Spraying formica or melamine

[Woody Alan]

Hi All,

I have been acquiring some secondhand speakers, one by one cheaply because they are all different finishes. Although they claim to be wood veneer they seem to be formica type of material. My intention is to spray them a Gloss or satin black. What I want to know is if anyone has had success with an etching/bonding primer designed for this (or not) and what sort of paint will give the best/toughest finish. Failing that I will have to peel of the laminate and veneer them, but that is a very fiddly job I could do without at the moment.

Cheers Alan

 

[9fingers]

You should be able to get paint to stick if you thoroughly abrade the surface to get rid of the top surface of the formica. Aim to get the brown layer to show through and rough surface to key the paint.
To be honest I can't think of anything worse looking than painted speakers but that is a personal opinion :lol:

If you do go down the veneering route, I see no need to take off the formica first as something like evostick (real solvent version) will hold veneer down.

hth

Bob

 

[Woody Alan]

Bob,

Under normal circumstances I would agree about the painted finsh not being agreeable. The thing is these are very small speakers and all the edges are radiused (hence their name Monitor audio radius) so painting them into an unobtrusive background for the time being seemed the way to go. At the moment I cannot see an easy way round the radiused edges. Although I might have to rout out 90 degrees into each radius and glue in a strip and then machine back to get a square corner. 5 speakers 12 edges per speaker 60 fiddly jobs just to get to a starting point. Please don't any audiophiles say it'll affect the sonic audio characteristics etc because that isn't important to my ears to that degree, I doubt I could tell the difference as long as I don't affect the inner chamber.

Alan

 

[xy mosian]

Interesting this. At least one loudspeaker cabinet manufacturer, in the eighties, used an extremely thin real wood veneer with a bonded flexible plastic laminate. This was laid on to a chipboard core in much the same way as a 'normal' vinyl imitation wood finish. I am not sure the best way to treat this prior to painting, but the surface is much softer than Formica so use care!

xy

 

[Woody Alan]

used an extremely thin real wood veneer with a bonded flexible plastic laminate

Well that is what this must be because they say it's real wood veneer but the bottom of one speaker has had a knock and a piece split out and it dfinately is like a plastice laminate. The surface of the veneer doesn't feel like wood either. I can see me having to strip it of to the base layer eventually but would just like a reasonable solution for the time being.
Alan

 

[promhandicam]

International Paints Melamine Primer

Steve

 

[petermillard]

Or Dulux Super Grip Primer will do the job.

Pete

 

[studders]

Or this stuff. Scroll down a nats for ESP.