Inexpensive Dye Sprayer

I decided to give this simple touch-up gun a try from the Harbor of Freight (sounds classier that way, no?)  It was on special for a whole $9 (that's just two lattés!).  It seemed like if this gun worked well with a dye, anybody could use it even with the smallest compressor.  Hey, it even says "professional" embossed on the handle!

I have to say, it greatly exceeded my expectations.  It won't spray a triple venti soy latté, but with dye, it rocked.

I made this trival cabinet of left-over maple-veneered waferboard.  The intention was to put it under the drill-press table to store shtuff.  What's on the side are two slide-out trays.

Maple being maple, it had some streaks in it on the B-side of the sheets.  Clearly, this would be unacceptable inside the cabinet under anybody's drill-press.  :)  That said, I wanted to use this gun to both level the tone of the cabinet and spray a brown over it.

To level the tone, I sprayed Transtint Yellow Additive all over the surface.  Notice how the streak's contrast is muted a bit (the darkness in the corner is because I shot this while the dye was plenty wet; that part is just wetter).

I then used Transtint Medium Brown.  The brown and yellow combine for a honey brown as you can see here.  Remember that this dye looks much duller even seconds after spraying it; it comes to life under a top coat.

Here's the result before making the drawer for the top; it'll hold the planes I use constantly; the hand saws finally have a hanging home on the side and they are within two feet of the vice.  The trays are on slides so this is a mini-Sysport, if  you will.  (Yeah, my Festool stickers don't, too!)

Voilà, the drawer fresh out of clamps.  Hand-cut dovetails in Beech, which gets it's name because it is a real beech to chisel.

Pretty good way to use up scraps! Yes, the drawer will get an applied front someday.  'nuther day, 'nuther scrap!  This whole cabinet is under the table of a Powermatic VS 18" drill press.