# Discoloring on cabinets



## AustinPNW (Nov 7, 2021)

Hi,

I have never seen this and nobody I have talked to has any idea what is happening. I painted some old cabinets with one coat Miller primer and three coats PPG breakthrough. It looks like there is pigment from the wood leaching into the paint but I have no idea what’s happening. I used a 440i titan with the LP FF 210 graco tip. I let the primer dry 24hrs and four hours between each pint coat


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## cocomonkeynuts (Apr 14, 2017)

AustinPNW said:


> Hi,
> 
> I have never seen this and *nobody I have talked to has any idea what is happening*. I painted some old cabinets with one coat Miller primer and three coats PPG breakthrough. It looks like there is pigment from the wood leaching into the paint but I have no idea what’s happening. I used a 440i titan with the LP FF 210 graco tip. I let the primer dry 24hrs and four hours between each pint coat


Who did you ask? Cousin ed?


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## AustinPNW (Nov 7, 2021)

cocomonkeynuts said:


> Who did you ask? Cousin ed?


I am getting paid to pint these cabinets and I don’t know how to fix this. No matter how many coats I put on it nothing changes.


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

What kind of Miller primer? I don't think they carry an oil based primer under their name any longer so if you used a water based one, that is most likely your issue. Sand it lightly and then clean well with a degreasing product like Krud Kutter, let it dry thoroughly, and then to be extra safe, put down a coat of a shellac based primer (a true shellac - not one of the man made copies) and then top coat with the Breakthrough and you should be golden.
And for what it's worth, that almost looks more like cooking grease bleed through (or some other food/cooking type of contamination) rather than tannin bleed. That's why I mentioned using a degreasing product - just in case.


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## fromthenorthwest (May 2, 2012)

Austin if you can't use shellac get yourself some Zinser Smart prime. It's been a great stain blocking primer for me.


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

fromthenorthwest said:


> Austin if you can't use shellac get yourself some Zinser Smart prime. It's been a great stain blocking primer for me.


I used a lot of Smart Prime back when it first came out (not positive but I want to say it wasn't a Zinser product back then) and I really liked it - especially since it had an eggshell-like sheen when dry which made it much more compatible to eggshell top coats than primers that dried flat. Eventually I started using it on wood work and never had an issue - until I did. I had all sorts of bleed through occurring on some dark stained utility room cabinets that had to be completely reprimed and retop coated. Needless to say, that cured me of ever using it on cabinets again. 
Now, with that said, perhaps it has been reformulated since then and is much more suited to use on cabinets these days. I'm just sharing my experience with it from quite a long time ago.


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## AustinPNW (Nov 7, 2021)

I used Miller enamel undercoat primer.


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## cocomonkeynuts (Apr 14, 2017)

AustinPNW said:


> I used Miller enamel undercoat primer.


There's your problem. Use a good oil primer or BIN shellac.


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## jennifertemple (Oct 30, 2011)

Are you an experienced professional painter? That finish has more problems than discoloration, from what I can see.


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## cocomonkeynuts (Apr 14, 2017)

RH said:


> I used a lot of Smart Prime back when it first came out (not positive but I want to say it wasn't a Zinser product back then) and I really liked it - especially since it had an eggshell-like sheen when dry which made it much more compatible to eggshell top coats than primers that dried flat. Eventually I started using it on wood work and never had an issue - until I did. I had all sorts of bleed through occurring on some dark stained utility room cabinets that had to be completely reprimed and retop coated. Needless to say, that cured me of ever using it on cabinets again.
> Now, with that said, perhaps it has been reformulated since then and is much more suited to use on cabinets these days. I'm just sharing my experience with it from quite a long time ago.


Kitchens in particular a solvent primer is more predictable on open grain woods.


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

cocomonkeynuts said:


> There's your problem. Use a good oil primer or BIN shellac.


Yep, Even Miller's TDS says this is more for adhesion, not stain blocking. They make one they _say_ is for stain blocking, but again, it's an acrylic which I feel is pretty much worthless for bleed through issues.
Do what CMN says ^^^.


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

cocomonkeynuts said:


> Kitchens in particular a solvent primer is more predictable on open grain woods.


Yep, definitely for kitchens, as well as bathrooms (especially any used by teens - and especially girls - man they get some weird stuff on the walls and wood work in their bathrooms), and most utility rooms (detergent residues). Doesn't leave much left does it? In other words, just avoid the potential headaches in using an acrylic and do it right the first time, no matter where the cabinets are located.


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## AustinPNW (Nov 7, 2021)

jennifertemple said:


> Are you an experienced professional painter? That finish has more problems than discoloration, from what I can see.


Yeah but this my first cabinet job. All my experience has been exterior, interior, and new construction. I’ve worked with fresh wood a lot but never painted twenty year olds cabinets from a kitchen.


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## finishesbykevyn (Apr 14, 2010)

BIN for the win. This is why I still don't trust latex primers.


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## AustinPNW (Nov 7, 2021)

finishesbykevyn said:


> BIN for the win. This is why I still don't trust latex primers.


