# Jmayspaint - master finishing medium ?



## Steve302 (Mar 26, 2017)

Wondering if you would be willing to talk a little more about your experience with this Faux Masters product.

I read your posts from 2014 and curious if you still use the product and how it has held up in cabinet painting jobs.

I have a kitchen lined up where the home owner wants their oak cabinets and thinking of giving your method a go. They are ok with not completely eliminating the grain but would like to see it reduced as much as possible. I have only done one other set of oak cabinets and even with three coats of bin and sanding the grain was still very dramatic, though pok marks were eliminated 

Also interested in anyone else's experience with this or similar products

Thanks! Steve


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## Jmayspaint (Mar 26, 2013)

Sure. Yes I still use the product when we paint oak or hickory cabinets. 

As far long term durability, I have no reason to think it doesn't hold up well. The product has very good adhesion, and dries quite hard. 
If you read through the (quite limited) tech sheet for the product, it is rated to be applied directly to previously finished furniture and other wood items. I've tested spraying it directly cabinet doors with no primer, and it adhered as well as anything. Though other than some small scale tests, I usually do use a primer under it. 

I spray it unthinned straight out of the can with a .13 to .15 tip. Two to three coats, depending on the severity of the grain, on the fronts of the doors does a good job of minimizing. It dries quickly in good conditions, so it's no problem to get three coats on in a day. Less if you force dry. 

One thing I would caution about is that it seems to have a tendency to pull stains through a primer coat. A few times I've primed with Bin and the doors will look fine until I spray the medium. When the medium goes on, it sometimes causes stains to appear. I'm not sure that phenomenon is unique to this product, as we often see threads on here about Bin failing to totally block stains on oak cabinets even when using regular paint. There was a recent one in fact. That's why I entertained the notion of using the medium before priming. Let it go ahead and pull the stains, then prime over it. Ultimately, I've been too chicken to try that on a large scale even though all testing indicates it would work fine. On one set, I had to re prime the whole set with oil to solve the problem, but for the most part it's been minor and fixable by spot priming with a spray can. 

I usually spray the doors with them laying flat, and roll or brush the medium on the frames. The amount of sanding necessary is of course dependent on how smoothly it's applied, but in general it sands well. Powders up nicely. 


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## Delta Painting (Apr 27, 2010)

I don't understand why painters never use grain filler on oak and other open grained wood any more trying to fill the grain with primer or 3-4 coats of finish.. You have to sand them anyway so I apply grain filler then sand shoot my prime coat, two finish done.


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## Steve302 (Mar 26, 2017)

Jmayspaint said:


> Sure. Yes I still use the product when we paint oak or hickory cabinets.
> 
> As far long term durability, I have no reason to think it doesn't hold up well. The product has very good adhesion, and dries quite hard.
> If you read through the (quite limited) tech sheet for the product, it is rated to be applied directly to previously finished furniture and other wood items. I've tested spraying it directly cabinet doors with no primer, and it adhered as well as anything. Though other than some small scale tests, I usually do use a primer under it.
> ...


Thanks for the quick reply. Have you tried spraying vertically on hangers? Curious as to how much it effected the filling effect


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## Steve302 (Mar 26, 2017)

Delta Painting said:


> I don't understand why painters never use grain filler on oak and other open grained wood any more trying to fill the grain with primer or 3-4 coats of finish.. You have to sand them anyway so I apply grain filler then sand shoot my prime coat, two finish done.


What grain filler do you use? It's been my experience that it takes 2 or 3 applications of grain filler to completely eliminate oak grain. Plus working it in and around the curves on raise panel cabinet doors is tedious and time consuming. The entire process on 40 + doors is just not feasible in this application.


With that said, I have been toying with the idea to hit the front sides of the doors with a single application of Sherwood grain filler. You can apply with a rag and buff. Thinking it would work well with the faux masters product


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## HollisPainting (Oct 15, 2013)

Just a a cautionary note. If you use the Kem-aqua surfacer over a water-based grain filler it will pull it all right back out


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## PACman (Oct 24, 2014)

HollisPainting said:


> Just a a cautionary note. If you use the Kem-aqua surfacer over a water-based grain filler it will pull it all right back out


yup. Your SW rep should have warned you about that.


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## futtyos (Aug 11, 2013)

*Filling oak grain with Durabond*

Has anyone here ever used Durabond to fill oak grain? It sticks like glue to most surfaces. Anyone who has ever tried to scrape up a dried glob of Durabond from the floor has probably noticed how much harder it is to get up than Easy Sand would be. And remember, Durabond is mostly plaster of paris, so it dries very hard.

I have used Durabond to fill in heavy orange peel on doors. I sand the doors with an orbital sander first to cut down the hi peaked areas, then skim a thin coat of Durabond, let dry, gently knock nubs off with a spackle knife, then 2nd coat with another layer of Durabond and let dry before sanding. If the layers of Durabond are applied at the right thickness, sanding is easy. If too thick, sanding is hard, if too thin, another skim coat might need to be applied. One generally gets a feel for how much Durabond to apply after doing a few panels.

