Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Target EMTECH EM6600 Raven Black Lacquer

Hi all,

I have pretty much decided to use Target EMTECH EM6600 Raven Black Lacquer to refinish my ebony Steinway model L.

If you have anything good, or bad (constructive!) to say about it, please share.

Also if anyone wants to weigh in on how much they have used doing a 6 footer (and bench) I would appreciate it.

Thank you

Depends on how good a finish you are after. I use Target exclusively for finishing but EM6600 Raven Black is a satin sheen that, while it is extremely opaque, it does not give you an easily sanded surface to work with. If you are good with an out of the gun, satin finish, it will work just fine. If you are looking for a polished, smooth finish, you will need to use it as a base coat followed by several clear coats to give you a sandable surface. One gallon of black will give you all the color base you need. After that you will need a couple gallons of clear gloss to build enough so that you can block it down and polish. Less if you do a thorough fill job before applying color. YMMV

Do you have experience, refinishing anything? Especially pianos? If not you may want to start with some flat panels to gain some experience. Refinishing a piano is a big job and most amateurs get started and then loose hope. There is a major learning curve for a good job.

Hi Dale,

Thanks for an excellent response.

If I understand you correctly, it is possible to get a decent end result if enough time is put into clear coats and sanding at the end. Fine by me, my labor doesn't cost me anything.. How many coats of the 6600 would you do and what kind of sanding after the last coat?

As far as pianos are concerned I am indeed an amateur, but I have worked as mechanic my whole life and I have finished a few countertops with water based lacquers. I have a lot of time to invest in research and prep work and a large amount of patience! The restringing, action repair, voicing and regulation will be done by a local technician with a very impressive resume..

I plan to refinish the matching bench as well, and of course the music stand.. I'll do the stripping, veneer repair, and sanding all semi simultaneously. Then probably finish the music stand, lid, bench, fall board, soundboard and case in that order.

Thank you for your reply!

And to clarify... I definitely do want a GOOD if not very good finish, otherwise it's not worth the time.

However my goal isn't an ultra glossy sheen that attracts fingerprints. I'm more after a semi gloss black that is very smooth and uniform but not ultra high gloss.

You should practice the entire finish procedure you plan to use on the bench alone. Write down what you plan to do and order it into consecutive steps.

You need to master flat sanding and a whole lot more. Good luck you will need it.

Any comments on the choice of lacquer? Your personal approach to finishing? Sanding schedule? Favorite chemical for old finish removal? Favorite place to get veneer if large repairs are needed?

Any other technical tidbits?

Do you have spray equipment? If so, what kind? What size tip and air cap? Have you aver done a piano quality finish on anything before. Counter tops don't count here. There is saving money by "doing it yourself" and there is making more work for the person following up.

Make sure you know the difference. This is a major topic and far different from the piano work done by most techs here on PW. The learning curve is huge and mistakes can be downright discouraging so be sure you really want to do this. I'm all for learning new things, just be sure you won't regret doing it for the first time on your $teinway grand.

This is my gun. Haven't started researching tips yet

http://m.harborfreight.com/20-oz-professional-hvlp-gravity-feed-air-spray-gun-68843.html

I know it's a big job but I have a lot of time, and calendar wise 2/3 of that will be spent doing research and 1/3 will be spent working on it. I am used to jobs that take years.. The earliest I will start finishing the case would be in October, and that's if the bench comes out well.

Rest assured if the bench doesn't come out satisfactory I will bow out.

Any information appreciated

I haven't seen for a long time a tread about finish application, I normally work polyester, it has a beautiful finish but is a lot of work involved to accomplish it. Mostly sanding and polishing. Some times I spray polyurethane but only on small and complicated parts that are hard to polish. but is not as strong and scratch resistant than polyester.

I have been thinking of give water base a try on top of polyester base coat. to get a nice finish, easier to sand and polish. water base lacquer perhaps is stronger than polyurethane and how strong it the bond to polyester base. I don't know yet, any suggestions?

