Painting cabinet doors
#7
I want to paint some cabinet doors to update the look in a bathroom. The doors are oak with what I think is a poly urethane finish coat. My plan is to lightly sand then apply a coat or two of enamel. I don’t think I’ll need primer. 
I looked through the treads here but didn’t find anything about repainting cabinet doors.
Advice appreciated!
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#8
(07-22-2018, 05:19 PM)EightFingers Wrote: I want to paint some cabinet doors to update the look in a bathroom. The doors are oak with what I think is a poly urethane finish coat. My plan is to lightly sand then apply a coat or two of enamel. I don’t think I’ll need primer. 
I looked through the treads here but didn’t find anything about repainting cabinet doors.
Advice appreciated!
After lightly sanding and wiping everything down, I would apply a thinned down coat of a wood filler (try timber mate) to fill the pores of oak.  Then lightly sand again after it drys and wipe down 
I was happy using Sherwin-Williams Premium Wall and Wood Primer.  I used two coats on bare wood, but you may get by with just one coat.
For the top coat, I used their ProClassic alkyd-acrylic.  Layed down nicely with a brush and backrolled with the 4" foam rollers made for cabinets.  After two coats, it looked like it was sprayed.
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#9
What you may run into is that some form of furniture polish with silicone was used on those doors in the past. That might lead to a fisheye problem with the new paint. I would clean them as thoroughly as possible with TSP (the real stuff), and rinse completely. Then consider priming them first with a shellac based primer, Zinnser BIN. The shellac will seal the later coats from any remaining silicone. After that, I would follow the advice offered above, although you may not need another coat of a different primer, the BIN smooths out very well.
I started with absolutely nothing. Now, thanks to years of hard work, careful planning, and perseverance, I find I still have most of it left.
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#10
I would brush on a coat of Sealcoat shellac.  It is already diluted and ready to use.  Shellac adheres well to almost all substrates and most finishes adhere well to shellac.

I had good luck applying General Finishes pseudo "milk paints".  They brush on with a foam brush and dry without any blemishes at all.  I then top coat with acrylic clear.  

When I used black I had to use gloss clear, as the matte finish made the black look gray.

I tried Sherwin Williams best acrylic paint  as a comparison.  Their color matching system matched the color perfectly.  But no matter how I tried I never could apply as even a finish with the S-W paints.  

The GF milk paints, in contrast, looked like a high quality sprayed finish.  Perfect.  No runs, not pits, excellent.  

The clear coat over base color will give a much more durable finish than enamel in my experience.  

Note:  This is not real milk paint.  It simply looks like it.  It is an interior or exterior finish.  There is a limited array of colors.  Matte finish for all colors.  They claim that it does not require a top coat.  I found that it scarred (black finish) and would pick up shiny spots if I did not top coat.

https://generalfinishes.com/wood-finishe...milk-paint
No animals were injured or killed in the production of this post.
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#11
I second Fred's suggestions.   What you want is a clean and dull surface.   The shellac makes a good barrier coat and will help adhesion.   I like to take the doors and drawer fronts off and do them horizontally.   It helps the flow-out and makes defects easier to see.  It also lets you have better access to the face frame.

Do not use a cheap latex paint.   They are prone to "blocking" -- gluing themselves together.

The last cabinets I did were for my own home.  The DPO (dreaded prior owner) did a terrible job prepping and painting (and used a cheap paint apparently).  From the week we moved in, it started to peel around the pulls and never really got anything more that soft and sticky.

And I seriously doubt that it's polyurethane unless another homeowner or clueless contractor did it.   Factory finishes are almost always some kind of lacquer, with a rare chance at a conversion finish.  Conversion finishes are tough, but not much sticks to them, even itself after a small window of curing.   And they're a bear to strip.

Here's a quick video on the subject https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JNTb4uyGG0    (Now mind you, he started to strip a nightstand and halfway though, he hired me to finish the job and refinish the matching bed)
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#12
Thanks for the advice - some things I didn’t think of.
If things don’t work out, my plan B is to build new doors. I know that’s what I’m going to do in the kitchen. I just figured white cabinets would be a better look in the bathrooms than the stained oak.
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