GF water based Enduro Pre-Cat Urethane for cabinets?

[johnvelazquez]

Has anyone sprayed general finishes enduro pr-cat urethane fo kitchen cabinets? how was the finish and difficulty to spray?

 

[John Langevin]

I haven't used that particular product but I have sprayed numerous gallons of M.L. Campbell pre-cat lacquers and aside from the noxious odor found them to be very easy to work with. I have started spraying with water-based (UNAXOL) and it is obviously more nose friendly and gives a good finish. What I liked most about the pre-cat was that you spray on a "wet" coat which makes it easy to see what you are doing and the fact that I never had to sand in between coats. Another bonus on paying jobs is that you could re-coat about every 15 minutes making it easy to build a finish.

 

[j]

I've used the Enduro pre-cat for a large executive desk/credenza made from amber plyboo.  It was pretty easy to work with it finished well.  I saw the desk a few weeks ago at the client's house and it was holding up great (6 months use), although the desktop has picked up a few minor scratches.  But I think this is unavoidable.  I think that it would hold up great on cabinets; be aware that it does have a bit of an amber color to it.  My only gripe with it is I thought that the build on it was slow - I had to put on 4 or 5 coats to be satisfied with the "feel".  I've heard that using the sanding sealer first will help with this.  My rep said that the pre cat was the harderst, but I've used the enduro clear poly on my own baltic birch dining table, and it's holding up just as well as the pre-cat and had better build, so you might want to consider that for your cabinets.  In the future, I'll probably personally go with the clear poly.

 

[downtheroad]

We've used the Enduro product line in our finishing shop for years. When Enduro was still made by Compliant Spray Systems in San Clemente, Ca., we would get custom colors made for us. They were acquired by General Finishes a few years ago and Enduro became their industrial line of waterborne finishes. The "pre-cat" was then added to the Enduro line.

We've used the "poly" for many years and love the way it looks. When we needed more durability, we added their crosslinker catalyst to the "poly" to toughen up the coating.

Since the GF change, we decided to start testing the "pre-cat" several months ago. We refinished a dining table for a client last year using the "pre-cat". The table is used by the family every day and gets quite a bit of "abuse" from their children. About a month ago, the clients called to have us touchup several pieces of furniture in the home. This gave us a chance to see how the table's finish was holding up. The dining table had some damage from some extremely hot microwaved dishes. There were melted ring marks in the finish, but no hazy blushing at all. The table looked great except for the heat damage and the clients are very happy with the finish durability. (Note -It was refinished with lacquer by another shop several years ago and it didn't hold up well for them) We ended up repairing the damage on the table and re-coating it.

Our conclusion so far:

Pros -the "pre-cat" does have good durability and it sprays well

Cons -it doesn't look as nice as the "poly" when polished, especially when its on top of something that's dark. For kitchen cabs, this generally hasn't been an issue. But, for a high polished piece of dark furniture, we would probably use the "poly".

 

[johnvelazquez]

I sprayed this product today with great results! I am also spraying with a brand new unit which is a challenge as far as set up goes. I sprayed Apple Ply with a linseed oil stain with a Graco HVLP V-COMP.