Each house has old furniture, which I do not want to change for certain reasons. It is dear to some people as a memory, while others cannot currently afford to buy a new headset for financial reasons. Painting furniture facades is a good alternative to spending money on new interior items. Nowadays, there are many materials for painting that will transform old furniture, breathe new life into it. To do this, it is worthwhile to figure out which paint is better to choose and what technologies for its application exist.
Restoration Tips
Restoration of furniture facades requires precision work and does not tolerate haste. To get a perfectly even coating on which there will be no chips and other defects, high-quality paints will be required. They are usually expensive. But the end result of the labors is worth it. As a result, we get a smooth and beautiful surface. Such furniture looks no worse than the new, factory. But to get a quality result, you need to know a few nuances.
What to look for when buying the necessary materials for work?
When choosing a paint, it is necessary to study its composition, as well as the speed of drying. More often than not, people want to know what it takes to paint MDF furniture facades. This will require:
- Various types of sandpaper.
- You will need tape (it is often called grinding felt). This material will be needed at the finishing stage of grinding furniture. The surface is processed immediately before painting. The gradation of such scotch tape is usually P 800. Internal corners or complex decorative elements can be sanded with abrasive tape. Its gradation goes from P 220 to the maximum allowable P 280.
- In this case, you can not do without a spray gun. Paint should be sprayed in a thin layer. If you paint the kitchen facade with a brush, it is difficult to achieve a flat surface. The spray gun allows you to apply paint evenly over the entire surface. The advantage of this tool is also that it can be primed. In this case, priming work does not take much time. Distinguish between electric and pneumatic spray guns. For electric, you need a socket in your reach, and pneumatic need a working compressor. It is better to buy a gun whose nozzle diameter does not exceed 1.3 millimeters. Then the paint is better sprayed and lays down without defects.
- Do not forget about the degreaser. It will be needed at the first stage of work. The step of degreasing the surface must not be skipped. If you do not use the product in a timely manner, then eventually defects will appear that will spoil the appearance of the product. Will have to repaint the entire facade. Not everyone knows that a special degreaser is required to work with wood, as well as with MDF. It must include an organic solvent. This tool actively fights fat, breaks down silicone.
- It is worth buying a primer and a solvent in advance. To paint better laid on a wooden surface, the facade must be primed. There are several types of primer: for working with plastic, as well as epoxy. A type that works with plastic works well with wood. The primer should increase the adhesion of the material to the paint. There is also a pore-filling type. To isolate the material with which the primer was originally impregnated, it is necessary to increase the adhesion of the starting material with the selected enamel. This requires epoxy primer. A pore-filling primer is needed to smooth the surface just before painting. It is rarely used.
It is better to take the solvent 646. They are allowed to dilute the primer and paint until the desired consistency is obtained. It is easy to clean with a solvent a spray gun after use.
Enamel Benefits
Auto enamel lays well on MDF. When it dries, a smooth surface is obtained. Most often it turns out glossy. There are two types of such paint: alkyd and acrylic. Alkyd enamel is considered a quick-drying coating. It is not very expensive. The only drawback is the need to varnish the product as a result. When using acrylic enamel, the surface becomes glossy. For the finishing stage, no varnish is required.
How to prepare the facade for work?
Painting of furniture facades should begin with the preparatory phase. It begins by removing the old layer or gloss. Preparation of furniture facades for painting also includes priming and polishing.
How to remove the top layer?
Most often, furniture facades from solid wood have a glossy top layer. It is achieved by coating the product with special varnish. If you do not remove it, but immediately paint it with a new layer, then the adhesion of the paint to the base will be weak. To obtain adhesion suitable for this case, it is required to treat the top layer with adhesive tape. The use of sandpaper is allowed. Its gradation should be from P 220 to P 280.
If a facade made of MDF is selected for work, then most likely it is covered with a special film. It must be completely removed and only after thorough cleaning of the surface begin to work with sandpaper.
How does priming work?
The technology for painting furniture facades is not complete without priming the surface. First you need to degrease the "front of work." After this, do not touch the surface of the product.
Priming can be divided into several stages:
- The surface is treated with special primer. First, the ends of the product are coated with a primer, after which the central plane is processed. It is best to prime with two coats. Then the paint will better lie on the facade. Professionals advise to apply each primer layer perpendicular to the past. In this case, you get a perfectly even coating.
- Each part is coated with an epoxy primer in one or two thin layers. Then you need to wait until the coating is completely dry. This usually takes a day.
- Pore-filling primer must be selected according to the color of the paint. If the main color can be attributed to light, then the primer is better to take white. You can apply not two, but one and a half layers, if the surface is already smooth.
How is the grinding of parts carried out?
Everyone who has encountered painting furniture facades knows that paint can only be applied on a flat surface. There are times when the surface has already been primed, but in some places open pores remain. Then a one-component putty is taken, with which the cavities are closed.
What to do in such a situation? It is necessary to take sandpaper and polish the facade before painting. Furniture facades for the kitchen are best treated with sandpaper, the marking of which is P500.
An important point when grinding is not to press the paper hard. The product may be scratched if not careful. The thinnest layer is located at the end of the product, where it is easiest to deform. If you use adhesive tape, the probability of damage is reduced.
Painting technology
Equipment for painting furniture facades can be bought at any building materials store. The main tool is a spray gun.
The surface of the furniture is degreased, after which you can wipe it with a special cloth, on which the accumulated dust remains.
The enamel must be mixed, detailed information is indicated on the bank. The spray gun must be adjusted so that the paint falls on a small area of furniture. In this way, material costs can be reduced as consumption is reduced.
How to color
The first step will be the coloring of the ends, then you can go to the base. To get the color uniform and easy even, you need to go through the paint in two or three layers. Before each new layer should be kept twenty minutes. During this time, the last coat of paint has time to dry.
If you are new to the restoration and painting of furniture facades, it is best to learn how to deal with an airbrush on an unnecessary part of old furniture. After training, you can proceed to painting the desired facade.
Tips for varnishing the facade
When furniture is varnished, certain instructions must be followed:
- It is necessary to pre-clean the room. It should not be dust.
- Work should only be carried out in clean clothes.
- Each coat is applied ten minutes after the previous one.
- The end result should be a glossy surface. Some call it the "mirror effect."
The choice of paint for furniture facades
Staying in a building materials store, a person is sometimes confused. Nowadays, a huge selection of paints and manufacturers is presented. Paint for furniture facades should be of high quality and have good adhesion.
Alkyd based and oil based paints have proven themselves well. The composition of such coatings includes synthetic oil. Manufacturers add polymer resins to them. These paints are good in that they are universal for various surfaces. They have a good hitch with wood, chipboard. Such coatings are often taken for coloring furniture facades for the kitchen. They fit perfectly on MDF and even on glass.
Solid wood furniture facades are often covered with special enamels. These include Lacra and Alpina. The popularity of acrylic enamels "Belinka" is growing. They include latex polymers. They are the safest of all coatings (we are talking especially about animals and children). They are often taken to paint furniture in the children's room.
Some masters suggest buying paint in the form of an aerosol. For a beginner, by the way, it is much more convenient to use them when applying. It turns out a coating that is resistant to external factors. It has a good moisture repellent effect.
Conclusion
So, we figured out how to paint furniture facades. As you can see, this operation can easily be done independently without the help of specialists. Allowed the use of different enamels. Someone uses a spray gun, but recently, most have resorted to the choice of car enamels. Since they are sold in spray cans, for their application you do not need to have a spray gun and somehow mix the paint in advance. The application procedure is quite simple. In addition, this paint dries very quickly - within ten minutes.