We normally do quite a bit of cabinet painting and not much stain & clear coat.
have a project coming up where customer has Red Oak cabinets, Lacquer finish that they just want cleaned up and looking new again. few areas of lacquer fail spots around sink. My Question, can i do normal prep, clean , light sand, light seal coat and then a couple coats of pre cat over top to clean these up? will this blend some of the white, failed areas in. Would i be better adding a slight dye tone to sealer coat
Thanks Mike

I wouldn't use precat in a kitchen either. I have failures around my sink, dishwasher, and range hood. I seriously doubt you can fix the failed lacquer by adding on top. Usually the water is under cracks in the lacquer and won't be fixed without removing it. Curious how you quoted it without knowing how to fix it? Hope you went high because it might take stripping and starting over to make it invisible.

Hi Rich
Did not quote this part yet. we are painting a portion of it. the other part they would like to stay the same as they tie into some existing woodwork. So just trying to get an idea. We have a 2K clear poly that we use on woodwork that has good chemical and wear resistance that i was going to use. have been experimenting some, just wondered what others may use for this

I had a kitchen in a new construction house done with pre-cat. It was a very nice house, and otherwise amazingly well done. It had no overhang on the countertops.

The pre-cat lasted about a year before completely peeling off in all the expected places.

On the plus side, it was easy for them to sand and respray the same stuff later to touch it up.

But it is likely to need touch up constantly.

if your goal is no callbacks, and need to have it back in service quickly, sand well and spray a waterborne 2k or something.

(isocyanate in air combines with moisture quickly enough that unless you are actively spraying it, it is not going to be in the breathing air. you are more likely to get dosed from touching non-fully-cured stuff than from the air)

Thanks Daniel
Yes thought on this as we use the WB 2 K fairly often and love it, Maybe am over thinking this, was thinking the Lacquer might blend in and adhere with itself better

It will. But even for the same lacquer on lacquer, it was obvious where it was not sanded well enough, etc.

If you do it, do it because you are worried about finish compatibility or cost or something. It's not really gonna otherwise save you time/make the end result look better.

I sprayed on of my first kitchens with a non catalyzed lacquer becuase I didn't know any better. Within two years it was whitening in moisture places. What I did was scrape the opaque areas with razor blades. After that I resprayed with SW precat. Still looks good 15 years later. (Did it for a friend)