Problem finishing two-tone cabinet doors

[SwingKing]

I've gotten myself into a bit of a catch-22 situation and thought you guys might have some advice.

I'm building cabinet doors where the frame is oak and the panels are cherry ply. The cabinet itself is oak with a finish of a reddish brown aniline dye, followed by a dark gel stain and finally shellac on top. I want the oak frame of the doors to have this same finish but the cherry panels will just have the shellac finish coats.

The problem is that **** dye. It tends to flow everywhere and goes right through painter's (blue) tape. If I assemble the doors first and then finish, I'm worried about getting dye on the cherry. If I prefinish the rails/stiles of the door frames first, I'll need to trim up the open M-T joints before glue-up and I'm worried they won't fit exact when I glue up the doors.

Any suggestions? My preference would be to assemble and then finish if I could figure out a way to keep the dye off the cherry panels.

Thanks!

-- Ken

[Jeffrey Schronce]

Seems like this is a clear case of finishing prior to assembly. You are not going to be able to control the pentration of the dye into the surrounding/touching wood.
I am not sure I understand the fit/finish issue of the M&T. Are you thinking the dye is going to change the fit of the joint substantially? I mean you are not finishing the inside of the mortise and tongue, so I can't see that being impacted.

[SwingKing]

Thanks. I've never done cabinet doors before and perhaps I'm being too paranoid. I was worried the alignment might change slightly in glueup and the edges wouldn't be flush.

I made the tenons a bit long so I could flush trim them during assembly. So if I'm going to prefinish, I guess I need to dry fit each door, clamp them up square and then trim the tenons. Of course I'll need to mark them somehow so I make sure I put them back together the same way after sanding and applying the dye.

I guess it's time to stop procrastinating on these and get to work.

-- Ken

[cabinetman]

Ken

I agree with Jeffrey, prefinish is the way to go. Sounds like a nice project - how 'bout some pics!



"I'M NEVER WRONG - BUT I'M NOT ALWAYS RIGHT"

[JimD]

Why not pre-finish the plywood panel? Cherry is smooth so the finish shouldn't get into the pores like it would on oak. You could try finishing a panel and then wiping it with the stain to see if it will wipe off throughly.

I always have to sand the joints flush on my doors so I would not want to finish the frame but I typically finish the panel before assembly to avoid having an unfinished edge show. I rarely stain, however.

Jim

[atgcpaul]

Hi Ken, I figured it would be just as good to post here as to replying to your
message.

When I did cabinet doors for the kitchen and bathroom, I prefinished the
panels but not the rails and stiles. The gel stain acted as a good enough
release agent for the water based dye I used as a base. After I assembled
the doors, I carefully dyed the rails and stiles and then gel stained them
being diligent to wipe up any excess on the panels. Corners were tough and
that's where prefinishing the rails and stiles ahead of time would have been
easier. However, with the number of doors I was doing, the way I did it
ended up being faster than taping off all those joints. If you only have a few
doors to do, then I'd say go through the task of taping every thing off.

I sprayed my doors with water based poly AFTER everything was put
together.

Paul

[scorrpio]

Do you plan to sand the stained before applying shellac? Likely so.

Her's the idea then:
1. Dry fit and trim/sand as needed
2. Dye
3. Stain
4. Finish the panels
5. Assemble
6. Sand the frames
7. Apply shellac to frames.

This way, the top coat finish on frames is not interrupted at the joints, and you'll get no dye on cherry.

[SwingKing]

Paul, thanks for the response. I actually found your original article when doing a search for a different project on spraying poly with an HVLP system. What you ended up doing is similar to what JimD suggested and I think would be easier to get the joints aligned and cleaned up properly. I still haven't gotten out to the shop to try JimD's idea yet (gotta love this Texas heat ), but I hope to do that this weekend.

scorrpio, I think I'm confused on what you're suggesting. You're suggesting sanding the frames after dye/stain but BEFORE the initial finish coats? I would think that would cut through the stain and cause a problem. I am planning on putting 1-2 coats of shellac on the cherry panels before assembly and then apply 3-4 more top coats once the doors were assembled. This should give me full coverage of the doors and account for and expansion/contraction of the frames.

-- Ken

[scorrpio]

No, what I mean is that you first do dry assembly, and sand/trim as needed.

Then, disassemble and apply dye/stain to frames.

Then, do the glue-up.

Then, you do some light sanding to remove glue leftovers, get rid of the grain raised by stain, etc.

Finally, apply shellac.

[SwingKing]

Results and new questions

I thought I'd follow up on what I ended up doing to finish the doors and show the results. I'm also going to hijack my own thread and ask a couple more questions.

Thanks to the responses here, I figured out a method that worked for me. I started by prefinishing the panels with an initial coat of shellac. I then sanded and dyed the inside edge of the frame. This solved the problem of having the dye bleed onto the panels. Once this was done, I assembled the doors, sanded down the joints, and then finished the rest of the frames. I'm glad I did it this way, because I definitely had to clean up some of the joints.

Here's what they look like with one (brushed on) coat of shellac.


Now on to my new questions. Question 1: I want to spray additional shellac coats of shellac, but I'm not sure the best way to support the doors in the spray booth. For the cabinet shelves, I used screw-in hooks to suspend them which worked well but I obviously don't want holes in the doors. I'm curious how others handle this type of problem?

2nd question: the finish on one of the doors didn't turn out right. Here's what it looks like:

Any ideas what might have caused this? It is mottled like this on both the top stile and right rail, on both sides. I'm assuming I'll have to sand the door down and refinish it, but I don't want to have the same problem occur again. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

-- Ken

[JimD]

Ken,

I also finish the inside edge of the frame often when finishing the panels, should have thought to mention that. I find it easier to do and only takes a few minutes. I kind of eyeball where the stile will hit the rail or put a little pencil mark where it will be inside the joint so I avoid putting much finish where the parts will be joined.

On a door, I would probably wait for it to dry before applying the coat to the backside. It's nice to have the part on a turntable (lazy susan) so you don't have to walk around it. You can spray and then move to another surface to dry while you do the next door. With shellac, you could probably spray a half dozen doors and the first one would be ready to coat on the back by that time. I've seen hints where people support the door on drywall screws or something so they can rapidely spray both sides but I don't like the idea of the admittedly tiny flaws in the finish.

Not sure why it mottled. Could be something on the surface. I've had it happen before and I just sanded to bare wood and tried again. It has worked for me.

Jim