lacquer me up!

One of the jobs The Man just finished working on at the shop had to be finished in lacquer.  The shop he works at doesn't normally use lacquer (there are plenty of other finishes that will make a surface beautiful, and lacquer is not the best thing for you).  You might be thinking, "Hey, Lazybones, why do I care?"  Well friend, I'll tell you.  I went to visit the shop, and I saw the table tops all lacquered up, and boy-howdy I'm I excited to paint my chairs now!

I see a lot of people use spray lacquer to refinish their own furniture and it looks great (especially when it's glossy) but oh my word, lacquer sprayed from a spray gun instead of a can is Amazing.  I asked The Man to give me some schoolin' on the high volume low pressure gun (or HVLP Gun for those of us enrolled in The Morning Man University), so he gave me a little lesson.  The great thing about any spray gun is that you aren't limited to what comes in a spray can, you can use any liquid from polyurethane to orange juice.  Which also means that you can use a better quality lacquer then may be available in a can.  Other reasons to use a spray gun is for the economy of it and the control of the spray. There are three tips on the HVLP Gun, one in the middle that shoots out your liquid, and two to the sides that push out air.  All of the tips are adjustable, you can change the air flow and the amount of finish coming out of the gun, as well as the direction and size of the spray.  All these, in addition to being able to change the concentration of the lacquer, are way too many variables for little ol' me, but The Man loves it (so, he'll be the one spraying the chairs).  I also mentioned economy before.  When you use a spray can there is so much pressure pushing out the lacquer, paint, or what-have-you, that a lot of it bounces off your desired surface and is lost, but the finish comes out at a lower pressure in a HVLP gun so more of the liquid stays on your surface.  It's placed as opposed to thrown or as Professor Morning Man put it a spray gun has about a 90% transfer ratio compared to about a 50% with a spray can.  Which means if you use a gun you'll get more out of the same amount of finish than if you use a can.

Here is one of the tables The Man sprayed (sorry for the blurry iphone photo).  Look at the reflection of the vent behind it, ANd This is a satin finish!!!!

I'm pumped about finishing these chairs now, lacquer doesn't yellow, it has a clearer, harder finish and has more depth, it's going to be beautiful!  And it'll be glossy glossy Glossy!


OK, OK, so I got a little wordy this time, I promise, next post will have a lot more pictures!!
Thanks for listening reading!