Deft lacquer, can you spray it??

Jeff Horton

Member
Messages
4,272
Location
The Heart of Dixie
One draw back to small town life is the lack or access to 'stuff'. BORG does carry Deft Lacquer but that is it. Can says not to thin or spray it. Just to brush it on. Being the curious person I am I want to know if anyone has tried spraying it?

I wanted to prefinish the raised panels before assembly. I have a spray can of Deft and was going to just do the panels with that. Then spray the final coats on when it was finished. Then I read where it says not to spray it. :dunno:

I do have a Sherwin Williams not to far away, but I am still Curious.
 
Not Deft, but an analogy .... we recently started to repaint our basement. The HD carries a line of concrete sealing paint. The instructions for the "average user" say to not spray it. But ... on the website, the instructions for the pro give the various nozzle sizes for the various professional airless sprayers ... including mine :). gWe sprayed - worked well. Why not give 'er a go on a chunk of waste and see what happens? It seems to me that my radio restorer buddies spray Deft, but I'd have to search a couple of websites for the evidence.

cheers
 
Last edited:
jeff, if it`s real lacquer then it can be thinned and sprayed...if it`s waterbased....you`re on your own..
 
Couple of people over at Woodnet said they spray it. So I will do the raised panels with the spray can before I assemble them. Then I can spray the whole thing once it's all together.
 
:wave: Deft is what I have always used,and have always sprayed with regular paint gun. Hope this helps! Later:thumb: P.S.-Thin with lacquer thinner!!!
 
Last edited:
The problem with spraying Deft brushing lacquer is that they put retarded in the brushing lacquer to keep it from drying too fast. When brushing it, you want it to flow out before drying to get rid of the brush marks. That makes it more difficult to spray on a vertical panel - it runs unless you're very careful.

Even on a horizontal panel, it takes longer to dry which means more time for junk to settle on it.

But I have to question why you want to use lacquer. If you're doing cabinet door panels for a kitchen, for example, why not spray polyurethane? You can even use water based poly. The advantage of poly is that it holds up better in wet. You might say, "But these are doors and they won't get wet." What happens it that people have wet hands from the sink and they open the cabinet doors. The top of the door (on the bottom cabs) starts to wear out from the constant wetting.

But if they're your doors, and you know what's happening, just sand the top of the door lightly every couple of years and brush (or wipe) on more lacquer. Where that fails is if you stain the doors. Every time you sand them, some of the stain comes off and it gets noticeable.

Anyway, I like lacquer for furniture that doesn't get a lot of wear or wet and poly where you have wear, heat and/or wet. Also, if you're looking for a real high shine, lacquer rubs out much better than poly.

So they both have their places.

Mike
 
Thanks Mike, but I am not a poly kind of guy. I know it's improved but I still see that plastic look in my head. I much prefer Shellac, thats my favorite. But this is a wine cabinet for my sister so can't use shellac. So it's lacquer or varnish for it.

Thanks for pointing out about the retarder. That makes a lot of sense.
 
I agree with Mike... I have always heard that Deft had a bunch of retarder. But I disagree with Mike about using Poly on cabinets. I love poly for floors, but hate it for other uses.

Deft is Nitrocellulose lacquer. I did a bunch of tests on NC lacquer with alcohol, kitchen soaps and foods, etc., and it worked well. Then I left a wood piece near the kitchen sink for a few days and it got spots that I couldn't get out. Learned that NC lacquer was not approved by KCMA - Kitchen Cabinet Mfg. Assoc. Catalyzed lacquer is approved. (Both plain and catalzyed lacquer are routinely available from Sherwin Williams, but it always seems to be kept in the back room.)