That’s seems to be the consensus. I’m going to go get some and hope it works.


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## jennifertemple (Oct 30, 2011)

AustinPNW said:


> That’s seems to be the consensus. I’m going to go get some and hope it works.


Before you BIN it, give a good deep sanding, I'd go 220 on those. Looking at your pic, that coating looks to dense to my eyes and not very smooth. Adding more coatings on what's already there will make matters worse. You need to sand it down to a degree you will be happy with when new coatings are applied. Don't over spray, lightly sand between coats and if it needs a second coat of the finish paint, so be it. It can be a mistake to try and finish with one coat. Always sand in the direction of the grain with sanding blocks where possible. If this was TMI, I apologize, but better to much than not enough! I approach cabinets in the same way I approach furniture. If sanding by hand, grips like the ones pictured can be very helpful! ($7.95 at Lee Valley, here in Canada)


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## cocomonkeynuts (Apr 14, 2017)

jennifertemple said:


> Before you BIN it, give a good deep sanding, I'd go 220 on those. Looking at your pic, that coating looks to dense to my eyes and not very smooth. Adding more coatings on what's already there will make matters worse. You need to sand it down to a degree you will be happy with when new coatings are applied. Don't over spray, lightly sand between coats and if it needs a second coat of the finish paint, so be it. It can be a mistake to try and finish with one coat. Always sand in the direction of the grain with sanding blocks where possible. If this was TMI, I apologize, but better to much than not enough! I approach cabinets in the same way I approach furniture. If sanding by hand, grips like the ones pictured can be very helpful! ($7.95 at Lee Valley, here in Canada)


We go for 150 on almost everything. 220 after primer.

Those grips are too cool. Thanks.


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

Austin PNW - how did you bid this job? Is there a fixed bid or did you agree to do it time and materials? Only asking because there are a few more things you might want to consider but the time involved quickly adds up and you may very soon be working for nothing on a job like this. But, it’s part of the learning curve that has derailed many of us at one time or another.


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## AustinPNW (Nov 7, 2021)

RH said:


> Austin PNW - how did you bid this job? Is there a fixed bid or did you agree to do it time and materials? Only asking because there are a few more things you might want to consider but the time involved quickly adds up and you may very soon be working for nothing on a job like this. But, it’s part of the learning curve that has derailed many of us at one time or another.


I was sub contracted out for the job. I told the contractor it would be my first cabinet job but if he was willing to take the risk I would love the learning experience. Turns out I really like it. I enjoyed the sanding and the attention to detail, maybe I’ll get sick of it but it sure does beat painting ceilings haha. I think I would like to perfect it and get a good system down.

The job a quick and cheap one so the owner and can sell her condo ASAP. It was bid at $2500 and doesn’t care about grain filling. I’m only making about $1400 off the job. I have two commercial jobs currently in the mix as well and kind of under estimated how much work this was going to be.


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## fromthenorthwest (May 2, 2012)

RH said:


> I used a lot of Smart Prime back when it first came out (not positive but I want to say it wasn't a Zinser product back then) and I really liked it - especially since it had an eggshell-like sheen when dry which made it much more compatible to eggshell top coats than primers that dried flat. Eventually I started using it on wood work and never had an issue - until I did. I had all sorts of bleed through occurring on some dark stained utility room cabinets that had to be completely reprimed and retop coated. Needless to say, that cured me of ever using it on cabinets again.
> Now, with that said, perhaps it has been reformulated since then and is much more suited to use on cabinets these days. I'm just sharing my experience with it from quite a long time ago.


Appreciate the insight, always helpful to hear other's experience. I started using it because I spray the boxes, and I also spray the doors in homeowners garage (I don't have a shop). I get a little nervous spraying solvent-based products in a customer's home, so having a water-based option is great. I've had a couple experiences where the original primer used did not block tannins, and smart prime did. Having said that I'm sure it's doesn't have the same same blocking ability or adhesion as something like coverstain or bin.


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## jennifertemple (Oct 30, 2011)

cocomonkeynuts said:


> We go for 150 on almost everything. 220 after primer.
> 
> Those grips are too cool. Thanks.


150 is good before primer! I was mainly thinking about the finish coats. With furniture to remove bumps, scrapes and old paint I often start at 80 and work my way up through the grits. I am also a fan of wet sanding at 4-600 before laying the final coat. 220 seemed a safe enough, general purpose grit. 

Yup, those grips are great, I'm on my third set because I often lose some of them. For detailed work, I've never found anything to beat them.


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

fromthenorthwest said:


> Appreciate the insight, always helpful to hear other's experience. I started using it because I spray the boxes, and I also spray the doors in homeowners garage (I don't have a shop). I get a little nervous spraying solvent-based products in a customer's home, so having a water-based option is great. I've had a couple experiences where the original primer used did not block tannins, and smart prime did. Having said that I'm sure it's doesn't have the same same blocking ability or adhesion as something like coverstain or bin.


