I decided to go with water based materials at the same time as deciding to do spraying and buying a book on finishing. Now that I’ve read the book I understand that water based is harder to use than other bases, but why not start with the complicated route and try to conquer it? Certainly for the stain it was not easy to get the pigment sufficiently dissolved without adding water and thinning the stain past where it was ideal for spraying…it made me want to get a magnetic stirrer like in high school chemistry and photography class. I’d have done better to spray the stain much thinner, even at the cost of many more coats and 2 hours lag between each. In the end I globbed it on, not caring because it was going to be out of sight. The pre-catalyzed urethanes on the other hand were very easy to work with in a water base. I probably could have sprayed them on thicker even and they dried easily in 45 minutes. The biggest plus I thought was straight forward clean-up and very little fumes. There was essentially zero odor/fumes with the stain. The urethanes were a bit fumey so I wore a respirator, but by that point I was reasonably practiced at getting the minimal amount of spray to do the job compared to the stain. On the first coat I probably sprayed as much stain on the drop cloth as the wood.

I think I could attempt staining the TV stand now without being too worried.

I’m learning how to use an HVLP sprayer at the moment. I’m not completely happy with the results, but have two coats each top and bottom on most of the pieces and in a few minutes will put what should be the final touches on the staining. Tomorrow I’ll be working on the clear coat. I really don’t like finish work, mostly because I’m not good at it due to lack of practice and I’m worried that I’m going to destroy something I put a lot of wood working work into. I’m hoping with practice the sprayer will make for better quality results and less stress.

I’ve used paint grade poplar and am staining it an antique cherry color. This is the same wood I used for the TV stand and is a candidate stain for that also. By starting on something that will ultimately be closed away out of sight in a cabinet, I might get confident enough to then stain the TV stand. And if that doesn’t work out well: I can always just paint it white…that’ll go with the room too.

In the meantime: staining is time consuming work even with the sprayer and my tiny garage shop can’t handle more than one project at a time so I need to get this finished (pun intended)…

I’ve never actually used a jointer previously and having access to multiple (including a 12″ one with a long table) is great. And I’ve never used a quality table saw. The nice one at TechShop really points out the cheapness of the Sears one I started with. But now I’ve got access to a great woodshop for projects!

And I’ve started the cabinet by tucking the cat5 behind the drywall and putting in the 2×4 frame for the base.