Some of you may remember that I posted a question here about tiling over
an existing laminate counter. Well, it's done, and I wanted to report
back here in case it might be useful for anyone with similar questions.

The customer (a friend, actually) wanted new tile counters. The existing
counters were 60s or 70s-style Formica, complete w/rolled lip, over
particle board. After removing the counters, the plan was to either put
plywood over the laminate, and Wonderboard over the ply, or, as we
realized would be possible after starting to strip the counters, put
Wonderboard directly over the particle board.

I say "after starting to strip the counters", as we did start to rip the
Formica off the countertop: this, however, turned out to be such a
massive pain in the ass that we quickly abandoned the idea. Would have
taken many hours to accomplish this. Then I posted my question here, and
also did some searching on the Web.

What we discovered was that you can actually put Wonderboard directly
over Formica. This was something I wouldn't have believed either, but
after a trip to a local tile store with a good reputation, this was
confirmed.

The trick is to use the mortar that we already had bought, which was
polymer-modified (*not* latex-modified), which will basically stick to
anything (well, not sure about glass, but just about anything else).
Just to be sure, we scuffed up the Formica with coarse sandpaper.

Everything went on smoothly; the counter is now in use, and shows no
signs of weakness.


--
Just as McDonald's is where you go when you're hungry but don't really
care about the quality of your food, Wikipedia is where you go when
you're curious but don't really care about the quality of your knowledge.

- Matthew White's WikiWatch (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wikiwoo.htm)