A question for the painters. I am laquering some stain grade doors and have always used what the local big box store has, but today I went to the local paint store and they had three different “lines” of clear laquer. The salesman refered to them as his low, medium and high end laquers. I ended up buying the mid-range at $20 a gal He reffered to his high end one as pre-catalyzed laquer. He said that it was inteded for spraying only. I asked what the difference was and he didn’t give me a good answer. SOoo, I will ask the BT community, what is pre-catalazied (sorry for the spelling, no spell check) laquer?
thanks.
Replies
Pre cat is simply a catalyzing version of lacquer where the reactive agent is already in the can. Theres a handful of variations, but what they arent is lacquer where you have to measure out the lacquer and the acid catalyst on the job.
So the two primary variants . . . one is precat where you pick it up off the shelf, the catalyst is in it already, and the lacquer will keep for years, only reacting when the solvent holding the catalyst in syspension flashes off.
The second, probably higher quality, lacquer designed to be sold as pre cat that, at the point of purchase, is mixed with the catalyst, sealed, and dated. It performs basically the same and for the same reason . . . but keeps for 4-6 months, then its shot.
What makes it different from nitrocellulose lacquer is the way it cures. Nitro cures via evaporation, and pre cat cures via chemical reaction (ergo, catalyzation). Pre cat is going to be a harder finish and typically more resistant to the bulk of household abuses.
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Ultima Spray Lacquer. Water based, no odor, easy clean up. Tuff as nails. You can sand in a hour and recoat right after that. If you're using stain grade material, they also offer a sanding sealer that provides the depth you would get from a poly or shellac.
I did my cabs in my shop, kitchen, and laundry room with it and love it! Used an HVLP.
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