Spraying and colouring paint/lacquer

JustBen · 8 Sep 2014

I'm trying to find information on spraying mdf/wood but I'm coming up with nothing.

My aim is to spray finish mdf with a primer then colour and then a clear coat.

I've heard Morrells are very good but the price of their pigmented paints makes my eyes water.
It's an extra £20 or so for pigmented finish.

I've also read that I could use a primer and then add tinters to the clear lacquer to make up the colour.

Does anyone have experience with this.
Is there a way of adding pigments or tinters to either the clear coat or a white base coat.

Otherwise it would mean £56 per colour which is an expensive route.

Any links to pigments/tinters or colouring info would be much appreciated.

Scoffy · 8 Sep 2014

I used to do a lo of spraying furniture, mostly wood but some MDF, to add a bit of colour to 'level' the finish I simply added a drop of Mylands NitroStain to the cellulose laquer. I am not sure if they still do the Nitro stains but I am sure they would advise you if their current stains can be used in the same way.

Sgian Dubh · 8 Sep 2014

For colouring up wood you could have a look at this link, in the section headed Dying and Polishing, which is some way down the page. Whilst the techniques described there work well on a pale wood like sycamore or maple you'd need to experiment and probably modify the technique for MDF because of its brown base colour, unless you're spraying MRMDF which is green to start with.

You can include toning coats (dye added to polish) to alter colour in lacquer finishing of MDF, but you'd need to play around with the technique to see if the colour can be built up enough to suit your needs in the limited number of coats you can get away with applying, i.e., three coats maximum at a wet film thickness of about 125 microns each if working with, for example, pre-cat lacquer.

If you want solid colour on MDF you might have to go with either paint or tinted lacquer, and just suck up the cost. Slainte.

niagra · 8 Sep 2014

I use water based paints from Rothko and Frost and spray with an HVLP sprayer. For solid colour, ask for white and use a few drops of Liberon water based dye and for tints, use a clear and do the same. Then final coats of clear. It's not too expensive either.

Dario

tobyriches · 9 Sep 2014

Hi, I spray finish a lot of MDF furniture using Morrells pigmented lacquer and have always found the price to finish balance very agreeable. I think the £20 extra for a colour sounds very steep, they always tell me that the cost will depend on the amount of tinting used - if you want a cream or grey for example then it will be only a few pounds, if that. Much stronger colours will obviously be more. Almost every project I do I order a primer and lacquer - 5 litres of each and the price has never come to much more than £70 for both. I don't think this is at all bad when you consider Farrow and Ball eggshell will cost you £56 for 2.5 litres.

Mar_mite · 10 Sep 2014

tobyriches":tglq11fa said:
Hi, I spray finish a lot of MDF furniture using Morrells pigmented lacquer and have always found the price to finish balance very agreeable. I think the £20 extra for a colour sounds very steep, they always tell me that the cost will depend on the amount of tinting used - if you want a cream or grey for example then it will be only a few pounds, if that. Much stronger colours will obviously be more. Almost every project I do I order a primer and lacquer - 5 litres of each and the price has never come to much more than £70 for both. I don't think this is at all bad when you consider Farrow and Ball eggshell will cost you £56 for 2.5 litres.

Hi Toby, can I ask where you buy the morrels from?

Cheers.