Essentially you veneer the side panels. Assemble the cabinets. Tape and paper off the areas you don’t want to get the black lacquer before spraying, and do the opposite for the clear lacquering when you do the side panels. If you'd like more detail I can talk to you off line. Black lacquer is not an easy finish to do particularly if you have never done it before and would take a lot of practice before getting it right, but these are the basic steps:
Here is a general finishing schedule for lacquer that I followed.
Seal the entire cabinet.
1st day - Apply a thin but complete coat making sure the entire surface is wet by the lacquer spray. Wait an hour, recoat, wait an hour, apply a third coat. Work quickly, but carefully, avoiding enough spray to cause runs, drips. Let dry overnight (at least 8 hrs, preferably 12).
2nd day - Using a rubber or felt sanding block, level with 320 grit paper used dry. Take down all ridges, runs, etc. The goal is to take down the "mountains and hills." Valleys of shiny, untouched lacquer will remain. Don't try to achieve a perfectly uniform result at this stage - you'll sand through to the wood. Use a flexible sanding pad on any curved surfaces. Spay a light complete coat and let dry one hour, recoat and let dry one hour then recoat and let dry over night.
3rd day - Level with 320 on rubber/felt block. The "mountains" will come down quickly and the areas of smoothly-sanded lacquer will be much larger, leaving much smaller "valleys" of shiny, un-sanded lacquer. The purpose of this leveling sanding is to eventually achieve a completely uniform, dull surface devoid of any irregularities, ridges, nibs and drips. Apply 3 coats as above, one hour apart and let dry over night.
4th day. Level the surface as above. It should sand very easily and the valleys should completely merge with the hills. The entire surface should look completely uniform and flat with a ground-glass appearance. If there are still some shiny valleys that do not easily sand out, go through another day's spraying schedule.
Let the job dry for 2 to 3 weeks at least. Rubbing out phase. "Lacquer" is a solution of a synthetic resin (nitrocellulose, cellulose acetate butyrate acrylic), plasticizers, other solids which affect adhesion, evaporation retardants and solvents and thinners. When dry, it's the residual resin, modified by the plasticizers and other solids that is the actual finish.
Start with 400 grit wet-or-dry abrasive paper. You can use it dry, or wet it with paint thinner or naphtha or with a water solution containing one drop of liquid dish washing detergent per quart of water. Achieve a perfectly uniform scratch pattern at that grit. If working dry, you can see your progress as you sand. If working with a lubricant, you have to dry the surface from time to time.
Then switch to 600 grit. It should go very rapidly. You simply want to remove the 400 grit scratch pattern with the 600. No leveling is done at these grits, that all was accomplished at 320.
Then use 4-0 steel wool, then automotive polishing compound (white). This will leave a highly polished, glass-like surface that may appear slightly cloudy. Follow with Meguiars "Scratch X" (a fine clay called Kaon). For small jobs a soft cloth and hand power will work beautifully. For large jobs you can get a power polisher. In a few minutes, you will have a blemish-free, mirror finish that looks a foot deep.
Hand matchting, saw splicing and taping veneers also takes a lot of practice, but can be mastered. There are some good books that can be found on vneering on Amazon.
These things end up weighing around 225 lbs each, so you will need some help with them during the build process.
There are easier ways to do this project if any of this is a bit overwhelming.
I’ve been hobby woodworking on and off for about 30 years; a mixture of furniture for myself and speaker enclosures for a few designers who were acquaintances.
