What is the Best Finishing Product for Repainting Kitchen Cabinets? It May Not Be What You Think.
When it comes to repainting kitchen cabinets, what exactly is the best finishing product (the famous "topcoat")? It may not be what you think.
I run a small business specializing in spray painting and resurfacing kitchen cabinets, and we've been doing this for several years now. My team and I do nothing else. This is what it means to be a specialist in something: you don't know much about anything else because you really do nothing but that. All your knowledge in your field and nearly all your experience are concentrated on one particular thing. For us, it's repainting kitchen cabinets in people's homes.
To be perfectly honest, it's really difficult to choose a finishing product for a project. Why? Because there are a lot of finishing products available for kitchen cabinets (and cabinetry, modules, etc.). When you start to get known, reps from all sorts of companies and paint stores call you every week to convince you to try their product (and yes, their product is among the best, if not THE best, and many other contractors are already using it, so why not you, too, blah blah blah). If it’s not on the phone with the reps, we're online on forums trying to learn a bit about how and especially what other companies in our field are using. We're on "Reddit", "Paint Talk", the "Kitchen Cabinet Refinishers" group on Facebook, etc. On these platforms, everyone has their opinion, their experience, and many want to sell and promote their tricks, products, and tips.
So, tell me, what are you "shooting" your cabinets with right now? Are you using ML Campbell? 1K or 2K? Do you use Arroyo as a primer? Or Aquafi? Are you getting good results with the Arroyo 1K "topcoat"? Do you have a lot of callbacks from clients? How do you handle touch-ups? Do you let the clients do them themselves, or do you take care of it? And you? Do you "shoot" Envirolak? The 800 series or the two-component?
There is also ICRO, Renner, Gemini, EVO, Benjamin Moore, Rustoleum, ACI, Sherwin-Williams, Insul-X, Valspar, Chemcraft, and so on! Different systems for each company, their primers and "topcoats" 1K, 2K, polyurethanes, lacquers, water-based, solvents, etc. And all this specially designed for painting kitchen cabinets. How do you make sense of all that and make the best choice for you and your client?!
When Experience Speaks
Several years ago, I was deep into all this stuff. At some point, I found a specialized contractor like myself who had been in the business for much longer, and his business was bigger than mine. The guy (Allan) is based in BC, around Vancouver, and he’s been doing 250+ projects a year for a long time (we do about 90 per year) with his teams. Naturally, I asked him plenty of questions about the hows and whys, the tape he uses, the type of caulking (do we caulk the inside of the doors or not? but that’s another discussion...), his production steps, and of course, the famous question: what do you shoot your cabinets with?? And he told me the finishing product they use that gives them the best results. “All our projects are done with Benjamin Moore’s Scuff-X paint.” I was already familiar with Scuff-X paint; it's not bad, but it's not specifically designed for kitchen cabinets. With my lack of experience and humility at the time, that's what I thought, and I didn't listen to him...
For a good while, we tried just about every product available on the market. Lacquers, polyurethanes, epoxy paint, alkyds, hybrids, acrylic enamel 1K / 2K... and after several years of testing and experimentation, do you know what we use for all our projects now? Benjamin Moore's Scuff-X paint. Because it’s the product that gives us the best results for us and our clients. This brings me to the final explanation and the primary goal of this article.
What Does the "Best" Finishing Product Really Mean?
What do our clients really want when we do a kitchen cabinet project for them? They want their cabinets to look like new when we're done. They want to be able to easily clean their doors when there’s sauce, coffee, or other mysterious stains on their cabinets without leaving rubbing marks. They want to be able to easily do touch-ups when there are accidents and bumps on their cabinets. They want the colors they chose to remain the same for a very long time. That’s it.
Over time and with experience, we realized that the Italian 2K kit product imported at $250 per gallon, with all possible qualities on paper in terms of scratch and chemical abrasion resistance, well in reality, it’s not that resistant, and even if all preparation steps (cleaning, sanding, the right primer, respecting drying times, correct application with good film thickness, etc.) are followed, it will still "chip" and peel if it’s bumped. Easily doing a nice touch-up that will blend in and become invisible when that happens? Almost impossible. Almost everyone has already seen the little touch-up kit that the company gives when you have nice lacquered cabinets (the kind of little nail brush), we know very well what it looks like when you try to touch up the piece of lacquer that came off, it’s ugly and worse than before!! Plus, lacquer discolors quickly. Your dark gray CC-544 overcoat turns to dark blue pretty quickly. Your beautiful delicate white OC65 becomes yellow in 3 years or less... But aren’t there anti-yellowing additives in the new precatalyzed water-based lacquer technologies?! Yes, but it doesn’t seem to do its job. And the water-based hybrid alkyd? After 30 days it’s still not dry, and when it will be, no way to rub without leaving marks. The water-dilutable polyurethane which is supposed to withstand World War III, well it seems customers can’t get their dirty fingerprint stains off it, it’s like it’s embedded in... In short, on the "spec sheets", the "primer/topcoat" finishing systems are fantastic but most do not pass the reality test. They are supposed to be better but often aren’t. Plus, they are expensive and can be difficult to use.
What Works for Us
I’m coming to the final conclusion. Let me tell you what works really well for us (and for our clients). It also works for Allan for quite a long time: his business is big, and his clients are happy. Benjamin Moore's Scuff-X paint (water-based acrylic copolymer enamel) in pearl or semi-gloss finish, sprayed with an airless pump (Graco, Titan, Lemmer, it really doesn’t matter) with a low-pressure tip FFLP410-412 (our machines are Graco 490 / 395). A beautiful finish comparable to new. Fantastic color retention (one of the strengths of Benjamin Moore’s colorants), a washable and scrubbable finish. In addition, clients can do small touch-ups themselves when there are accidents and bumps, and it doesn’t show! $75 per gallon. What more could you want?!
Had I had a little more experience and wisdom, I would have listened to Allan and understood that he too had tried all imaginable products because he wanted to give the best to his clients. And after spending a lot of money on tests, touch-ups, customer callbacks, warranty callbacks, etc., he finally realized that the most efficient finishing product is the one that is easy to apply, lays down well, gives a nice washable finish, good resistance, easy touch-up, and does not discolor. And it took me a lot of time and money to discover that.