Pigmented Waterborne Topcoat

RobH

Rob
Corporate Member
Hi everyone,
I am in the planning phase of a long bathroom vanity and ultimately kitchen cabinets. I plan to finish them with a tintable pigmented waterborne topcoat. I have a 4-stage HVLP titan capspray system for finishing.
I am trying to decide between finishing with BM advance of SW urethane enamel; or ideally branching out into more industrial coatings like SW Kem Aqua Plus or Milesi 1k. My main question is if anyone has experience using the latter two. And, if so, where I can purchase them and have them tinted? I think there is a dealer for Milesi in Charlotte, but is anyone familiar with a SW that sells and tints the Kem Aqua plus?
Also if anyone has advice on the Advance or Emerald as an alternative that would be greatly appreciated.
-Rob
 

AllanD

Allan
Corporate Member
I have used Kem Aqua Plus on a few items. I think it dries much harder than Emerald. As far as I know it comes in either clear or white. I used the white on the cabinets and furniture and liked it. Dries extremely fast. I had SW try to tint Kem Aqua a couple years ago to a blue color but it was a failure.
It is not listed on the website for my SW stores so couldn't order it online ahead of time but when I called the store they said they have in stock all the time so come get it. This was the store in Matthews, NC.
 

drw

Donn
Corporate Member
Rob, I do not have any experience with the brands you mention; that said, I recently did use a tintable waterborne poly by General Finishes for a kitchen island. It was my first experience with this product...I will never go back to paints for cabinets. I am attaching a link.

 

RobH

Rob
Corporate Member
Rob, I do not have any experience with the brands you mention; that said, I recently did use a tintable waterborne poly by General Finishes for a kitchen island. It was my first experience with this product...I will never go back to paints for cabinets. I am attaching a link.


Your island looks great! I have seen the GF white poly at woodcraft but wasn’t aware of how and where to have it tinted. Seems you did it yourself! Well done. How close did the color come to what you had looked up on SW for the ratios, and how did you convert the numbers on the label to amounts per gallon?
 

drw

Donn
Corporate Member
Rob, the issue of where/how to tint was the major issue I had to overcome as I considered using the GF White-Poly. As you may understand, my wife had the final word with regard to color. The trim inside our home is an off-white and she was interested in getting close that tone, however, when she said it didn't have to be an exact match but in the ballpark, I decided to give it whirl. I had some SW paint that was close to what she wanted (including the tint code on the lid) so that is where I started. The codes on top of the SW lid are (32 - 64 -128) are fractions of an ounces (e.g. 32 is 1/32 of an ounce). Because I had a syringe calibrated in milliliters, I converted the volumes to milliliters, which I added to a plastic cup, mixed with about 10 mils of water and gradually mixed into the gallon can of white-poly while mixing. Was it an exact match to SW? No; If you put them side by side, it would be apparent, but the colors are very similar in tone and most importantly - my wife, who helped me with the mixing process, was very pleased. While it is not the precise color match that you could achieve by going to the paint store, because I kept track of the volumes of the three tints I used as well as the volume of water used to mix the combined tints, I think I could come very close to matching what I made, if I wanted/needed to do so in the future. Good Luck!
 

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