Home tinting acrylic lacquer

[Arron]

Hi. Has anyone had experience tinting acrylic lacquers. I want to use some white lacquer, but it’s stark white and I want to tint it to a more liveable off-white. I’ll probably be using Septone Acrylic Lacquer from Supercheap Auto, in Brilliant White (I can’t find any off-white off the shelf, locally).

What did you use to tint and how did it work out.

Some background info on the process might be helpful.
I’m wanting to paint a timber dining table white. I will probably use Septone Primer/Filler first - spraying 4-6 coats to get a high build, then sanding back. Once I’m happy with the surface I’ll spray 2 coats of the acrylic lacquer - or more I guess if I don’t get opacity out of two coats.

BTW, I know there are easier ways of getting a white table. This is more an exercise in demystifying products and acquiring skills, with an emphasis on using inexpensive products that I can source locally. I’m not interested in having a vendor tint for me, it adds too much delay and cost to the process. I also want to use a tinted lacquer as I want a spray finish and will be spraying outside so it must dry very quickly because every winged bug in the neighbourhood will be heading for it.

Also, if the Septone products are a poor choice, please let me know. I’ve never used them.

Cheers
Arron

[Simplicity]

If I'm reading you right, your buying brilliant white but do not want the brilliant white to be brilliant white.
If your not buying this in aero sole cans.
Why not have them mix the right colour for you.
It shouldn't cost anything more.
But failing that a drop of black should bring the brilliant white down a bit.


Cheers Matt

[Arron]

If I'm reading you right, your buying brilliant white but do not want the brilliant white to be brilliant white.
If your not buying this in aero sole cans.
Why not have them mix the right colour for you.
It shouldn't cost anything more.
But failing that a drop of black should bring the brilliant white down a bit.


Cheers Matt

Yep, brilliant white which I want to be very slightly off-white.
Yep, spraying, not using spray cans.

I want to be self-sufficient when it comes to very basic tinting. I know I could drive to West Gosford and get someone there to tint, but there’s a whole morning gone. Also the price suddenly jumps from $30 per 4 litre to $120 per 4 litre, because they are only set up to tint the expensive product following a proprietary process.

What I’m thinking is over the next few years I’ll be needing quite a bit of painted furniture and joinery, so this is really just part of the process of understanding how I can do a really high quality job in my back yard.

Anyway, what exactly would you use to tint acrylic lacquer - or is it just a matter of any tint that will work with acrylic paint will work with acrylic lacquer ? I have no idea myself.

[Simplicity]

Yep, brilliant white which I want to be very slightly off-white.
Yep, spraying, not using spray cans.

I want to be self-sufficient when it comes to very basic tinting. I know I could drive to West Gosford and get someone there to tint, but there’s a whole morning gone. Also the price suddenly jumps from $30 per 4 litre to $120 per 4 litre, because they are only set up to tint the expensive product following a proprietary process.

What I’m thinking is over the next few years I’ll be needing quite a bit of painted furniture and joinery, so this is really just part of the process of understanding how I can do a really high quality job in my back yard.

Anyway, what exactly would you use to tint acrylic lacquer - or is it just a matter of any tint that will work with acrylic paint will work with acrylic lacquer ? I have no idea myself.

Learning to spray paint and and learning to mix paint(colour match)is a big under taking.
Colour matching is also a skill but you would also need min 20/30 tints plus scales too do it well. That's a lot off money sitting on the shelf plus the tints have a shelf life.

Spray painting is a skill but I would not put it out of the realm of a DIY to learn.A lot of spray painting tho, is prep work 90 percent off the gun 10 percent on the gun.

I would question why the costs jumps so much for having a colour made up.
Have you tried auto paint suppliers, a few off the small her body shops I use to work in would have colour matched to our chips at no extra cost.
Or a very small cost.
The bigger shops I worked in we had colour mixing facilities on site.
But acrylic paint is tinted with just other acrylic paint till the right colour is made.

