How to paint MDF to a mirror finish worklog - shoryuken.pdf

9/30/2014 How to paint MDF to a mirror finish worklog - shoryuken

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HOW TO PAINT MDF TO A MIRROR FINISH WORKLOG

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Hi guys. I've decided to make a proper extensive tutorial on how to paint MDF to get that perfect mirror finish since my original

worklog thread got so much interest and questions about how to paint. This will be a very complete guide and I hope to help all

of you out there who struggle to get a great paintjob with spray paint and MDF.

It will be done as a worklog and I'll post more as I go. Today was just the first day of work. I'm just painting a small piece of MDF.

I'm doing it this way for a couple reasons. First, some people just starting to paint can simply follow along with me as I go, and

second it takes a long time to work, take pictures, edit and upload pictures, and finally post the information here so I'd much

rather do it in parts.

So without further delay let's begin.

This is a picture of my case that I built and have a worklog for on this forum. This is what it will look like at the end.

The piece of MDF that I'm going to paint. It's just a scrap piece I had lying around. It's going to be the best looking useless piece

of wood ever!

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This is after sanding with 220 grit paper and a sanding block. Always use a sanding block. The goal in sanding is to make the

surface flat, your hand is not flat and won't work nearly as well. Be sure to sand it pretty well especially around every edge.

Edges are your enemy when going for a mirror finish. Sand those things down.

My homemade sanding block. For this project a 3M brand type block would have been fine, but for arcade sticks I recommend

making one like this. Just cut a piece of spare wood to a good size. The reason I recommend this is because a store bought

sanding block is too big. It will hit the edges of the case you're working on and will therefore cut through to the wood/lower coats

of paint. With this little block you can sand in the middle of the wood pieces of your case without hitting the edges until you want

to. The paper in this picture is 600 grit.



This is what I used to put on the edges of the MDF. You have to use something to seal the edges or they will just continue to

soak up paint like a sponge and will just be a general PITA.

After application of the spackling. Just spread it on with your finger. I used a plastic bag to that I didn't get it on my skin. You

don't need it any thicker than this, and even this is a little too thick. Just a very thin layer that covers the whole thing is all that

you need. Other acceptable techniques to seal edges are to use wood sizing (a mixture of glue and water), wood filler, or bondo.

There are many things to use I just picked spackling randomly so it may not be the best solution.



This is after waiting a couple hours for the spackling to dry and then sanding with the 600 grit shown above. 600 doesn't need to

be used. I would recommend 400 instead but I didn't have any lying around so I used 600. 600 works just fine too but you will

have to use more of it and it's a waste to do that. The little spots that you see where the spackling was sanded off is fine. You

want that as little as possible but a few spots won't matter as long as you don't feel any grain in them and they feel very flat and

smooth.

I sprayed a few strokes onto a box to show you the proper painting technique. Imagine the work surface is in the middle of those



strokes. So you start off of the wood and then make a pass and don't let off the flow until you are off again. Be sure to let off

though. Don't keep the paint going for multiple passes. Keep about 10 inches or so away from the surface you're painting and

put on very thin coats like you see below. They should be so thin that after just one coat you can still see through to the wood.

Every coat should be this thin.

This is after about 10 of the thin coats. I do 2 coats at a time, then wait a few minutes for them to dry a little, then repeat until it's

a fairly uniform coat. The right side shows you what happens when you don't seal the edges. I left it like that on purpose to show

you all the need to seal the edges. These 10 coats comprise the first actual coat of primer if that makes sense. I used a high

solids filler primer, and I suggest you all do too. Filler primer fills in the pores that exist in MDF. Even the non cut part of MDF is

very porous and needs a high solids primer. I had to use more coats on the top of this piece than the sides that were sealed with

the spackling. Don't worry about the dust nibs that will always be attracted to the case. Leave them as they will be sanded out

later.



That's it for today fellas. More to come soon.

Day 2 Update below.

