The Framers Forum

Hi all,

We are interested in starting to offer spray painted finishes to our clients. This is something my business partner and I have not done much before as we're used to applying paints by brush. So... a few questions for the seasoned spray painters of you:

Which do you regard as the best wood for spray painting? Essentially we want to achieve a very smooth finish with seamless corners.
Do you apply an undercoat of any kind?
Which paints do you recommend? For brush work we use Farrow & Ball which finish absolutely beautifully.
And finally, do you have recommendations for a good spray gun? Can this be used with a Bambi compressor (this is our regular one which we use to power the underpinner as well as hand tools)?

Thanks for any advice on this! It's a whole new world for us, but I think it's time to dip our toes...

Anna

To achieve what you are aiming at, the actual spray painting part is the least of your problems. Building up a perfectly smooth surface on bare wood is very labour-intensive. Gesso is the only way. Coat after coat and lots of sanding in between until the surface is immaculate. A flat coat of paint will show every minor imperfection.

The alternative is to use moulding with a finish already on it. The problem there is getting paint to stick to it. Cellulose paint (car stuff) will stick very well to certain existing finishes. There are health issues with fumes with this stuff though. And it may not give the look you are after. Some of the metallic finishes look very good on narrow mouldings though.

Water-based paints need a bit of persuasion to get them to stick properly to and existing finish.

Thanks Prospero! We tried spraying a pre-finished mouding just the other day and it came out quite nicely, so maybe that is something to work on perfecting. We just used some all-purpose spray that we had kicking around the studio and that seemed to stick rather well.

Have you used a spray gun of any sort before? I don't think cans would be particularly economical after a while...

The way I test adhesion is to try and scratch the paint off with a fingernail. (preferably your own ). Solvent -based paints seem to weld themselves onto certain finishes nicely. But there are some finishes that absolutely refuse to accept any coating. The paint may appear to go on OK, but it's only sitting precariously on the surface. If it doesn't pass the fingernail test then it will flake off after a while. As mouldings are not all made using the same process and the same materials what works on one will not work on another. Test a small piece first before embarking on a big run. Ideally you want moulding that need minimal surface prep.

You are right about cans. OK for the odd one or two, but a spray gun will pay for itself quickly if you are using it regularly.

I had a dabble with a spray gun a couple of years back - had a load of frames that I'd knocked together from an assortment of unwanted mouldings sourced off the interweb - unwanted mainly due to hideous colours. I thought spraying would be the shortcut to a pro finish and duly bought a small compressor and low volume spray gun. Spraying a diluted water based primer/undercoat created a reasonably successful foundation though I found the whole faff of a spraybooth and the clean up afterwards too much bother. Reverted to a paintbrush soon after which suits my requirements better - less mess, easier to pick up/put down for small jobs & no fiddly cleanup. Would no doubt be a different story if you've got the throughput (or more patience than I have...)
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Limewood mouldings tend to be the easiest to get a smooth painted finish with the minimum effort or fuss.

As for spray guns, most LPHV (low pressure high volume) guns work very well with most household emulsion paints.

As with all processes the secret is in having the right set-up.

cans are the way to go if you are only doing a small number ie 1 -5 frames, spray guns are better if you have a large number to, what with getting the paint to right consistency and than cleaning the gun after use, a lot of hassle, plus you should also have a set-up to cope with all this, with good ventilation. for you one off frames I would stick to cans.

Thanks everyone for the answers... We'll be trying and testing all the various options and checking out some guns.