For finishing these doors I applied 2 even coats of Gardz, then 2 top coats of paint. They came out very nicely. I am not sure if I would use Gardz if they were cabinets, maybe BIN instead. I definitely would not use a water based primer over this thin of an application of Durabond as my experience with priming a skim coat of Durabond with 123 ended up with the skim coat of Durabond melting into the primer! For some reason, Gardz (which is a sealer and very thin to boot) does not do this to the Durabond or Easy Sand.

futtyos


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

futtyos said:


> Has anyone here ever used Durabond to fill oak grain? It sticks like glue to most surfaces. Anyone who has ever tried to scrape up a dried glob of Durabond from the floor has probably noticed how much harder it is to get up than Easy Sand would be. And remember, Durabond is mostly plaster of paris, so it dries very hard.
> 
> I have used Durabond to fill in heavy orange peel on doors. I sand the doors with an orbital sander first to cut down the hi peaked areas, then skim a thin coat of Durabond, let dry, gently knock nubs off with a spackle knife, then 2nd coat with another layer of Durabond and let dry before sanding. If the layers of Durabond are applied at the right thickness, sanding is easy. If too thick, sanding is hard, if too thin, another skim coat might need to be applied. One generally gets a feel for how much Durabond to apply after doing a few panels.
> 
> ...


Sounds like a lengthy and expensive process. Perhaps another situation where some new doors might have been a viable alternative to the complete redo you performed.


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## futtyos (Aug 11, 2013)

*Condo rehab*



RH said:


> Sounds like a lengthy and expensive process. Perhaps another situation where some new doors might have been a viable alternative to the complete redo you performed.


These doors were in a hi rise condo built in the early 1960s. New doors and hinges (jambs were metal) would have been far more expensive than what I did. 

My point about using Durabond for filling oak grain has to do with it being any slower/faster - better/worse than a product used specifically for filling grain prior to painting. I have never filled oak grain with either Durabond or a grain filler, so I can't compare one with the other. I am curious if anyone here has this experience that they can speak of.

futtyos


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## Tprice2193 (Oct 3, 2017)

I use timbermate waterbased fiiler. Thin it with water till nice and smooth and trowelable. Work across grain like grout. Scrape off excess. On end grain and routed edges I just use my fingers to press unthinned filler into the grain. Strongest water based I have found and rivals solvent based for strength. Sands and powders nicely. Can use it to repair holes, dings, and significant damage. Works well on all grades of MDF. Its primary use is for oak hardwood floors. I have found it to be a good all-purpose filler/putty. On cabinets I only do fronts, routed areas, and end grain. I prime with BIN. Have not tried Kem Aqua surfacer so I dont know if it will pull it up on not. I have mentioned Timbermate on here several times but have not heard of anyone else using it. I am extremely happy with this product. One good coat of Timbermate, sand, one thick coat of BIN, sand, two thin coats water based lacquer, wet sand 400, float on final coat horizontal. Smooth as a baby's bottom. If you see grain then you just missed filling it properly. For myself I fill most of the time...for customers its an upcharge.


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## futtyos (Aug 11, 2013)

*TimberMate USA*



Tprice2193 said:


> I use timbermate waterbased fiiler. Thin it with water till nice and smooth and trowelable. Work across grain like grout. Scrape off excess. On end grain and routed edges I just use my fingers to press unthinned filler into the grain. Strongest water based I have found and rivals solvent based for strength. Sands and powders nicely. Can use it to repair holes, dings, and significant damage. Works well on all grades of MDF. Its primary use is for oak hardwood floors. I have found it to be a good all-purpose filler/putty. On cabinets I only do fronts, routed areas, and end grain. I prime with BIN. Have not tried Kem Aqua surfacer so I dont know if it will pull it up on not. I have mentioned Timbermate on here several times but have not heard of anyone else using it. I am extremely happy with this product. One good coat of Timbermate, sand, one thick coat of BIN, sand, two thin coats water based lacquer, wet sand 400, float on final coat horizontal. Smooth as a baby's bottom. If you see grain then you just missed filling it properly. For myself I fill most of the time...for customers its an upcharge.


Tprice, perhaps TimberMate is not popular at Paint Talk because it is an Australian product. I just found a US distributor and have emailed them to find out where to buy in my area:

http://www.findanyfloor.com/FlooringManufacturers/Timbermate.xhtml

Thanks for the heads up.

futtyos


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## PNW Painter (Sep 5, 2013)

Timbermate is my go to filler for nail holes and minor dings in trim packs. It’s not very common in the US, but I buy it at Woodcraft or through Amazon. 

If you search YouTube, I believe there are some videos that show how you how to thin so it can be used as a grain filler.

No matter what you end up doing it’ll be a lot of work and will require a lot of sanding.




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## Tprice2193 (Oct 3, 2017)

Yea I bought it to grain fill some oak flooring and had a couple of the large pails left. I guess they are almost a gallon each. They were clumpy so I added distilled water and put my mud mixer to work. Whipped em up nice and smooth and troweled it on cheap honey oak cabinets as my first job using Timbermate. Sanded very good. Next set I do I will take some pics. It makes getting the smooth finish doable but not easy. The product I have is at least 10 yr old. I keep one thin for grain filling and the other for use as a putty. It smells like a bandaid bandage. I think that it is some type of phenolic preservative to keep it from growing bacteria and mold like dry wall compound does.


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