Hello there. I hired professional cabinet painters. They removed existing dark stain and colored my cabinets an off white. The problem we are having is a constant bleed through. They have shellacked it to block out the dye and painted over it several times. It's super frustrating because the pink streaks keep coming through. I'm not sure what to think. Does anyone have any experience with this? This has been going on for several months. Is there anything on the market to actually block this dye or am I stuck with the streaks? I'm wondering if they didn't remove enough of the dye in the stain in the first place. Please advise. Thanks in advance.
Please HELP, Pink bleed through on white
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Some more details might help. "Colored my cabinets an off white." Was this a stain, paint, what exactly did they use? Was it water-based? What type of wood are the cabinets made of? Some woods are notorious for bleed through. Any water-based topcoat may act as a wick for the tannins in the wood and that's what is appearing as pink streaks. Most of us on here use Zinsser's BIN pigmented shellac for instances like this. It's the absolute best.
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Thank you for your quick response. The painters sprayed a paint that has an enamel in it that hardens over time. I believe it's a specially formulated SW paint . I believe it is water based but I will have to ask to make sure. They have told me that they have shellacked it many times, but it still bleeds through. They have done some areas 3-4 times, but it still bleeds through pink. They say it's the adelline dye(sp?) that is coming through. I will have to ask what brand of shellack they are using. We have been working through this issue since August of last year. I'm just so surprised that this issue cannot be fixed
I will check and see if they have tried this particular brand. I'm getting the feeling from them that they have exhausted all resources and I just want to believe that this is not the case. Are you guys familiar with this Adeline dye(so)... I was not but I'm sure you guys are. I just need some hope that this can be remedied. It's seems like it should be doable but we have had cabinet doors going back and fourth several times and the pink STILL bleeds through. The frame has pink in it too I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to have a kitchen in limbo for nearly 9 months!
I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to have a kitchen in limbo for nearly 9 months!
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Interesting article:
https://generalfinishes.com/blog/20...gh-on-mahogany-furniture-from-the-1920s-1930s
Maybe the painters here can tell you if your painters were supposed to tell you about the difficulty, as the article says.
https://generalfinishes.com/blog/20...gh-on-mahogany-furniture-from-the-1920s-1930s
Maybe the painters here can tell you if your painters were supposed to tell you about the difficulty, as the article says.
Interesting article which makes me believe that the pink will never go away. The product on there before was gel stain. As I said before, I'm wondering if they didn't take enough of the stain off in the first place because I still remember seeing a faded version of the stain on there before they started painting. I thought that was normal and maybe it is. But maybe it was not taken off as much as it could of been
They did sample doors for me. They stripped the stain away by dipping into their solution. I was told the doors looked like raw wood when they came out. Anyway, the sample door did not have pink in it and looked awesome so we went ahead with the project. They did say it was more difficult to to from dark to white but that is why they were going to charge be quite a bit more because they had to strip the the stain off. At this point in the game it would have been less expensive and less stressful to have just bought all new kitchen cabinets
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I am no expert on painting cabinets, but I have heard of this problem. As I understand it, the dye cannot really be stripped like a stain or paint. It goes too deep into the wood. The only way to take the color out is to bleach it.
It sounds like your contractor was pretty professional about it. They did a test and it came out fine, so they decided they didn't need to bleach the wood. But for whatever reason, that test was not representative of the whole job.
It sounds like these guys are professional cabinet painters. This is not some hack handyman. They don't need the customer telling them what brand of shellac to use based on something they read on the internet.
Going forward, there is no easy answer. It's a mess. Maybe you could strip everything and bleach and then shellac again and paint.
Or refacing the cabinets might be a good option, short of replacing everything.
It sounds like your contractor was pretty professional about it. They did a test and it came out fine, so they decided they didn't need to bleach the wood. But for whatever reason, that test was not representative of the whole job.
It sounds like these guys are professional cabinet painters. This is not some hack handyman. They don't need the customer telling them what brand of shellac to use based on something they read on the internet.
Going forward, there is no easy answer. It's a mess. Maybe you could strip everything and bleach and then shellac again and paint.
Or refacing the cabinets might be a good option, short of replacing everything.
Yes, I agree. They are good at what they do. They came highly recommended by people I trust. I honestly believe this was just a job gone wrong. And , yes, I think the shellack they are using is probably the best. I'm sure they want to be done with this job as much as I do so they have tried to keep going over it. I just wish there was an easy way to fix it, or just a way without costing a ton more money and time. That's why I came here to see if anyone else has had the same problem and did something that actually worked. I still can't believe how this dye can come through still with all of the shellack and coatings they've done.
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A few rare times I've ran into stains that multiple coats of shellac wouldn't block, I have used aluminum roof coating to spot prime, then primed and painted again.
That's an old trick my dad showed me that has never failed, I don't think anything will bleed through aluminum.
It's an extreme step to take at this point, but it's always worked for me.
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That's an old trick my dad showed me that has never failed, I don't think anything will bleed through aluminum.
It's an extreme step to take at this point, but it's always worked for me.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
so was the original coating a dye aniline dye stain or a gel stain? Or was it dye stained with a gel stain over top of it? And did they strip a clear coat off of it? They probably should have left the clear coat on, as it would have been the most effective way to keep the aniline dye from bleeding. As far as getting a good quality aniline dye to bleed from the wood, they are really on to something here! It is extremely difficult to get a true, alcohol based aniline dye out of wood by any method. BUT that being said, most aniline dye are alcohol reduced or water reduced. Sometimes acetone is used. My experience tells me that a GOOD alkyd primer needs to be used, as the solvents are much less likely to re-wet the dye. Unfortunately I would also recommend stripping them back as close to bare wood as possible.
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