Ok this is after sanding the primer with 400 grit. I do this part dry because if you cut through to the MDF and get it wet it's big

problems. Trust me you don't want that happening. I then put on a second coat of primer and sanded with 400 again. I still cut

through a tiny bit on a corner but it shouldn't be a problem hopefully. You won't be able to sand completely flat dry sanding as

you can see from the slight texture. You need wet sanding for that, but there's really no choice when working with the first coats

of primer. All of the color/clear coats will be wet sanded. For reference I used about a whole sheet of sandpaper to do just that

top part and the long side.

This is after the first coat of color. Which is actually about 6 thin coats. I did 3 coats, waited 5 minutes to dry slightly, then 3 more

coats. Now you can really see the negative effects of MDF cut edges that aren't sealed. The paint I used is Valspar Hi-Gloss

Lacquer. Any high gloss spray paint should work. You get what you pay for though so don't skimp on paint.



That's it for today everyone. Now I have to wait 3 days to sand the color coat so don't expect any updates earlier than that.

Day 4 Update Below

OK guys. Now we get to the heart of the matter. Wetsanding. This is what gives you that mirror finish. It's all in the sanding.

This is how you do it. Take the sanding block with the paper and dip them together briefly into a bucket of water. Put a tiny bit of

dish soap in the mixture so that it's better lubricated. Take it out and maybe flick the excess water off but make sure there is

enough on it so that there is not any dry spots on the surface when you start working. Work in small areas so that you have

plenty of water on that spot. When you start sanding do it with very light pressure, and by light I mean almost no pressure at all.

You don't need it. The water sort of bonds the paper with the suface and makes it stick to it. Just sand back and forth lightly.

After sanding for maybe 10-15 seconds you will notice that the paper starts to grab and doesn't glide very easily anymore. You

must stop at that point. Thats means that the excess sanded material is being caught between the paper and surface. When that

happens stop sanding. Keep some dry towels nearby. Wipe off the water completely from the surface for 2 reasons. First it

clears away the sanded material, and second you need it to be dry in order to see where you need to sand more or where you

need to stop sanding. You will know where you need to sand more because there will be little spots of black that haven't been

hit yet. This will be illustrated in a picture below. Stay away from the edges! What I do is sand only in the middle of the case. If

you go to an edge it will sanded off in no time. So what I do is sand in the middle and then when I'm almost done I hit the edges

with the small edge of the MDF block. That way I can get into those really tight spots. Then when I get the edges adequetely

sanded I will then go over it very briefly with the big part of the sanding block just so that the scratches on the edges will match

the direction of the scratches on the rest of the case. As you can guess this process takes a very long time. If you are not patient

with it you will get very bad results. Another thing I do after wiping off the surface is to move the sandpaper about a centimeter

on the block so that the edges are fresh again because the main part of the paper that contacts the surface is the edges. You

repeat these steps until you have sanded sufficiently.

This is what it should look like as you are sanding.



This is what it should look like when you are done. The right is ready for the second coat of paint. I did half so that you can

clearly see the difference between start and finish. It's actually still not ideal. See those tiny spots on the right side? If you did

this perfectly there wouldn't be any of that, but I was already starting to cut through to the primer so I had to stop. Get it as good

as you can without cutting through. This will be good enough for this coat. The most important coats to get absolutely perfect are

the last color coat and the clear coat.

I will finish sanding today and put on the second coat of paint so I will update again later on.

Second color coat update

OK guys sorry for the delay, been busy with life.



This is after wet sanding the first color coat. As you can see I cut though to the primer and it looks pretty crappy, but it's flat and

that's the goal. Cutting through will always happen unless you are a professional painter, in which case you don't need this

tutorial. That's why more than 1 coat is needed. I'm just happy I only cut through to the primer and not all the way to the wood.

Now you're ready for the second color coat. But first you have to make sure there are no fingerprints, dirt, oils, grease, or

anything left on the surface. For that I use these prep wipes.

After the surface has been cleaned you're ready for the second coat of color.



That's all I can do for today fellas. The next steps will be to sand the second coat, apply clear, sand the clear, and buff to a

mirror finish.

Update

These next couple of pictures were taken with my point and shoot instead of the SLR that was used previously so I apologize for

the reduced image quality. The next set will be done with my SLR again.

