not purposefully trying to machine sand Through the primer coat.
In this particular instance, I wanted a primer that is going to fill the pores of the MDF faster and better so I’m using a 2K Ilva urethane solvent based primer and then the pre-catalyzed ML Campbell lacquer topcoat. I also noticed when sanding in between coats of paint, it clogs up my sandpaper rather quickly. I am using Klingspor sandpaper. I’m wondering if it has to do with the topcoat paint or maybe I am just pushing harder than I should to scuff sand. I have also pondered on spraying a clear topcoat on top of this as well. I know I shouldn’t have to, but I’m concerned about the paint wearing away from say books being taken on and off of it. Once again, I am sure it is my OCD, but I’m just trying to find the best way to go about things from other professional professionals.
Thank you for the time you have taken to help me