One other option, there are furniture spray painters around.
I know in Melbourne, I'm paying around $90 a square metre and the finish is as good as a top car finish.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180424/7e31570e594f492363b2bde33ad182fd.jpg
This was a kitchen I recently had re finished for a client.(The White doors)
Sorry I'm out of edit time tonight [emoji849]

Cheers Matt

[Arron]

Ok, thanks Matt.

Edit - deleted the rest after rereading Matt’s post. Next post is more important question.

[Arron]

Matt, when you’re back on deck tomorrow and if you are still interested, could you explain what you mean by ‘but acrylic paint is just mixed with other acrylic paint till the right colour is made’

Do you mean that’s how tinting of acrylic paints (or lacquers) is usually done in auto body shops?

Are you saying that is is my best solution, just buy a can of white and a can of dark brown, and put a teaspoon of brown in the white can?

[Nanigai]

Following with interest.
Ian

[Arron]

All finished.

As there is at least one person interested in the process I thought I should provide a summary here.

As I was unable to find any information on tinting acrylic lacquer I decided just to go with Universal Tints. So I went to Bunnings, chose an off white from their colour charts, got them to squirt some tint into a jar, in alignment with the formula. Cost $8.

Then I went to Supercheap Auto and bought some SCA Primer/surfacer and some SCA Acrylic Lacquer in white.

I sprayed 3 coats of Prime/surfacer on the tabletop. It’s a sort of low build spray putty combined with primer. I could just get it out of a 2mm setup, which is the biggest I have. Probably, next time Ill try a genuine spray putty for a coat, plus a genuine primer.

After the first coat I sanded back with coarser paper to generate a fine tilth of primer dust. Rather then blowing this off I pushed it around with my hand till it filled all the open pores. Then I sprayed coat two with minimal air so as not to blow it out of the pores. Same rub-back and fill with coat two. This made a very effective grain filler. Final coat was also rubbed back with very fine paper and blown clean. At that stage the table-top was baby-butt smooth.

This acrylic primer dries so fast all this can be done in under an hour.

Next I mixed the pigment into general purpose thinners. Dissolved Ok. Then put a measured amount into 250mm white lacquer. Test sprayed. Tweaked. Test sprayed. Perfect. 250ml is about enough to do one coat on a small table, so mixed up 3 little cups of 250ml.

Then I sprayed three coats of the acrylic lacquer on the table. This is not a high end product so it took three coats to fully hide the grey primer. Four would have been better, but I only bought one litre so didn’t have enough. The lacquer coats are not sanded between - the idea is to get a as good a finish straight off the gun as you can, and deal with any imperfections at the buffing stage. Because I’m spraying outside, I expected dust and kamikaze bugs, but these are minimal because the product dries so fast.

The result is pretty close to perfect. Because this is a learning exercise, in a few days I’ll sand back lightly with 1500 grit and machine-buff with Meguiars compounds.

Generally, I was pretty pleased with the products. I normally use NC or Precat lacquer but I’ve decided it’s time to face up to the environmental issues with those products and switch to something very low VOC. The neighbours are very close but they didn’t even notice, I’m certain that if the neighbours on one side had a problem I would have heard about it straight away.

The goal was to do painted furniture with the same type of hard, thin coat you see on industrial painted stuff - which I guess is usually 2 pack. I wanted something better then the look of enamel house paints.

As for the wisdom of using automotive paints to paint timber furniture. Not sure about that, all part of the learning process.

I have another table to do in a few weeks and I’ll use automotive enamel paint for that one. It will be interesting to compare the products.

Cheers
Arron

[Ambrosia]

Thanks for the detailed write up. I’m ready to learn about lacquer spraying for some shed cabinets. Not too worried about a perfect finish but would like to learn the process.

I’m always surprised that on a ‘DIY’ forum like this that the advice is often that a job is too difficult for you - pay somebody more capable to do it for you. Sorta missing the point!

Leigh


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[Arron]

Thanks for the detailed write up. I’m ready to learn about lacquer spraying for some shed cabinets. Not too worried about a perfect finish but would like to learn the process.

I’m always surprised that on a ‘DIY’ forum like this that the advice is often that a job is too difficult for you - pay somebody more capable to do it for you. Sorta missing the point.