Almost to the finish line! This is after sanding the second color coat. As you can see there are a lot of tiny dots left still. Ideally

you want to get all of those out, but doing so without cutting through to the primer would be nearly impossible so I just get it as

good as I can on the last color coat while making very sure that I don't sand enough to cut through. When we sand the clear,

however, we will have to attempt to attain perfection, but we'll get to that later.

After applying the clear coat. Again, you put this on in very thin layers. This is about 5 thin layers. Looks a lot better than the last

picture doesn't it? This is why I don't worry too much about sanding the previous layer perfectly. The clear coat covers up those

imperfections. Use the same brand and type of clear as you did the color. I used Valspar Hi-Gloss Lacquer for both the color

and clear coats.



The next update will be on Friday with the finished product so stay tuned.

« 1 2 3 4 5 6 »

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Now we come to the last stage. Finish sanding. This will take you a long time if you do it correctly. For this stage I recommend

starting with 600 grit paper and of course always wet sand. After 600 move up progressively to the highest grit you can find. At

my local hardware store they only had 600 and 1500, so that's what I used. If you can find 1000 to go in between that and 2000

for the last sand that would be even better.

This is after wet sanding with 600. As you can see there are still a few little spots that aren't uniform. Ideally you don't want to

have a single one of those. I could have done a little better, but just this little piece took about an hour of sanding and I just didn't

feel like sanding more, but as you'll see it will still look quite good.

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After sanding as well as possible with 600 I moved on to 1500. This is after wet sanding with 1500 grit. It's best to sand in a 90

degree angle as the last sand when moving up to finer paper. That isn't possible on a case as small as the ones involved in

joystick making if you use the whole block because you will hit the edges too much. So my solution is to sand with just the edge

of the block until I get most of the previous scratches out. Then finish it off in the same direction as the previous grit and so on.

That's as fine a grit as I had available so now comes the buffing process. You will want a rubbing compound, a swirl remover,

and a lot of terry clothes. These are the exact ones that I used.



Just follow the instructions on the packaging for applying the rubbing compound. My only tip is to keep on buffing until you no

longer see the straight line scratches from the sandpaper. You want those totally gone. In their place will be swirl mark scratches

from the compound. You are ready for the swirl remover at that point.

In this pic I applied rubbing compound to half and left the other half to show the difference. I used this picture to show what the

swirl marks will look like. They aren't nearly as noticable as in this picure. Only in certain light do they become very visible.

This is after buffing the entire thing with rubbing compound and applying the Scratch Doctor brand swirl remover to half.



After finishing with the swirl remover it's all done. At this stage you can wait a month and apply some type of protecive wax if you

so choose.

That's it guys. Good luck trying this on your own projects.

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Fantastic stuff! thanks man :tup: You should add a link to your worklog thread

ChaoticMonk 5 years ago

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this is awesome. question. what is the high solids filler primer that you are using?

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theBAYsics, post: 3064062 wrote:

this is awesome. question. what is the high solids filler primer that you are using?

It's some Rustoleum brand filler primer that I got from Autozone.

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Sweet dude

I've been waiting for this!!

A quick question, how do you attach the sandpaper to your sanding block? Do you just glue it on?

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Upas, post: 3064064 wrote:

Sweet dude

Digital717 5 years ago

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Oh no. I just kind of wrap it around the top and just hold it with my hand. Works fine that way.


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Wow, this painting tutorial (thus far) is amazing! Please continue...

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My case is being made out of pine. Is the filler primer as important when working with pine or will a normal grey primer do the

job?

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heh, finally this will give me a chance to work with mdf.

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UNW4NT3D, post: 3064067 wrote:

My case is being made out of pine. Is the filler primer as important when working with pine or will a normal grey primer

do the job?

Probably not as important, but I'd probably get it regardless just to be safe.




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ChaoticMonk, post: 3064061 wrote:

Fantastic stuff! thanks man :tup: You should add a link to your worklog thread

Thanks man. I was going to add a link but I don't want questions to keep popping up in that thread. I want to keep them all in

here.

