On Fri, 5 Sep 2003 19:22:09 +0100, "Amadeus" wrote:

I've been looking at re-painting some melamine units and furniture
to freshen them up, but I am horrified at the price of the primer.

Does anyone know of a substitute which might work? It looks rather
like some sort of PVA based goo, and I wonder if just using a PVA
mix might be as effective?

Has anyone ever used this stuff before and what could be used
instead? If used, can a normal gloss be painted on top, or does it
have to be some specialist paint?

My sister-in-law used this primer on some bedroom units and then
painted them with normal eggshell, and this looked fine to me.



I needed to do a similar job and did some experiments.

On all test pieces, I lightly abraded the surface and degreased as
recommended.

I used a standard primer, a melamine primer and a multipurpose primer
(OPE or some such name) that claimed to work on anything.

All were applied according to the instructions and then overcoated
with a sand effect paint as one option and an F&B eggshell as the
other.

A week later, I did tests with a light wipe to clean and a heavier
scrubbing, plus scratching with a finger nail to see of the paint
would come off.

The special multipurpose primer was totally useless. More than a
light wipe had the paint coming off. The standard primer was
reasonable, but a heavy scrub took it off, as did the fingernail.

The melamine primer worked well, standing up to all the scrubbing, and
I had to scratch with a screwdriver to mark it.

So, I think that it depends on the durability that you would like to
have.


..andy

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