Actually, I’m guilty of that. I have often advised people here who want to do a job of veneering to find a local veneering outfit and pay them to do it. My reasoning being that DIY veneering of large objects requires a lot of setup, learning curve and cost, so if you’re not going to be doing a lot then it’s unlikely to ever be worth it. I see myself as just presenting alternatives they may not have thought of.

My advice on learning quality spray painting DIY is to do whatever you have to to get an experienced person to show you - even for just an hour - him/her showing you and then you going hands on and them watching/advising. It will take months off the learning process.

Cheers
Arron

[Arron]

Three days later and, as I could find no information on how long to leave the finish before buffing, I decided to go ahead and buff it.

Running my hand over the table, I could only find 3 or 4 tiny dust nibs on it. Considering it was sprayed outside that’s pretty amazing, and is a testament to how fast this acrylic lacquer dries. It’s dry before the dust can settle, yet it still manages to level out and go from a dry looking spray to melded-down smooth - I don’t know how they do it.

Anyway, I couldn’t find any 1500 grit paper so had to use 1200. The 1200 pulled at the surface quite badly. Topcoats are designed to resist abrasion (for maximum durability) so as sanding is abrasion they should not be easy to sand, however the acrylic was a pig to sand. I gave up and just used the sandpaper to knock the dust nibs off.

Then I used a medium grade autofinishing compound and liberally powerbuffed the surface. If this was a clear coat, a medium grade would actually make the surface go cloudy (tiny scratches), but it does level the surface. Use a compound that doesn’t contain silicon, because silicon will prevent you respraying if it goes pear shaped. Consumer-grade products like Turtle or Kitten usually contain silicon. I use Meguiars, which are excellent products.

Then I used a fine compound and buffed again. If this was a clear coat you would see the cloudy finish become clear again as the very fine compound replaces the visible scratches with invisible ones. You can’t see that with an opaque but you can look for scratches in a glancing light.

The result is a very smooth surface that doesn’t drag against the hand. So three days delay was enough.

This is a dining table and we seldom use tablecloths so our tabletop takes a bit of a battering - it’ll be a good test to see how the painted surface holds up.

This is my first use of acrylic lacquer on furniture. It’s come a long way, but still needs more work then NC or precat. And I think Precat would simply look and feel better. Shame about the environmental issues.

The cost was a problem too.

I hope these posts help people - I always love to read the fine detail of other people’s finishing journeys. Never enough detail.

Cheers
Arron

Ps photo of two compounds used for buffing attached
434702

[clear out]

In my previous life I shared a workshop with a modelmaker.
He used to mix his own acrylic using the Pantone system.
The Architects or Industrial Designers would tell him what they wanted and he’d use the cards to mix it.
Then when they came to pick up the completed work the colour was always wrong.
Theyd say but that’s not what I wanted. So you do another overnighter.
It was about this time I started to design my mind reading helmet, an old crash hat with lots of old radio valves and flashing lights.
When talking to these dudes you’d put it on and no probs you knew exactly what they were talking about.:D
It was also handy for quoting jobs over the phone with no drawings.
I never did find out how long that piece of string in my pocket was.:no:
Ill put some pics up in daylight re some stuff I did and the Pantone cards.
H.

[clear out]

Here’s some chairs I did back in ‘85.
Been in continuous use since.
When first made put in an exhibition and a very well known woody sat in one and with his &ingernails sgratched thru the finish on the arms.
Also the Pantone slips.
Theres a computer program now to tell you how much to add for different colours.
H.

[Arron]

What is that painted with?

[clear out]

Acrylic.

I did a Datsun 1200 ute for my son a few years back.
Went to the night class at North Sydney TAFE, did Autobody for the rust repairs and panelbeating and then Painting to finish it.
Ran out of time at TAFE so painted it at home in the shed.
It was April or May and I quit when I got a bloom on the bonnet.
The weather beat me.
When detailing and doing a few small touch ups months later I pulled off some masking tape and the paint came with it.
I had to rub back the whole vehicle and redo it.
I managed to get ‘Acrylic Eddy’ for my teacher that year and using some 2K thinners it turned out great.
They’ve now shut down those courses but a few of the teachers came from the Central Coast.
H.