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Nice Job! :tup:

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So i have the first coat of lacquer painted on how long should i wait till i wetsand

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blklightning21, post: 3064072 wrote:

So i have the first coat of lacquer painted on how long should i wait till i wetsand

It depends on your environment. Is it cold and humid where you are or hot and dry? In a mostly hot and dry place 2 days

probably. If it's colder and humid maybe 3-4 days. You're in Cali right? I'd say wait 3 days to be safe.

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Nice tutorial so for. Looking forward to the rest of it. I'm ready for my clear coat now so get a move on!:wgrin:

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Upas, post: 3064064 wrote:

Sweet dude



you could probably staple it on if you wanted to

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Ok so I went to Halfords today and got 220, 400, 600 and 1200 grit papers. I asked for grey filler primer too.... he went off

looking for it brought me back a can and said that was the stuff... I didn't realise until I got home that he'd given me beige. Will

beige be ok or should I take it back and change it for grey?

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Amazing job keep it up want to see finished product so i can try this out also.

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Digital717, post: 3064073 wrote:

It depends on your environment. Is it cold and humid where you are or hot and dry? In a mostly hot and dry place 2

days probably. If it's colder and humid maybe 3-4 days. You're in Cali right? I'd say wait 3 days to be safe.

Wow really so how long should this whole project take

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Ok so I went to Halfords today and got 220, 400, 600 and 1200 grit papers. I asked for grey filler primer too.... he went

off looking for it brought me back a can and said that was the stuff... I didn't realise until I got home that he'd given me

beige. Will beige be ok or should I take it back and change it for grey?

Shouldn't matter too much. Gray would be better but black should cover up that beige totally I would think. Also try to find

something higher than 1200. That will definitely give you a really great finish, but if you can get some 1600 or 2000 also it will be

a little better.

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Wow really so how long should this whole project take

Just depends on how much time you have. This is a little piece so it won't take all that long. I will sand the primer and put on the

first coat of color tomorrow. That has to cure for a couple days, then I will sand it and put on the clear, wait a couple days, sand

that and then buff it out. I'm only doing one coat of everything because this is just a tutorial project, but on my case I did 2 coats

of color so that adds another few days. All in all it can take a week if you have nothing to do all day or up to a few weeks. The

sanding is very very tedious. I probably sanded my case for a total of about 10 hours at least.

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Bumpin for update.


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Woahhhhh!!! 3 days before you can sand the first coat of paint? Yeah.. kinda makes sense... I usually don't even sand between

color coats only wait till the last coat for it to dry properly.. BUT my piesces have never looked as beautiful as yours!!! I can't wait

for the updates! I will so follow your guide from now on if it becomes mirror!!! Woo!!!

GW so far and can't wait for more!

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so how exactly do you wetsand. Do you soak the sandpaper or do you just dip it in the water. and should it just be water or a

water soap mixture

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Canto, post: 3064083 wrote:

Woahhhhh!!! 3 days before you can sand the first coat of paint? Yeah.. kinda makes sense... I usually don't even sand

between color coats only wait till the last coat for it to dry properly.. BUT my piesces have never looked as beautiful as

yours!!! I can't wait for the updates! I will so follow your guide from now on if it becomes mirror!!! Woo!!!

GW so far and can't wait for more!

Oh it will be mirror like don't worry! It should actually come out even better than the case I have pictured in the first post because

I didn't do that one as well as I could have. It's not difficult to get a mirror finish, it just takes a lot of work, time, and patience.

blklightning21 wrote:

so how exactly do you wetsand. Do you soak the sandpaper or do you just dip it in the water. and should it just be water

or a water soap mixture

There are a couple ways to do it. The way I do it is to dip the sanding block and paper together into a bucket of water mixed with

just a tiny amount of dish soap to keep everything lubricated. I just dip it quickly, but that is enough to saturate the paper

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because the MDF block I use also soaks up water. I make sure that it's dripping a little bit and let it drip onto the surface. When

you sand you want the area you are sanding to be totally wet. This doesn't take a huge amount of water though. I will get into it

more with pictures on my next update.

BTW I updated the original post with the paint brand in case anyone was wondering about that.

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Oh it will be mirror like don't worry! It should actually come out even better than the case I have pictured in the first post

because I didn't do that one as well as I could have. It's not difficult to get a mirror finish, it just takes a lot of work, time,

and patience.