Someone in the forum has experience applying polyester and water base varnish? I love to talk about it.

Back to the topic.

Since you already have experience spray painting not going to bother you on basics, just some piano tips. have you resolved how to embedded fall board decal and key lock.

my favorites to apply are polyester and high solids polyurethane.

As I said before I have never work water base. all depends on what kind or texture you want, open pore or close pore, satin or gloss and the combinations. Wood color or solid color base on that choice you'll decide the material to use.

Im concern of how much solids the water base sanding sealer has to close the pores and to establish a nice mirror flat foundation for the finish, (thats one of the most important goals on piano finish) for that matter I recommend that you use a long sanding blocks like the 3m one or similar. also is easer to sand. on the first coats of sanding sealer look how uneven is the finish and locate the valleys and don't sand until they disappear you might thin the color. on the next coat apply little more on the valleys and sand again until your sanding is flat and theres no more valleys, thats a good indicator that the surface is flat. it helps if you have fluorescent long tubes on the ceiling to check the reflection. Just wet wipe the surface after sanding and check the reflection moving you head around. you may also thin the black color out (corners , edges) when sanding, make sure to look for transparency when the surface is wet and keep applying black sanding sealer to cover it.

(3M HookitPurple Plus Blocks) by Sergio L. Ruiz Jones, on Flickr

you can even use a pneumatic straight line sander. stay away from orbital sanders if you can.

Once your base is as flat as a glass you can then apply the final coat not as thick as you think, you´ll save a lot of time a effort since is harder to sand.

Im not sure if is gonna be semi-gloss satin brushed or mirror gloss but in either case you "still have to sand flat before the last coat". make sure that your paint area is vacuumed before each coat and for the last be extra careful and clean as best you can even mop and clean all surfaces even the vacuum the walls and spray a nice water mist to bring down all dust particles I have heard that damp newspaper covering the floor helps getting the paint dust minimal . paint both is the best.

For semigloss and satin finish. If you get dust particle on the last coat you need to apply one more coat, since you can't fix it.

I´ll be nice if you post some pictures of the work progress.

Thanks for the info!

I have an orbital sander but I wasn't necessarily planning on using it on this project.

Does anyone use metal straight edges or metal stock to check flatness? McMaster Carr has a decent supply to choose from..


Took delivery of the piano today. The soundboard has some cracks in it now that weren't there when it was loaded on the truck in Rhode Island.. They seem repairable, but we'll see what my tech says on Wednesday

Piano finish "flat" is not going to be the same as straight edge "flat". Piano cases have some irregular waves over several inches that if you were to try to completely remove you would sand right through some of the face veneers.

Ed is right. In order to achieve true flatness, you would have to have a "UUUUGE" amount of finish on the piece.

Our piano cases are often 75 years old or more, and they do not become flatter as they age.

Orbital sanders telegraph squiglies onto the finish. Random orbital is better, but still not good enough. You need a straight line sander.

A satin black finish is the most difficult to do. Because the finish is opaque, every mistake we make is sitting on the surface and staring at us.

It takes many years to get good at this kind of piano finishing. The people who are good have made thousands of little and big mistakes along the way. Your willingness to work hard and your belief in your ability to learn notwithstanding, this could turn into a bottomless black pit for you.

Ill just add this about satin black, you had better have an eye for straight when putting in the final satin texture lines. And straight for each case part "which direction to be straight?" Think about the lid parts inside and out for example.
Some case parts you may be able to use a square to get straight texture lines started but others that are rounded it is just your eye.
I like to do it by hand with a block sander. Technique - I avoid any back and forth motion, it shows. Forward only, clean your paper frequently with a stiff brush, dont let any nubs accumulate. Use the best quality paper you can get.
More technique - be careful of the edges. It is real easy to go through the finish at the edge because you just cannot get much finish on an edge plus it is easy to round the edges and go through the finish if your technique is not aware of this or your sanding block is flexable.