Cabinets are finished!

The cabinets are finished and ready to install! It's been a long time coming. I ended up with about 50 hours in the finishing work. Had about 40 in the sanding. So, a total of 90 hours of work. Since I figure buying unfinished cabinets saved about $1200, that makes my time worth about $13/hour. Not bad.

In the last post I mentioned adhering the end panels to the cabinet sides... That was a bigger chore than I had imagined!

After much reading on the internet and asking friends with construction experience, I found no clear answer as to what adhesive to use. I've heard of liquid nails, plain yellow carpenters glue, gorilla glue, contact cement, and even epoxy being used. Well, I have never been very impressed with liquid nails, so I crossed that one off the list. I did try yellow glue on one wall cabinet that had a panel on both sides and it achieved a great bond, but was a horrible mess to work with. Since I had over 50 square feet of panels to bond, gorilla glue was out simply on cost. So, that left contact cement. I did the rest with it.

I have never worked with contact cement before and man is it a pain. I coated both the panel surface and cabinet surface before adhering. Twice. Then you have one chance to lay them together right or you have to break the panel into tiny splinters to get it off. So I put them on, pushed down on the surface (every bit of it) and figured all was good. Wrong. The next day the edges of the panels were curling up; the cement stretching between like bubble gum on the sole of your shoe. Guess I should've clamped them up with ratchet straps or something....but the instructions on the can (all 5 quarts that I used) say "no clamping necessary". Riiiiiight.

So.....it's old school time. When fancy adhesive chemistry fails, use mechanical fasteners. I ended up tacking all the way around the edges of each panel with wire brads and putting filler over the heads before staining.

Anyway, once they were bonded (and fastened), I stained them and did my 3 coats of poly and they are pretty! I finished all the cabinet rails and stiles at the same time. Yesterday, we also painted the bottom surface of the wall cabinets. Makes for a more sanitary and cleanable surface than bare particle board. Gave them a coat of Kilz oil-based primer, then over the top with white semi-gloss. The white will help reflect light from the undercabinet lights I hope to put in at some point as well.

So, now the easy part is over and the hard part begins....the actual work in the house. First up is some wiring and plumbing. That always requires working int he crawlspace and/or attic. Yay.

Still going....

Well, I haven't succumbed to the urethane fumes...yet...

Since my last blog post I have been working on finishing the cabinet doors. They are done! It took a little trial and error to figure out the best finishing technique for what I have to work with, but I'm pretty happy with the result.

Observations so far:

• Minwax oil-base polyurethane is unusable out of the can if you want a smooth finish. It's way too thick. Even though its instructions say to not thin it, most accomplished woodworkers do. Add me to those ranks. I found that thinning it 25-33% with naptha gave me the best results. White mineral spirits work too, but take longer to dry. In a dusty Kansas farm shop, faster is better.
• Many woodworkers claim that poly should be double brushed. Many initially lay down poly against the grain, then shortly tip it off with the grain. This is a bad idea...at least with oak. Brushing across the open grain of oak puts bubbles in the finish. I got more bubbles with this method than a single brushing with the grain and not tipping off!
• Use a cheap disposable foam brush. I bought an expensive natural bristle varnish brush at Home Depot but it just plain and simple puts down too thick a coat. You can only dip it in the finish maybe a quarter inch, then brush maybe a foot of board per stroke. Cheap foam brushes lay a lighter coat but can hold more for longer strokes. Even on the pantry doors I was able to load up the brush and make a single stroke the full length of the door. Oh yeah, all cheap foam brushes aren't equal either. The wood handled ones from Walmart are actually pretty good. I had a bunch I got at Harbor Freight or somewhere that had a more open, less dense foam than the Walmart ones and they were more bubbly.
• Sanding between coats is really worth the effort! I've been using 3M "Sandblaster" 320 grit sponges (they're the yellow ones) between each coat and it works really well! I used to use 000 steel wool, but after using these sponges I won't be using wool anymore! After sanding, I blow the dust out of the grain with compressed air, then wipe the surface with a towel dampened in mineral spirits before recoating.
• Even thinned 25%, 3 coats is enough. On a table top I might put on more, but I like the balance of appearance and protection I'm getting with three. I think going for 5 or more like you hear some guys talk about would start making a dipped in plastic and much less natural look.
  
• Stir the can of finish frequently while brushing! The flattener (the stuff that makes mine semi-gloss rather than poly's natural high-gloss state) rapidly settles out of the thinned polyurethane. I just keep the handle from a used foam brush in the can and stir it a few strokes every few minutes while brushing to keep the finish sheen even.
  

Anyway, tomorrow I should finish up putting the end panels on the cabinet carcasses. (This is a chore to address in another post.) Then hopefully around the end of this week the cabinets will all be finished and it will be time to demo the kitchen.

Here are some pics of the current status in the shop: