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The key question is what bristle should be matched with which paint. Generally, oil based paint is used when painting cabinets by brush. The baseline brush is a white colored bristle and is commonly sold in most paint stores. It’s often called a “varnish” brush. More elegant finishes are achieved by using boar or sable bristle brushes. These would more typically be used for fine finishes.

Pros & Cons of Spray Painting Cabinets

Most people agree that a sprayed on finish provides the highest quality result, and the lowest cost, on cabinets and fine woodwork. The spraying process allows for application of a primer and multiple, thin, finish coats of high quality materials which can be mixed all colors and alkyd or lacquer. The hardness of the finish is unsurpassed by other methods – spray painted cabinets produce a beautiful, factory-finished look.

Spraying is certainly not a panacea, though. And, the old adage especially applies here: the “right” tools and materials in the “wrong” hands will always result in a bad job. A great deal can go wrong, very quickly, when paint spray machines are involved inside of a home.  

We spray paint cabinets using alkyd materials and airless or HVLP sprayers using fine finish tips. These spray painting machines need to be meticulously cleaned and maintained before, during and after every job.  A variety of manufacturers of spray equipment sell their products through specialty stores and paint stores catering to professional painting contractors. The HVLP type machines required to do a fine finish job on cabinets – as opposed to those used for the outside of your house – will cost about $2,000, all in.