A paint question.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'm in the process of re-furbishing a pair of pro loudspeakers for re-sale and hopefully a vast profit. ;-)

Most of the ones I've seem before are teak veneer over plywood.

This pair have a factory black finish. But not like any black ash veneer I've ever seen - I'm pretty certain it is just paint over the teak original. But definitely a factory job by the original self adhesive labels.

The paint has rubbed through on the odd edge showing the teak underneath. Some blemishes too on the tops - but nothing too bad.

The paint is pretty thinly applied looking at the chips etc. And the grain of the teak shows through. I'd describe the finish as satin. There's also no sign of a different colour undercoat that I can see.

The backs of the speakers with the maker's labels are just fine so don't need re-painting. So all I really need to do is a light sand of the tops, and re-paint those.

But what sort of paint to use?

[Nightjar]

Loudspeaker paint?

[Martin Brown]

Probably an oil based satin finish black - though try out the proposed paint first on a piece of thin scrap ply to check that the lustre is right. Then try it on a bare bit of the real wood preferably out of sight so that if it does something strange it won't show.

It is surprisingly difficult to match a colour and surface finish at the same time. Even allowing for black being nominally an absence of light.

[Lee]

A pretty good paint sprayer I know reckons black is the most difficult colour to match or blend. I'd have thought it would have been white, but apparently not.

[spuorgelgoog]

Is Annie Sloan chalk paint still fashionable, or have we moved on?

Or Black 2.0 or Vantablack if you can get it.

Owain

[tabbypurr]

Whatever you use, definitely spray it. I'd use any solvent based stuff.

NT

[newshound]

Just a thought, but I suspect that some devices from the days of my youth actually used a black *stain* on top of teak or whatever, rather than a paint. As someone else said, black is a bugger to match. If you are trying to match up patches, a merit of stain is that you can hand-apply it on a cloth and cotton wool pad. And even if you sand everything back to clean wood, you can still get a good finish with hand application instead of spraying.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I wondered about that given the apparent lack of an undercoat and the very prominent grain.

Food for thought. Can't say I've ever seen black stain on sale - I'll have to look. Certainly worth a punt on some scrap to see how it looks.

[Rob Morley]

I wish. The number of nice old chairs etc. I see on eBay that have been "upcycled" (i.e. had the patina destroyed) with Annie Sloan used as a supposed selling point ...

[Rob Morley]

I got some satin black paint from Wilko a while back that went on nicely. I'd try brushing a couple of light coats first, with perhaps a light rub down with wire-wool - spraying edges without over-spraying the rest won't be easy.

[newshound]

It's certainly around. I used to have some once which was spirit based and halfway between a stain and a varnish, so it left a waterproof finish.

[alan_m]

Has the black stain of yesteryear been re-formulated so it no longer works as well as the stuff you could obtain when the speakers were made?

[Rob Morley]

Isn't just about everything heading towards a "solvent-free" world where things no longer kill us, we just wish they did because things that used to work well are now rubbish/hard work?

[Huge]

*applause*

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Aided an abetted by business. Since something that doesn't work as well will need replacing more frequently. Which does make me wonder who initiates these 'H&S' type things.

[Max Demian]

Yeah, like Tipp-Ex. Takes ages to dry.