Yeah, I liked it for a ton of applications and I used it a fair number of times on cabinets up until that one incident. But having to reprime and recoat an entire set of them because of bleed through issues was enough to make me hesitant to ever use again for that purpose. To be fair, the cabinets in question had a really dark stain on them and were in pretty poor shape, but still, playing Russian roulette when trying to decide exactly when and where the right type of primer was best for different cabinets just became a PITA in my book.
As for customers being inconvenienced by my using more “intense” products, it was just part of a conversation we had early in the bid process so if I found out they were strongly opposed to them I didn’t further waste their time - and vice versa.


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## HJ61 (Nov 14, 2011)

Looks like they were oak cabinets. The open grain seems to almost repel paint around the grain. That's why filling it, even just brushing watered down drywall mud on, can be so effective. Best to prime 2 coats stain killing, solvent based primer, then finish with 2 coats of whatever. Make sure to sand and remove dust between each coat. From this point you only need to prime 1 coat before finish coats. Best way to learn is to try! You can learn more from a coating failure than if it always works out.


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## fromthenorthwest (May 2, 2012)

AustinPNW said:


> I was sub contracted out for the job. I told the contractor it would be my first cabinet job but if he was willing to take the risk I would love the learning experience. Turns out I really like it. I enjoyed the sanding and the attention to detail, maybe I’ll get sick of it but it sure does beat painting ceilings haha. I think I would like to perfect it and get a good system down.
> 
> The job a quick and cheap one so the owner and can sell her condo ASAP. It was bid at $2500 and doesn’t care about grain filling. I’m only making about $1400 off the job. I have two commercial jobs currently in the mix as well and kind of under estimated how much work this was going to be.


Sounds like a great scenario for your first set. They can be a bit frustrating at first but if you enjoy them stick with it. They're a great way to keep busy in the winter time and make a little more money than normal brush and roll jobs.


RH said:


> Yeah, I liked it for a ton of applications and I used it a fair number of times on cabinets up until that one incident. But having to reprime and recoat an entire set of them because of bleed through issues was enough to make me hesitant to ever use again for that purpose. To be fair, the cabinets in question had a really dark stain on them, and in pretty poor shape, but still, playing Russian roulette when trying to decide exactly when and where the right type of primer was best to use just became a PITA in my book.
> As for customers being inconvenienced by my using more “intense” products, it was just part of a conversation we had early in the bid process so if they were strongly opposed I didn’t further waste their time - and vice versa.


Don't blame you on that one. I know whenever I have a bad experience with a product it's usually not easy to forget!


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## Rey Painting Service (Aug 14, 2018)

AustinPNW said:


> Hi,
> 
> I have never seen this and nobody I have talked to has any idea what is happening. I painted some old cabinets with one coat Miller primer and three coats PPG breakthrough. It looks like there is pigment from the wood leaching into the paint but I have no idea what’s happening. I used a 440i titan with the LP FF 210 graco tip. I let the primer dry 24hrs and four hours between each pint coat
> View attachment 112939


You need to prime with Bin. Not the synthetic one the normal one and no more problem. Good luck!


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## Respec (Sep 13, 2015)

AustinPNW said:


> Hi,
> 
> I have never seen this and nobody I have talked to has any idea what is happening. I painted some old cabinets with one coat Miller primer and three coats PPG breakthrough. It looks like there is pigment from the wood leaching into the paint but I have no idea what’s happening. I used a 440i titan with the LP FF 210 graco tip. I let the primer dry 24hrs and four hours between each pint coat
> View attachment 112939


A better system would be 2 prime 2 finish instead of 1 prime, 3 finish. I am not familiar with miller products, but acrylics generally need 24 hours between coats for stain killing, and that is only if they claim to have stain killing ability. The first coat should lock in the stain after 24 hours, followed by a 2nd prime. With that being said, they still have marginal results depending on the product. Finish coats will not block stains. Oak cabinets look like that all the time after the first prime. Even oil primers will show some bleeding after the first coat, which is what we use for oak. The second prime coat prevents any residual bleeding. We then follow that with 2 finish coats. When we are painting cabinets, we use PPG Breakthrough as well. We tried the new V52 and I like it better than the V50. The V51 is not suitable for cabinets.


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## Packard (May 2, 2018)

As a cabinet maker my reaction to the photo was, "This is a very cheap version of a builders' grade cabinet". The giveaway is the fact that the interior corners of the rails and stiles (the outer frame) is radiused. That means that the profile was applied after assembly, probably by using CNC milling machines. 

Is this door made from wood? Or from MDF? Did it have or did it once have a foil finish? 

I would not think anyone would invest in painting these types of cabinets. The cabinet boxes are generally of the lowest quality, typically vinyl-clad 5/8" thick particle board is used for that.

In any event, do you have a clear knowledge of what the substrate is? 

Foil finish is defined on Google: 

_Finish foils are *paper layers with a lacquer-coated surface that are colored or printed on*. Mainly used for coating wood-based panels and usually supplied in reels as decor finish foil, they are made with light-resistant printing inks and high-grade lacquers, resins and base paper _


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