[Ambrosia]

Arron,

When you were spraying the lacquer, what did you do with the gun between coats? A complete clean-up of the gun or is there a trick to keep the gun usable between coats?


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[Arron]

I didn’t do anything because I didn’t need to. When I finished a coat I just made sure there was a bit of product in the gun, then hung it up, and then 20 or so minutes later when it was time for the next coat I just picked the gun up, shot a couple of squirts into the atmosphere to make sure everything was OK, and then did the next coat.

I guess when I did those two test squirts, if I thought there was a problem I would have tipped the product out into a clean cup, tipped some thinner into the gun and squirted that through into a rag, then put the product back into the gun and kept going. I suppose I’m relying mainly on sound to know if the gun is clean or obstructed.

Sometimes when spraying pre-cat lacquer I have just left the gun full of product for a few days, then carried on as before with no problem. I’m not sure whether you can do the same with acrylic lacquer - but the thinners are similar so probably you can.

Every now and then I give the guns a complete clean and lube, but actually it’s not the path the product takes through the gun that causes the problem, it’s mostly the cup, and especially the threads where the lid screws on, that cause most of the grief. Also, grunge along the shaft of the needle.

Talking gravity fed guns here.

Cheers
Arron

[PaintMan]

Hi Arron,
as a retired paint chemist I wanted to add a couple of comments.
1-Using very small amounts of architectural tinters such as a little black,yellow oxide and red oxide sourced from a paint shop is a good way to go and is something I also do. The main issue is to make sure you are only adding small amounts as these water based tinters contain high levels of surfactants to make them compatible with both water and solvent based paints.
2-Making stronger or deeper colours requires the use of light or clear bases and most autoshops have proprietory systems in order to make these colours.
3-I have made several furniture items that are a mixture of white painted surfaces and clear finished blackwood. I use auto acrylic primer followed by acrylic topcoats on painted surfaces and N/C based sanding sealer followed by N/C Precat topcoats for the clear finishing. These items have been is use now for over 8 years without any issues.
4-I would likewise suggest you need to pay close attention to the ambient conditions with wet or high humidity best avoided even if spraying in your garage. I use HVLP spray guns that help minimise overspray and using good quality reducers from a recognised industrial supplier is also important as some lower quality thinners cause application and drying problems.
5-Good drying is important and as you know most repair shops use heaters/drying lamps so in regard to the primer/topcoat I would leave the primer 24 hrs then apply the topcoat acrylic. I would also leave the final topcoat at least 24hrs before sanding or buffing. If you are sanding I would recommend you use wet sanding as the water makes it much easier. Also remember several thin coats usually give you a better result than thick coats that take longer to dry. Cheers Paintman

[Arron]

Hi Arron,
as a retired paint chemist I wanted to add a couple of comments.
1-Using very small amounts of architectural tinters such as a little black,yellow oxide and red oxide sourced from a paint shop is a good way to go and is something I also do. The main issue is to make sure you are only adding small amounts as these water based tinters contain high levels of surfactants to make them compatible with both water and solvent based paints.
2-Making stronger or deeper colours requires the use of light or clear bases and most autoshops have proprietory systems in order to make these colours.
3-I have made several furniture items that are a mixture of white painted surfaces and clear finished blackwood. I use auto acrylic primer followed by acrylic topcoats on painted surfaces and N/C based sanding sealer followed by N/C Precat topcoats for the clear finishing. These items have been is use now for over 8 years without any issues.
4-I would likewise suggest you need to pay close attention to the ambient conditions with wet or high humidity best avoided even if spraying in your garage. I use HVLP spray guns that help minimise overspray and using good quality reducers from a recognised industrial supplier is also important as some lower quality thinners cause application and drying problems.
5-Good drying is important and as you know most repair shops use heaters/drying lamps so in regard to the primer/topcoat I would leave the primer 24 hrs then apply the topcoat acrylic. I would also leave the final topcoat at least 24hrs before sanding or buffing. If you are sanding I would recommend you use wet sanding as the water makes it much easier. Also remember several thin coats usually give you a better result than thick coats that take longer to dry. Cheers Paintman

Thanks Paintman. I’m very pleased to see someone with your background come along. It’s hard working all this stuff out as an amateur and a chemistry-ignoramus - it’s hard to find people to ask questions of and we quickly learn that the people selling the products are not often well informed.

