My experience with General Finishes, Old Masters, and Target Coatings waterbornes


estesbubba

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Last spring I started to get into HVLP spraying and have been doing a lot of test boards this fall. I have tried a few different brands with my Fuji Mini Mite 4 and here is my experience with each.
 
General Finishes
 
I have sprayed both High Performance and Enduro-var and have had great success with each. If you spray them where the wet coat has slight orange peel they level out nicely and the dry surface is glass smooth. They also don't have the plastic look that is typical with oil-based poly. The boards look great and are nice to the touch. Enduro-var does add some slight ambering but a 1# coat of SealCoat under High Performance does about the same.
 
High Performance is about $27 with tax and shipping from McFeely's
Enduro-var is $30 plus shipping from Rockler and Woodcraft
 
Old  Masters
 
I never hear Old Masters talked about on here but a lot of local paint stores carry it so I decided to try it. I got their waterborne poly and sprayed a bunch of test boards this weekend. Just like the GF products the Old Masters went on with slight orange peel and leveled out beautifully. It dried faster than the GF HP after spraying but probably would benefit with the same dry time before sanding. It tried to rush it while it didn't corn the paper I did get a few "rolls" of finish. When I called Old Masters with some pre-buy questions they were great at answering them. 
 
I can get locally with tax for $17!
 
Target Coatings
 
I tried Target Coatings EM2000 with numerous test boards and just couldn't get good results with it. I tried 1.4mm and 1.0mm tips, full air and reduced air, 2 mil and 4 mil coats, fine and heavy atomization, gun close and far away from the board, and the end results was always a rough finish. It looked decent but running your hand over the boards they were rough. Doing some research it seems two common problems with Target are rough finish and bubbles after spraying - and that's not just with their EM2000. Their CL100 cross-linker made the surface even rougher. Rubbing with a brown paper sack a week later would help but still nowhere near the quality of the General Finishes and Old Masters finishes. I returned the products, found out I had bad product, and gladly took my refund.
 
Conclusion
 
I only difference I can tell between the Old Masters Poly satin and General Finishes High Performance satin is the GF has a little more sheen. Both sprayed great, dried quickly, and sanded nicely. The wet finishes leveled out perfectly and the dried results are as smooth as glass. What really surprised me is they don't look like plastic at all. Now I haven't done any chemical, food, etc. tests but maybe I will in the future. But, just like with any wood finish, they all can be destroyed somehow, so use some common sense and all should be fine.
 
I love General Finishes products and their High Performance is great, but being able to get Old Masters locally and $10 less per quart it might become my goto waterborne. I've never heard Old Masters talked about on here and wonder if because it's not sold at Rockler, Woodcraft, etc. and only through local paint stores? I would recommend using their store locator and trying a quart out. 
 
One final thought is the OM is around 30% solids and GF around 20%. I'm assuming that means a slightly thicker dried coat with the OM?
 
I'll take some photos and post them later.
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Isn't it crazy how ugly the General Finishes product looks as it's drying, all lumpy and weird?  :blink:

 

I often wonder how many people freak out and mess around with the partially dry product when trying these types of finishes for the first time.  All the good WB products I've used go through that stage, and it sure is scary...

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Target sprays fine with a .8 needle. The key to target is a good gun and lots of air.

 

I tried hard (and wasted a lot of time) to get Target to work but in the end I got bad products (which they confirmed) and I'm done experimenting with their finishes. I found several others having the same problems with the products I was using. Good news is I only messed up test boards - they ruined real projects.

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