Can you paint Melamine?

[ed_lang]

I have a customer who got me to cut a 3/16" groove in his doors and drawer fronts. Now he has called me and asked how to paint the Melamine and get the paint to stick.

Since I have no idea, I thought some of you good folks might now how to prime and paint this material.

All suggestions will be appreciated I am sure.

Ed

[thewoodcrafter]

You normaly don't paint melamine, thats why you can get it colors. And you sure can't paint a cut area of partical board without a lot of filling.
I would think you would have to scratch the heck out of it with sand paper before paint and I still don't know if it would stick over the long haul.
Just sell him Thermofoil doors with the design and color he wants.

[scott_smith]

That’s usually one of the properties that’s good about melamine. Nothing sticks to it.

Maybe he can match or contrast the color and paint just the grooves.

Scott

[davidp]

Use a polyurethane finish. We send ours out to to be done by professionals. The finish is indistinuishable to the original melamine but it has superior wear than the original mel. We only use white mel and then have it coloured later after it has been machined

[phil_o]

Dave,who are the professionals that do this sort of work?

[mikejohn]

Ed
Look here http://www.home-improvement-and-financing.com/painting-melamine-cabinet.html

...........mike

[davidp]

Phil,

Look in the Yellow Pages for finishers, those that spray lacquer usually will also spray ployurethane as well.

When spraying Poly becareful of the erdges as it will often not cover the edge properly and wil lead to only a very thin covering, we usually arris the edges just lightly and we find this helps with the coverage.

There are several polyurethane manufacturers who can supply the paint.

In our part of Sydney we have about 5 shops who specialise in spray poly and probably another dozen who will do the job if pushed.

regards,

[johnnie53]

I didn't think there was any such animal, paint that works on Melamine. Watching HGTV there's a home improvement show with this good looking woman Debbie Travis who often uses Melamine paint. I watched one show where they painted a entire Kitchen that was all Melamine. Her show is a British based show so Melamine Paint is most likely easy to find overseas vrs here. But it does exsist.