Cabinet finishing ideas

[duronboy]

For my dad's little p.a. system he's putting together, I designed and built some subwoofer cabinets with the help of several techtalk forum members. Bill Fitzmaurice, Chris Roemer, Brian Steele, your advice steered my design into something better than it might have been.

I made the cabs out of pine plywood and of course it's soft. First outing and there were some minor dents and scrapes. As expected. I haven't finished these at all, yet, so they're still bare wood. I'm aware of many popular options including duratex and carpet.

I think the first line of defense will be cabinet covers. Still leaves them open to damage after setup, but reducing travel damage should help a bit. Hobby Lobby has fabric as cheap as $3 for 58" x 36" so all I need is something else inexpensive with some small amount of cush. Felt is pretty cheap so that sandwiched in a couple layers of fabric should be effective against most travel sliding damage short of blunt force trauma. Open to more ideas on inexpensive material.

One of my ideas for finish is matte polyurethane. I saw a video where a woodworker took a can of satin poly and let it sit a while, then carefully poured off the top layer. So he was left with poly that had a concentrated amount of the pariculate that removes gloss. The result was pretty nice. What's your experience with repairing poly with a recoat?

Another idea is simply not applying a finish, but only applying india ink. What I like about india ink rather than spray paint is that it's much easier to get an even black finish without worrying about getting too much. And it's way, wayyy faster. No VOCs, either!

[killa]

The texture is varied via the nozzle size on the sprayer gun, not by thinning the product. If you want it really smooth, however, don't use it. It's called Dura TEX for a reason.

I have gotten less texture by using a regular house paint roller. It is tricky because you have to apply the right amount of pressure or the roller wants to slide across the surface instead if rolling. You get the hang of it pretty quick thought.

[anotherTodd]

My eternal thanks, Bill. I may have to try a gun with hopper feed. I used one some 30 years ago. That was an airbrush kit with a gravity feed(it was a really pricey kit). I was able to do stuff with that, so there is hope.

[philthien]

Got it, thanks!

[billfitzmaurice]

I run it around 50-60 PSI. It does use a lot of air, because it's blowing a lot of material, but I still can give a full coat to a large cab without the tank draining, and that's with the gun always shooting air, even when it's not shooting material. My compressor is nothing special, a $150 8 gallon Husky.

[philthien]

Hey Bill, what PSI do you use? The gun says it consumes 8 cu ft min at 90-psi, that would be a BIG compressor.

[billfitzmaurice]

Airless I don't have, but my $29.95 Harbor Freight hopper gun handles DuraTex like a champ. The only issue with it is the airflow is never off, so even when you're not spraying it's draining your compressor tank of air. I put an air shutoff valve on mine to turn off the airflow between coats.

[anotherTodd]

Thanks yet again. I have sprayed really thick coatings with my airless(another tool I possess). I sprayed concrete block coating with it; and I swear that stuff had concrete in it. I don't recall how much a 5 gal. pail of the stuff weighed, but "a lot" fits. Lots of solids in that stuff. I don't even know that it was supposed to be sold to the general public when I bought it. I bought it at auction; no questions asked.

I am NOT a painter. I only paint when necessary. That said, I DIY most everything - painting included.

Thanks again, Bill. I'm fairly unsure I can get the job done. That generally heralds success.

[billfitzmaurice]

I've never tried a regular gun, I doubt it would work unless it was thinned. The trouble when you do that is it's too runny, it drips all over the place, more like colored water than a paint. Even at a 4:1 Duratex to water ratio it's too thin to coat well, but still too thick for a paint gun.

[anotherTodd]

Thanks again. I'll experiment once I can do something out of doors. I have two Devilbiss guns(conventional) and a cheapie hopper that work well. It's still below freezing here at night, so I am simply planning and gathering media.

[billfitzmaurice]

When I do a pro-sound cab I use a hopper gun, starting with a fine nozzle. That gives too fine a finish for my taste, but it's good for even coverage with the first coat or two. Then I go to a large nozzle for a final spatter coat.

[anotherTodd]

Understood. I don't need really smooth, but I desire passable results for use in a home setting. I'll order a qt. and spray some MDF to get a sense of what is easily achieved. Thanks for the quick response.

[billfitzmaurice]

The texture is varied via the nozzle size on the sprayer gun, not by thinning the product. If you want it really smooth, however, don't use it. It's called Dura TEX for a reason.

[anotherTodd]

I have a q. for anyone that has gotten a "pebbly" finish as @ejh2854 or smoother. I have some spraying experience. What process is done with the Duratex in order to achieve a smoother-than-Lunar-surface finish? If someone could break down the thinning process that might prove helpful. Might, not nec. will. TIA!

[duronboy]

Kept seeing stuff like in the video and decided to get the ugly plastic corners and just go with house paint. I actually wanted to make a template to drill one or two inch forstner holes in the tops and bottoms of the cabinets. Then put one or two inch dowel cut-offs in the bottom holes. That would keep them from sliding and touching. But he ordered like 90 of those damn plastic corners, and they're his, so whatevs.

Anyway, the paint I got is advertised to be specifically for porch and patio floors, claims it's scuff resistant. Interior/exterior. $30 a gallon as opposed to lower to mid-20s. The sample paint dab on the lid didn't seem all that impressive right after it dried, but today it's quite a bit better. I'll have to do a side-by-side with regular paint.

I'll try to post a pic when they're all done. And I still need to make the grills...