Hello, I’m Annie Sloan. Welcome to my warehouse studio! This is a video about how to spray Chalk Paint® Lacquer. I’m here with Ron Taylor of Traditional Painter and he knows all about spraying – a complete expert. So what are all the tricks?

Ron: The Lacquer, along with Chalk Paint®, we’re going to have to thin to get it to spray well. We can see that that’s much too thick. I don’t think we’re going to need it thinned as much as Chalk Paint®, but we’re definitely going to need it thinning. So if we put some Lacquer in the pot, and we’re going to add initially about 10% water in.

Annie: Of course this is a water-based lacquer and so that’s why Ron is now adding some water to it. So before Ron started he gave this lacquer a really good stir because all the goodies are at the bottom. Last time you talked about worm threads, worm casts, which I think is a great way to describe it. So the worm casts are where you tip the stick and you let it drip and if you drip and you find you make marks in the varnish, the lacquer, then that’s too thick so you have to add water so it’s not like that, and that’s exactly the same with the Chalk Paint®. So yes, that’s looking good. Oh, a bit more water?

Ron: just a touch more.

Annie: Okay, and stir really well.

Ron: Stir really well. Do it gradually, don’t add too much water from the start because if you’ve find got too much water in, then that’s annoying. If you put too much water in something that’s like this, a gloss, it will lose its sheen.

Annie: Ah, that’s a very, very good point. So not too much water, only as much as you need. Yes, this is actually a gloss varnish, a gloss lacquer, and we want that gloss, so if you add too much water…that’s a very good point.

Ron: as with all spraying it’s best to wear a mask. You don’t want the particles into
your lungs. This is a particle mask, this is a professional mask, and while this is the best one we’ve got these sort of a DIY mask here, that’s the very bare minimum you want to be using. But for a lot of spraying this is what we want.

Annie: So everything’s ready now, so what’s the next step?

Ron: Right, first thing to do before we spray the lacquer is to get the paint setting right. So, I’m going to put my mask on.

Annie: So you’re gonna test this are you? That’s what you’re gonna be doing?

Ron: Yes, we’re going to test this first. Not on the piece, we’re going to test it on the wall just so that we’ve got it right. Don’t go straight in because if it’s wrong, you’ve only got one chance.

Annie: Good. All right, let’s go!

Ron: We’re going to set this in the widest possible fan just to test, and then we’ll alter the fan to the smallest.

Annie: and have you adjusted this bit as well to make certain that the right amount is
coming through?

Ron: Yes, that’s set to one. We’ve got these gradients round there and that’s set almost to one and that’s about right for the lacquer. It’s important to remember if the turbine is warm the lacquer will spray and flow together better. So if we set this up and leave it somewhere for about five minutes, you’ll feel the warmth in the tube and the lacquer will spray better.

Annie: So we’ve tested the lacquer. We know it’s exactly right, so now we’re going to do
it onto the cabinet. So just a few points to remember: this is something we painted
a couple of hours ago, it’s now completely dry, we’re very pleased with it. What you mustn’t do is get dirt or dust on it. If I was to touch it here or whatever – anything – when you spray it the varnish is going to bring everything up. So it’s got to be super
beautiful. Are you ready or have you got anything else?

Ron: When we spray kitchen doors, the best thing to do is to finish one side; that’s the paint and the lacquer. Because as you say if you touch this and get fingerprints on it, you’ll mark it. So if we turn that over now on a rack while it’s still in Chalk Paint® to do the other side, you’ll get marks from the rack. If we do with the lacquer, the lacquer won’t mark.

Annie: Okay, well I can’t wait to see what this looks like.

[Later] Annie: Are you pleased with the results? It looks fantastic to me.

Ron: Yes. You’ll notice when I sprayed I overlapped each pass by 50%, so I sprayed a line and then I sprayed the next line so it overlapped the previous line 50%. If you just spray strips like a crossing you’ll end up with dry patches.

Annie: Yes, you don’t want stripes.

Ron: you’ll also notice I didn’t alter the setting for the lacquer to thin for the edge, because the lacquer can pull if it’s on too thick so it needs to be a consistent finish. So I always keep that setting to the widest even for the edge.

Annie: so we’re going to let this dry and how long will that be?

Ron: I would think if we leave that for half an hour we can put final coat of lacquer on.

Annie: fantastic. So that’s it! Spraying with Chalk Paint® Lacquer; it’s really, really easy.