Advice needed painting 8-10 MDF Desks

[BedlingtonBusiness]

Hi this is my first post here and am looking for some advice.

I am in need of roughly 8-10 desks for a small office but am on a very limited budget and for this reason have decided to go ahead and build the desks. I am thinking that building out of MDF will be the most cost effective but am a little worried about the finish.

The desks will be used in a small business centre so the appearance is important, they need to have a clean contemporary look.

What advice can you give me for painting (particularly the desktops as obviously these will receive the greatest wear and tear)?

I was thinking of spraying the MDF but I only have access to a small electric spray gun will this suffice or am i looking at having to hire?

I need to keep costs to a minimum as this is a pilot venture.

Thanks in advance.

- Andy

 

[Zampa]

Well if they clean and no finger prints or glue marks etc you might want to think about varnishing them, use a satin or eggshell varnish, it will help stop the surface being marked and makes them easy to clean.

Two coats should do...thin the first....rub down then apply another.....but three will be better.

And use oil based not water.....it brings out the colour better.

 

[paintycait]

they need to have a clean contemporary look.

What advice can you give me for painting (particularly the desktops as obviously these will receive the greatest wear and tear)?

I was thinking of spraying the MDF but I only have access to a small electric spray gun will this suffice or am i looking at having to hire?

Zampa's idea is definitely the quickest and uses the least material and time but personally I don't particularly like the look of just varnished MDF.

You could also try staining the timber with wood dye before varnishing, that would hide the MDF "look" of the things. If you have screws that will show on the outside, then rather than filling them, if you neatly countersink them you can get screw head covers in a variety of colours that they use in kitchen fitting etc.

If you decide to paint them one of the best primers for MDF is Zinsser 123, we use it for all the MDF kitchens we paint and it gives a very solid finish, can be sanded back to a very smooth finish and copes well with that end grain (so to speak) you end up with on sawn and routered edges.

Hammerite will give you a great contemporary finish and comes in some funky colours. It's foul to work with tho' so get a respirator. It comes in rattlecans and if not used that way (which is the most expensive way to buy it) is certainly best sprayed as it is a very sticky paint to use and if you use it through your sprayer you will need to clean up very quick when you finish as this stuff dries very quickly. I've used it through an HVLP but can't comment on your own sprayer for use...check the tin...I don't know enough about sprayers to be sure.

Alternatively gloss... the whole gammut of colours, hardwearing and easy to paint over if you change the look at a later date.

Cait

 

[Zampa]

Hello Cait nice to see you back,

Another flash of inspiration..what about stenciling?..it doesnt have to be bunches of grapes and or vine leaves either , you can make your own.

Acetate sheet...the type used for OHP's is great and durable but dont used the stuff thats for printing on...if it gets wet it goes slimy.

Use thin emulsion direct onto the MDF, couple of coats maybe...dont make the normal mistake when stenciling and pile on too much..then, apply your varnish over the top.

I have a feeling the sprayer you have is one of those all in one elcric things, they wont be any good for the flat horizontal areas of your cupboards/units...unless you paint one side and then let it dry then turn the unit onto its edge..lots of buggering about really, and dispite the marketing hype...you wont get a factory car body type finish.

Cait gave you some good suggestions too..whatever you use, id ditch the sprayer it could make hard work of it plus given the very finish of MDF surface imperfections may show up badly. Id go for a foam mini roller.

 

[petewood]

If I were doing this job using my own spray-equipment I would use a 2-pack paint which is very hard-wearing, but I don't know if a cheap electric gun will do as good a job. It probably would be pretty reasonable even if you have to thin the paint a bit to get it through the nozzle and it would certainly be the quickest option.

Another method you could try is to put on 2 coats of emulsion and sand well after each coat. Then put on one or two coats of polyurethane varnish which is hard-wearing. You can get this stuff anywhere. You can try spraying it on but you will definately need to thin the emulsion with water (in which case you will need more coats and more drying time) and you may need to thin the varnish. You should still be able to get a good finish painting it on by hand as long as you put enough coats on and sand well between all coats.

 

[Zampa]

Or swap the emulsion for oil based primer...even thinned out undercoat, I find that water based paints, even the mdf primers tend to swell the grain in the wood.

 

[petewood]

Or swap the emulsion for oil based primer...even thinned out undercoat, I find that water based paints, even the mdf primers tend to swell the grain in the wood.

The reason I suggested the emulsion was that he could have picked his colour to go under the varnish. Although I must admit I don't use water-based very often I have never known it to swell the mdf as long as the edges are sanded.

 

[Zampa]

Or swap the emulsion for oil based primer...even thinned out undercoat, I find that water based paints, even the mdf primers tend to swell the grain in the wood.

The reason I suggested the emulsion was that he could have picked his colour to go under the varnish. Although I must admit I don't use water-based very often I have never known it to swell the mdf as long as the edges are sanded.

Sorry I didnt make myself quite clear there, when I said 'swell' i didnt mean swell as expand the wood as if it had been left in water...I meant the various fibres that make up the surface of the MDF its self..some of it raises up leaving a mini woodchip effect...this can be lessened by using oil based primer slightly.

 

[Thermo]

on a similar note i had to spray 3 large cabinets i made from mdf for a bed and breakfast. I used dulux trade emulsion, which on the advice of dulux was only thinned slightly and then i gave it several coats of a water based varnish that wasnt thinned at all. I did give it a quick coat of car paint primer first and sealed the edges of mdf with a smear of epoxy filler. Theyve been in there a year, used every day and they still look very good.
I only used a cheap air sprayer (£50 jobbie for the compressor with an additional spray gun for £30)