Cot finish? baby safe?

[boomish]

Hi I am building a cot for my daughter & her husband, so kinda special piece , I've finally settled on a design I'm happy with and have ordered the timber , an American White Ash, so should be a nice straight grain.
I'm not to up on child friendly finishes so I asked Morrells what is the safest VOC free finish, then replied with "Hi the lowest VOC products are our waterbased lacquer, they have been Breem tested which checks for VOC levels after the coating has dried."

I found a post on here about using "Morrells 362 waterbourne lacquer" so that sounds good.

But I want to give it a grey stain, I've looked at the Morrells water based stain but they are all timber colours rather than a pastel, any suggestions what stains I could use that would work with Morrells or maybe there is a pre-coloured lacquer, can anyone recommend one that might be suitable for this?
I was thinking I could apply the stain by hand and then a spray finish, I've got a pretty large compressor and spray but I haven't used it in a while so again any times more than welcome. I though I'd follow this advice - topic44567.html?forum_uri=which-morrells-water-based-product

Appreciate any advice on this.

Cheers

Alan

 

[AndyT]

Have a look at the Osmo range. Start here https://osmouk.com/sitechapter.cfm?chapter=61&page=235 or at the Product Selector here https://osmouk.com/sitechapter.cfm?chapter=110&page=0

I've not used all the products - it's a huge range - but you can request a sample.

 

[boomish]

Nice one Andy, funny I did find that after posting, but I didn't know you could request a sample, I think the wax finish might be good, nice colours and easy to touch while being child safe.
Thanks again for the reply.

 

[ED65]

I'm not to up on child friendly finishes so I asked Morrells what is the safest VOC free finish...

Alan, safety with regards to VOC levels is generally about the person doing the finishing, not how safe the resulting dried and cured finish is. Once fully 'dried' all finishes have, for all intents and purposes, no VOCs left. With the fully cured finishes, there's little (or nothing) to choose from between one product and another.

To get the wood grey, you can stain very effectively using thinned water-bourne paints, including acrylic craft paints or emulsion. A single tester pot may well give you enough for a project of this size because the thinning ratios can be very heavy on water and light on paint, sometimes greater than 10:1, but you'll have to test with whatever you pick as it depends on pigment level.

Be sure to stir the watery paint well regularly during use as pigments settle out surprisingly quickly!

 

[boomish]

Thanks for the info Ed65, I did wonder if it was that it, blimey with all the paints I've sprayed over the years I'm beyond worrying about VOC free

But I read a post not long ago about using outdoor paint indoors and saw a reply saying the VOC from exterior paint can causing illness if used indoors. I think more to do with the pesticides in the paint to stop mould, so I wondered if modern interior paint had anything similar, plus this is fro our grandchild I wasn't going to take any chances I've got some samples of Osmo so I'll try them as soon as I start construction..
Thanks agin for the reply.

 

[Rorschach]

Something to consider, you are safe and well and unless you are a young whippersnapper you probably grew up with products painted in lead based paint or at the very least oil based finishes.

As long as whatever you use is fully cured and not easily able to be chewed off, don't worry about it too much.