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Home is where the heart is and the heart of the 21st century home is the kitchen. The kitchen has become the central hub of our busy lives. Today's kitchen reflects a family's need for functionality, organization, beauty and quality in their homes. This family is also aware of the environment around them. When they talk of green, they want products that are safe for their families and for the world around them.
Executive Kitchens of Simpsonville, S.C., manufactures custom full overlay cabinetry for the kitchen and bath industry. From modern looks to the Old World styles, Executive Kitchens strives to meet the needs of its growing customer base of discriminating homeowners. Its furniture-quality finishes appeal to high-end customers who are looking for cabinetry that is distinct.
The company's traditional cabinets are manufactured using ¾-in. formaldehyde-free plywood box construction. Its 32mm frameless cabinetry features drawer boxes that are either dovetail maple or contemporary metal. The company offers approximately 22 traditional paint choices, with six glazes, distressing, worm holing, rub-through and crackle specialty finishes as options. Twenty-four crackle colors are available for the company's Biltmore For Your Home Collection, a line of cabinetry inspired by the intricate millwork found in the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C.
When Executive Kitchens chose to "go green," the company changed its entire approach to cabinetmaking. Launching the EcoFriendly® cabinetry line, Executive Kitchens switched over entirely to waterborne finishes, no easy feat for a company that had relied on the look and durability previously thought only available through the use of solvent-based finishes. In addition, Executive Kitchens specifies LEED-compliant, formaldehyde-free PureBond™ plywood from Columbia Forest Products for the EcoFriendly line of cabinetry.
Three years ago, when Executive Kitchens moved into its 220,000-sq.-ft. facility, the company discovered it was nearing its permit limit for VOC emissions. The company was faced with two choices: Install an expensive incinerator or switch to waterborne finishes. After much consideration, the company determined that it was going to take a whole new approach to finishing that would eliminate the need for an incinerator and help improve the environment.
After 12 years of finishing cabinetry with a tried and true method, the changeover to waterborne coatings was a bit daunting for Scott and his finish room crew of 60.
Executive Kitchens needed to find the ideal waterborne coating supplier, one that had a strong commitment to green practices and the ability to develop the perfect finish. These finishes were required to duplicate the look and durability of catalyzed lacquer and conversion varnishes only with zero HAPs and nearly zero VOCs on the finished cabinetry.
Executive Kitchens reviewed countless finishes, eventually selecting The Sherwin-Williams Company as its supplier.
"I was especially taken with Sherwin-Williams' resolve to formulate the ideal coatings to meet our needs," says Tim Scott, president of Executive Kitchens. "We chose Sherwin-Williams because they stuck with the process, addressing any issues that came up and solving the problems.
"Conversions are difficult," he says, "because they require a different mind-set and a changed process."
Scott explains: "Unlike changing stain colors, the changeover to finishes of a different chemistry involve a lot more than rolling the substrate into the spray booth and filling the spray gun with the new coatings. Machinery needed to be adjusted to reflect the different dry times, and UV lamps supplied by Fusion UV Systems were installed to cure never before used UV waterborne topcoats."
The Sherwin-Williams technical representative and personnel from the Global Design Center checked the finish colors in several light sources to ensure a match to the existing solvent finished color standards. The team started with the finishes that were the highest volumes and worked their way down the line to the least used products. The paint matching process took approximately five months to accomplish.
Once all the colors were matched, consistency needed to be perfected. The Sherwin-Williams technical representative worked closely with Executive Kitchens' finishing line, as well as automatic finishing line supplier, Cefla Finishing North America, Inc. to test the finishes with different nozzles and spray pressures.
Tidal wave of change
The redesigned finishing process comprises a few more steps due to the nature of the water-based finishing products.
Cabinetry is brought into the finishing room and finely hand-sanded to about 180 grit by up to eight people, depending on the project. The part is then moved to the 20-gun color machine where a specially formulated version of the Sher-Wood® water-based primer and a Sher-Wood water-based stain are applied. The procedure is a bit different for painted cabinetry in that the part is hand-sprayed with the Sher-Wood water-based primer and a specially formulated version of the Sher-Wood Kem Aqua® water-based pigmented lacquer. In some applications, a water-based Sher-Wood glaze is applied between the pigmented lacquer color coat and the clear UV topcoat — or, between clear coats in staining applications.
After exposure to UV light, the piece is sanded; then hand treatments such as crackles, glazes and distressing are performed.
A total of 12 hand finishers, working in groups of two per order, apply the glaze until the part has achieved the desired appearance. It is then run through the reciprocator eight-gun topcoat machine where two coats of a custom formulation of the Sherwin-Williams UltraCure® waterborne UV topcoat is applied. Finally, it is inspected. Most flaws are hand-corrected although some parts must be run through the spray machines once more.
The amount of time it takes to complete the entire operation has been reduced significantly by using a UV waterborne topcoat. According to Eddie Fowler, facilities engineer at Executive Kitchens, a part is finished on one side and ready for inspection in approximately 12 minutes. Previously, inspectors would have to wait about a half-day to see the same part.
All of the waterborne UV topcoats are reclaimed from the sprayer and are recycled for future use. Any other waste is ground into particulate that is marketed to companies as an absorptive agent for such applications as oil spills. In addition, when alcohol-reducible products are used, the alcohol is recycled as a fuel for concrete drying kilns.
author: Steve Ehle