Choosing a spray finish

[bleedinblue]

My Morris chair is coming close to being finished but I can't decide what finish to go with.  I was at first going to do the same as Marc...a wipe on varnish followed by lacquer.  I had some second thoughts and bought a pound of garnet shellac, just in case.  I just bought a Fuji MM4 and am heavily leaning toward spraying whatever I choose.

Points to consider...The chair is cherry.  Straight grained as well as I could with the material I had to work with and flat sawn arms.  It will only really be contacted by skin on the arms, nothing else will really be handled.  We do have a Roomba, so that thing will bounce off the legs pretty regularly.  I do have a 2 1/2 year old daughter.  I live in Missouri and summer is here, so it's hot and humid daily.  I'll spray outside.

I'm not too concerned about the cherry blotching, because...well...that's what cherry does.  I don't want to drastically change the color, cherry needs no help in that department.

[Just Bob]

I really like garnet shellac under lacquer for cherry.  The garnet shellac really brings out grain.  Last project I did was 5 coats of each, sanded in between each coat.  I wanted a satin finish so I "wet" sanded the final coat with a 3000 grit pad.  This was for a table, so it sees alot of use, last time I saw it, it was holding it' own against 4 boy grandkids.

[Chet]

Because weather is nicer you could consider just putting it out in the sun for a day or two and then spray with a clear top coat like Genral Finishes High Performance or Enduro-Var.  A light coat of of the garnet shellac will help you grain stand out before the top coat.  You can wipe on the shellac if you want, if you spray it practice some first, shellac can run on you pretty easily.  I would use shellac if my top coat was going to be High Performace.  If you went with Endro-Var you could probably skip the shellac.  Again if this is a first time spraying the top coat practice some.  

[..Kev]

5 minutes ago, Chet said:

Because weather is nicer you could consider just putting it out in the sun for a day or two and then spray with a clear top coat like Genral Finishes High Performance or Enduro-Var.  A light coat of of the garnet shellac will help you grain stand out before the top coat.  You can wipe on the shellac if you want, if you spray it practice some first, shellac can run on you pretty easily.  I would use shellac if my top coat was going to be High Performace.  If you went with Endro-Var you could probably skip the shellac.  Again if this is a first time spraying the top coat practice some.  

This would be my choice but, only the clear..  No need for the shellac.

[bleedinblue]

Enduro-var is waterbourne, right?  So I'd have to pre-raise the grain?

[Chet]

Endro-var and High Performance both are water borne.   With things like oak I tend to pre-raise the grain with distilled water.  But I think with cherry you can just sand after a first coat of your finish. 

[..Kev]

IMO, it's not as important on a film finish depending on how much "film" you apply.  

[wdwerker]

If you spray light coats of a waterbourne at first they will dry faster. I will spray 2 or 3 light coats 15 minutes apart then sand after they are completely dry. No need to raise the grain. But if you are using water based stains then raising the grain is a good idea. If you use a mixture of water & alcohol it still raises the grain but it dries faster. 

[AceHoleInOne]

I know I'm late to the game. Think hard about a hand applied finish. Spraying chairs is not a walk in the park, especially for a novis spray gun user. You'll have over spray issues to deal with and you need to really move while spraying chairs to keep the finish wet so the over spray melts in. If this is your first spraying rodeo,  you'll be sanding your brains out and chairs are no fun to sand off ya overspray.  

Just my 2 cents 

-Ace-

[wdwerker]

On second thought chairs are tricky for me to spray . Even with almost 40 years of spraying experience I usually get overspray every time and runs frequently. 

If you still want to spray practice on something cheap with a complex shape.  It’s easier to buff/sand/ polish oversprayed areas than it is to sand out runs. Runs from garnet shellac will be very difficult to remove without leaving streaks & light areas where you sand through the color. Light coats are safer.