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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