There are a couple ways to do it. The way I do it is to dip the sanding block and paper together into a bucket of water

mixed with just a tiny amount of dish soap to keep everything lubricated. I just dip it quickly, but that is enough to

saturate the paper because the MDF block I use also soaks up water. I make sure that it's dripping a little bit and let it

drip onto the surface. When you sand you want the area you are sanding to be totally wet. This doesn't take a huge

amount of water though. I will get into it more with pictures on my next update.

BTW I updated the original post with the paint brand in case anyone was wondering about that.

I see i will try the dish soap and wat grit sandpaper should i be using to wetsand

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Wow @*that gloss in the first pic. How durable/delicate is the final clear coat once everything is done? I'm just painting my case

and wonder if a slightly 'rough' (as in not high gloss) surface might be more resistant to scratching. At the moment I imagine that

such a glossy surface is really sensitive. After all I'll be using my stick and am worried to scratch it.

For car paint there is a 2 component clear coat that should be pretty scratch resistant. Will lacquer (resin based paint as

opposed to acrylic enamel) as you use it be just as fine?

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I see i will try the dish soap and wat grit sandpaper should i be using to wetsand

It just depends on what stage you are on right now. If you have any more coats of anything to go on just use 400. Only the very

last coat get's finer paper. On the last coat you sand with everything. First 400, then 600, 1000, 1500, 2000, etc, moving up

progressively. This sounds worse than it is, although it's definitely very time consuming. The good thing is that every time you

move to finer paper it gets easier and easier because the finer paper is not used to get it flat, it's just to remove the scratches left

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by each previous sanding.

Degauss wrote:

Wow @*that gloss in the first pic. How durable/delicate is the final clear coat once everything is done? I'm just painting

my case and wonder if a slightly 'rough' (as in not high gloss) surface might be more resistant to scratching. At the

moment I imagine that such a glossy surface is really sensitive. After all I'll be using my stick and am worried to scratch

it.

For car paint there is a 2 component clear coat that should be pretty scratch resistant. Will lacquer (resin based paint as

opposed to acrylic enamel) as you use it be just as fine?

It's pretty durable. I doubt a rough finish would be more durable, it would just hide the scratches better. If you put on a couple

coats of primer, a couple color, and a clear, while making sure all dirt or oils are wiped off in between and you don't use the stick

for 30 days after the last coat went on it will be very durable.

You don't have to use lacquer though. If you want to use acrylic you can do that too and get the same results. It's the work that

goes into it that gives the mirror finish, not so much the type of paint.

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When painting/priming, do you just spray the top sides, let it dry, then flip over to paint the other side... or is there a way to spray

all sides in one pass? You would have to let the top part dry first before spraying the bottom side, right?

Tuna Fish Riot

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Tuna Fish Riot, post: 3064089 wrote:

When painting/priming, do you just spray the top sides, let it dry, then flip over to paint the other side... or is there a way

to spray all sides in one pass? You would have to let the top part dry first before spraying the bottom side, right?

Well for this tutorial I'm not painting the other side at all, but yeah if I were I would probably do as you said.

On my case that I made I just made stands and rested the box by it's inner supports and painted the whole thing in one pass.

Digital717


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5 years ago

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Heres a pic of my first coat

blklightning21

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Now heres a pic after i wetsanded (used 320 cuz its all i had)

This is what the case looks like all around pretty much. my question is is this how it is supposed to look or is this the result of

maybe the sandpaper not being wet enough or too much sanding or the grit being too low (320).

Thanks for your help

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Heres a pic of my first coat

This is what the case looks like all around pretty much. my question is is this how it is supposed to look or is this the

result of maybe the sandpaper not being wet enough or too much sanding or the grit being too low (320).

Thanks for your help

Hmm. It seems as though your first coat doesn't look like it really coated everything completely. It shouldn't look like yours when

it's done. It should all be a uniform gray color. It shouldn't have marks and uneven coloration, and it should feel very flat to the

touch with no noticeable texture.