But I took the leap from NC lacquer direct to Target USL spray Lacquer (after being pushed by lots of different woodworkers). It is mail order only, so it doesn't matter where you live. And it has better KCMA ratings than catalyzed lacquer. I am getting ready to order my next 5 gallon bucket, I love it so much. I have a web page on it - see www.plesums.com/wood/tips/waterbase.html
 
Thanks Mike, but I am not a poly kind of guy. I know it's improved but I still see that plastic look in my head. I much prefer Shellac, thats my favorite. But this is a wine cabinet for my sister so can't use shellac. So it's lacquer or varnish for it.

Thanks for pointing out about the retarder. That makes a lot of sense.
All of finishing is a matter of opinion so you should use what you feel comfortable with. Lacquer for a wine cabinet should work well. And if you want to put a real shine on it, you can rub it out.

Regarding poly and shellac, I'll give my opinion - for what that's worth. I'm not a big fan of shellac. It doesn't hold up to water or alcohol. If someone sets a wet glass on a table finished with shellac, it will leave a ring. Commercial furniture makers gave up on shellac a long time ago (maybe the 1920's). Those coasters that everyone uses for drinks are a leftover from shellac finished tables. Today, commercial furniture is finished with catalyzed lacquer and you can't hardly hurt that stuff - water, alcohol, heat (up to some limit) has no effect on it. It doesn't even chip very easily.

Modern poly is pretty good stuff. It doesn't shine like lacquer but it definitely doesn't look like plastic. In my opinion, it just looks like lacquer but just a bit duller in finish. For a kitchen table, poly is a good finish if you can't use catalyzed finishes. Shellac would never hold up with the water and heat that a kitchen table gets. Lacquer is better, but it melts when heated so if someone puts a pot or hot dish on the table, you get a mark from the lacquer melting.

The only thing I use shellac for is as a sealer (dewaxed shellac) - and then I put my final finish over the shellac. Shellac is good in that application because you can put any finish over it since it's alcohol based. Water based or solvent based finishes don't melt the shellac so your surface prep (stain, etc.) stays the way you did it.

But anyway, as I said, it's all an opinion, and that's my opinion.

Mike

[I hadn't seen Charlie's posting when I posted the above. Charlie has lots of good experience (more than me) and I would go with his recommendations.]
 
Last edited:
Spray lightly and more times on the vertical. Spraying with deft allows you to brush out the runs, ( if you spray heavy) the same with poly urethane.
Agree with Mike and Charlie.
Good luck.
 
I'm with Charlie. I have sprayed Target Oxford Lacquer and poly and really like them both. No thinning and no explosive fumes plus easy water clean up. I have tinted both the lacquer and poly with great results. You can have a paint store tint them with universal colorant or you can use acrylics. The lacquer burns in just like the non water based lacquers. Like you Jeff, I do not a good supplier around here so it is really handy just to place an order with Target and in a few days it is here.They have their own sealers but I have also had good luck using shellac based sealers under both products.

Just one note. If you check with Sherman Williams and they have some precat lacquer stored in the back be sure to check the date. The store here had some like that and the cans were at least four years old. The guy said that they just did not have any call for lacquer around here.
 
Last edited:
Deft Lacquer

Here's what you can do if Deft is lacquer. When car lacquer was legal in all states, they sold - and still do sell - three speeds of thinner. SLow, medium and fast to compsenate for air temperature and climate throughout the year.

If the Deft has a retarder in it as some have said, then go to an auto finish store and get a quart of fast lacquer thinner. Auto finish guys are always fine tuning the rate of drying to regulate the flow out, speed and sheen on a finish.

Gary Curtis
 
We spray Deft lacquer all the time--vertical and horizontal surfaces. Cut it 50/50 with lacquer thinner, and each coat will dry quickly.

By the way, we put lacquer on my kitchen cabinets, and they look as good now as they did when they were installed over 6 years ago.

Nancy (105 days)
 
I have sprayed Deft in my past life. Aside from the boner fide high and headache following the buzz wearing off... not to mention the aroma soaking into every pore and folicle... But you have to be careful of cutting too much and it loosing any sheen it has left. Also as was pointed out, it do dry slower than spraying lacquer and will drool if you aren't careful.
 
Top