So a couple of questions.
What is meant by ‘architectural tints’. Do you mean the product in those paint tinting carousels we see in Bunnings and other hardware stores?

Also, could you tell us what product you used for your white painted furniture - preferably primer and topcoat, if you can remember. Was it an acrylic lacquer for auto use?

Cheers
Arron

[PaintMan]

Hi Arron,
yes they are the tinters or more correctly universal colorants . They are fine very concentrated pigment dispersions that can be added usually by the dispensing machine which has a very good accuracy to enable repetitive mixes to yield the same results using standardised formulas. In regard to the acrylic lacquers I used they were just standard auto products that I got from an industrial paint supplier here in Melbourne. I have previously used the std lines that are available from Autobarn outlets for both primer and topcoats. Most of the newer technologies in the auto refinish industry have now converted to industrial water based acrylics which are a bit more specific to use in regard to application conditions. That is why I still use the older standard solvent based acrylic lacquers that are relatively easier to use in home workshop conditions. I would also seek out a local specialist supplier in your area as they should be a big help in sourcing better quality products especially the reducers. Some reducer/thinner products I have seen are of very dubious quality and often contain reclaimed solvents and weaker mixtures that do not always give an acceptable result. Even what is sold now as mineral turps can be a lower aromatic solvent that when used with the clear brushable alkyd/urethane clears such as sold by Cabbot or Wattyl can yield milky finishes that are even more evident in colder conditions during winter. I got trapped with that issue just last year. Cheers, Paintman

[Arron]

OK, thanks very much for that
Cheers
Arron

[Arron]

Ok, it’s been two months of hard use for this little spray-painted dining table so now it time to evaluate the product.

I might not have clarified earlier in this thread, but the purpose of refinishing this little side-of-the-road find was to evaluate SCA (ie middle market) acrylic spray lacquer as a furniture painting medium. After years of making solid timber furniture, well decades really, I’m now completely over the stuff, and have largely lost enthusiasm for ‘brownware’. I’m wanting to experiment more with form and colour. Therefore I’ve been trying to learn how to do really high quality painting of furniture and built-in items. The main problem is finding a product. I understand that 2pac is beyond my reach, precat and nc are nice but environmentally irresponsible, and household enamel and acrylic paints look terrible. So I sprayed some high-wear furniture with acrylic lacquer to see how it would work out.

The result. Terrific. Good and hard wearing. Probably not good enough for a table top (and it wasn’t expected to be) but for a sideboard, or ocassional table or something in that range then very suitable. Resistance to scratches and knocks and stains very good, and marks able to be buffed off the finished product with a bit of car polish if need be. Nice, satiny hand-feel that doesn’t degrade quickly.

Would I use it for kitchen cabinets. At home, probably not. In our holiday home, definitely yes. Bathroom cabinets or vanities a definite yes. Wardrobes yes. Most furniture yes. Dining chairs no (legs get bashed around too much). Dining table top, no, unless it’s very much a formal table (ie meals only). Even thinking of spraying the trim in our new house (when we build it) with it - house would look amazing.

So I’ve found my preferred product, now I just need to work out how to get it tinted economically.

Cheers
Arron

[welfares]

Sorry to resurrect an old post.

Arron, how did you go with continued experimentation doing your own tinting?

I painted a car in Brilliant white several years ago, and it is..... so white, like, snowblind would be an appropriate colour.

I'm not sure supercheap still stock the 4L tins, but "high opacity white" is available from both repco and autopro (repco and motospray brands respectively).

The question was asked earlier in the thread about just getting them, or a shop to tint it, well, both those 4L above are about $90 a tin. 2L of tinted is $198 at supercheap, and 4L from other shops during my (brief) search have been around $300.
So if you can work out how to tint a tin of white to your satisfaction, happy day$.

I've painted a few things with spray tins with decent results, but 4L makes for a lot of spray cans.

Cheers Guys