Wood Finish

[John Hennessey]

I wonder if shining a heat lamp on the doors and frames would re-harden the lacquer and eliminate the milkiness

[Edward Buker]

From what I understand, based on conversations with the woodworking crew at Beaver Coach Sales (originally factory woodworking folks) is that this clear finish, although it may be lacquer based, was a two part catalized system from PPG. Once on, it cured and there was not much you could do with it afterwards. If you are going to experiment, I would do it on the inside of a cabinet door given the low likelyhood that the finish could be altered. My ceiling panels have cracks in the clearcoat and I have lived with that given there have been no options available to refinish it. If someone has some success with heat or whatever alternatives that are tried let us know.

Later Ed

[Dave Cunningham]

Ed, that's funny you should bring up, the ceiling panels, I have just finished redoing all of mine, and was going to post some pictures tomorrow , after I finished installing them. My interior is cherry, with Makori insets, the ceiling insets were Makori as well, I replaced them with cherry plywood. They turned out fantastic, I will post the pictures and describe the process tomorrow.

Dave

[Steven Link]

I know this subject has been hashed to death already but thought I would add my 2 cents worth since I dealt with Beaver extensively on this very problem that we had in our previous coach a 2004 Marquis. Our cabinets began getting this milky appearance and eventually all of the makori inserts started delaminating. The whole problem (according to Beaver at the time) is due to moisture from the wood itself probably being absorbed from humid air. The milky appearance is a precipitate of minerals probably calcium and magnesium from the water. The precipitate is on the underside of the clear coat finish. From what I know all of the woodwork in our beautiful coaches is put in the paint booth and sprayed with multiple coats of automotive clearcoat or something similar. The ONLY solution is to prevent the moisture once it is there and the precipitate forms it is too late to do anything except replace the entire finish. At the time Beaver offered us a solution to remove all the cabinet doors and ship them to the factory and they would fix them. Well we decided to trade coaches and ordered a newer Marquis (without makori inserts). I let the dealer fix the delamination.
Now when we store the coach I put a small household dehumidifier in the coach. I always clean and seal all of the woodwork with automotive wax including the backside of the cabinet doors.  Fortunately we have very little milky deposits but we still have some. I think this is a inherent problem with clear-coated cabinets and humid air.

[Edward Buker]

Dave,

Neat project, like to see them and hear about the process. I was eyeing a marine cherry and ash sole plywood at one time and thought it might look good but I have not gone there. It is like me with age, I do not dwell on the defects quite as much....

Later Ed