320 is too low though. Get some 400. And is your sandpaper designed to be used wet? Some aren't. The other thing is that

maybe you just sanded way too much without wiping off the surface and/or using a fresh piece of sandpaper. When you

wetsand the residue will foam up and the paper will start catching and kind of tugging on the surface. As soon as that happens

you have to stop, wipe off the surface, and get a new piece of sandpaper. If you keep sanding after that point it will do nothing

but start stripping off paint quickly and leaving marks. And it definitely needs to be totally wet on the surface that you are

sanding. There shouldn't be any dry spots at all. You should also use very light pressure. You don't really need to press on it,

just let it glide over the work piece. I'm going to sand my project tomorrow a day early since I'm off of work so you can wait until

then and see how it should look.

Digital717


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Great tutorial. Good work.

masturfader

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So i was wondering if i put a heater around the paint would it make it so i do not to have to wait so long before i wetsand again

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Must have patience grasshopper.

But yeah the hotter it is the faster it will cure.

Digital717


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Must have patience grasshopper.

But yeah the hotter it is the faster it will cure.

Haha i know i just want to finish so i can start using it i have been out of commision for like a week and im startin to feel it :rofl:

blklightning21

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Bump for update. Will update again later today.

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Haha i know i just want to finish so i can start using it i have been out of commision for like a week and im startin to feel

it :rofl:

I know what you mean. It's hard to go slowly when you want to use it right away.

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I went to Halfords today to change the beige filler primer for grey, but the guy at the shop told me they don't do grey filler primer

and I'm supposed to do beige filler primer then normal grey primer then black paint. Does this sound right or should I not bother

with the grey?

UNW4NT3D

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5 years ago


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I went to Halfords today to change the beige filler primer for grey, but the guy at the shop told me they don't do grey

filler primer and I'm supposed to do beige filler primer then normal grey primer then black paint. Does this sound right or

should I not bother with the grey?

There has to be some place around you that has it. Did you try automotive stores? I don't know what Halfords is. If you can't find

anything you can probably get by with the beige if you put a couple coats of black over it.

Digital717


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Halfords is sort of an automotive store they sell mountain bikes and car stereos and car maintenance stuff.. there's 1 other store

in my town more specialising in car stuff. I'll try there tomorrow.

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Halfords is sort of an automotive store they sell mountain bikes and car stereos and car maintenance stuff.. there's 1

other store in my town more specialising in car stuff. I'll try there tomorrow.

If you can't find it there go to a hardware store. If you can't find it there I would probably just put the black over the beige.

Digital717


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sorry, what sandpaper did you use to sand the colour coat? still 400 or did you move up to 600?

System 5 years ago

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damn, I cut through the clear coat all the way to the mdf on my last sanding session... I have to touch it up too before any kind of

buffering... It's such a delicate and time consuming process...

catchafire

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anymore update?cant wait for second coat

System

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PopTardO, post: 3064103 wrote:

sorry, what sandpaper did you use to sand the colour coat? still 400 or did you move up to 600?

Ok here's the thing. I actually don't have any extra 400 on hand so I used 600, but I said 400 because that's what I would have

used if I had any. So use 400. I wouldn't ever use 600 until the very last coat of clear. I just have 600 lying around and no 400 so

that's what I used.

catchafire wrote:

damn, I cut through the clear coat all the way to the mdf on my last sanding session... I have to touch it up too before

any kind of buffering... It's such a delicate and time consuming process...

Indeed it is.

Mirana wrote:

anymore update?cant wait for second coat

Sorry I didn't think anyone was still following this thread so I held off on the updates for a little bit. The next few won't be anything

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different though. The next color coat will look exactly like the first one, and the clear won't look any different either, and the

sanding techniques for all of them are the same. So I was gonna wait until I started finish sanding the last coat to update any

more, but I will continue with every step if you want me to.

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would like to see more

Milkham

A Decent Breakfast

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Milkham, post: 3064107 wrote:

would like to see more

Ask and you shall receive. Not today though because I'm going to sleep now. I'll update tomorrow though.

Digital717


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instead on using 600 before the last coat, does 800 or 1200 works? I think see big difference in 400 and 600 but the 1200 is

simply tooo fine

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