Durham Door Refinishing with Minwax Oil Modified Polyurethane

at | Category: Door Refinishing

Wilmington Painting Contractor This week I used Minwax oil modified poly for the first time. I refinished a mahogany door on a Durham home, stripping the old failing finish first with a chemical stripper, sanding and then applying a penetrating stain. This is fairly new technology and is supposed to offer the benefits of both waterborne and oil based products.

Application was similar to acrylic waterborne poly. Very thin, dries very fast and can be recoated within hours. As I first started applying I noticed that instead of applying smoothly over the surface the poly has a tendency to bead up. Anyone who has applied waterborne poly has seen this in the past at least once. A second or third pass with your brush was needed to get a smooth even application. Below is a picture showing this “beading” effect. This is a big time waster and production killer, which for a Durham professional contractor is something we just cannot have.
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The great and bad characteristics about waterborne, and in this case oil modified waterborne, is dry time. Great that you can sand and recoat in a very short period of time, yet bad because it is much harder to work with and achieve a smooth even finish because you have so little time to work the finish.

This product dried and sanded to a powder on these brush coats in about an hour.
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After applying a few brush coats to build a film that would sand smooth I removed the door and sprayed two coats with a 311 tip. Again beading was an issue, and I had to apply much more product than I was comfortable with per coat to get the finish to lie down and play nice.
Wilmington Painting Contractor

Seven brushed coats were applied to the trim, and side lights. The door received two brushed coats and two sprayed coats. The outcome was great, however I feel like I had to work too hard to achieve the finish I wanted and was pleased with. As a professional Durham contractor I would not suggest a homeowner use this product for an application like this. This product is just too difficult to work with, and painting as fast as I can I could barely stay ahead of the set up of the finish. Also having to go back into the product after it is applied to get the finish to lie down is unacceptable.

The results however were outstanding, and my client was very pleased with the door refinishing service.
Wilmington Painting Contractor