there can be only one…
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Applying the topcoat seemed easy, in theory. The topcoat is a milky white substance that comes in a bottle. You simply squirt it on the surface of the counter and then smooth it over evenly.
The Modern Masters instructions say to use an application cloth/pad like you would to finish a wood floor (I would assume to avoid things like lint, etc)… but we weren’t able to find anything like that at Lowes, Home Depot or Menards. What we did find was a foam paint applicator – it seemed like a good solution as it wasn’t too spongy and didn’t result in leaving lint behind.
We waited the eight hours between the final color coat and applying the top coat as instructed. We waited 1 hours between each coat of topcoat to apply the next.
The topcoat gave the counters a lovely and unexpected conditioned leather look. In the finished kitchen photos (to be posted in a later blog, we will try to capture this).
After being thrilled with the first coat of color, we went about applying the second coat. We let the first coat dry about two hours.
Again with the 8oz mocha – as I wanted a dark dark brown finish.
Second and Third Coats Ratio: 1 part untinted Component 1 Acrylic Solution to 1 part Component 3 Powder Mix. (1 quart per 1.4 pound jar.) Again, figure higher on the square footage a bit, and don’t forget to figure in the edges and the back splashes.
Second coat of bodning primer applied, we set out to duplicate step 3 and sand.
Before sanding (click for larger image):
Again we went over high and rough spots with the putty knife. We also went around the bottom edges with a chisel, making sure that things were even on on the bottom edges.
A few mistakes were made and I managed to chip off some of the front edges of the counter tops, removing the bonding primer, so we had to apply more to those spots, and leave it for later.
We applied the second coat of bonding primer the morning after sanding.
The second coat was much more difficult to apply than the first. In fact, we had a great amount of trouble and had to switch to using the trowel that we had not used in coat 1.
It seems that the bonding primer needs to be worked with more quickly than we were working. As it sat it got thicker, and that made application more difficult.