This is just not right

[Dave Lehnert]

I have spent the last month or so building a tall storage cabinet out of maple for a friend. Now the task of applying the finish.
I was given a drawer to match the new cabinet finish. The existing cabinets are vinyl on MDF.:eek:
So I am trying to make a well built solid maple cabinet look a like a Wal-Mart entertainment center. :eek:

[glenn bradley]

This wasn't discussed at the start!?!

Zinsser B.I.N. primer will hide all traces of your quality work and can be tinted. That way, even if your piece gets scratched, the secret of your fine craftsmanship can most likely remain a secret. A semi-gloss paint, sprayed on, will closely approximate the melamine.

[Bill Huber]

Just put a Made in China sticker on it and they will never know the difference.


I agree what you are doing is WRONG...... covering good wood like that.

[Jay Brewer]

Around here, they would want it priced like Wal Mart also.

[Peter Quinn]

Uggh. I made a maple door and drawer front once as a replacement for a kitchen full of thermo foil doors. i tried to finish to match, but once hung the one beautiful door made the others look like crap. I wound up having to track down a matching thermo foil and keep the maple door as a shop sample!

I feel your pain. Can you just make it nice and let your friends deal with it, or does it have to look like junk?

[David DeCristoforo]

http://www.daviddecristoforo.com/Misc/head-smack.gif

[Rafael Carias]

Maybe you should have made it out of mdf :p

[Anthony Whitesell]

I have nearly the same project. I have a coffee table my in-laws wanted duplicated. Luckily, they only wanted the design copied and close to the same finish. I didn't have to copy the vinyl faux-wood on particle board look.

I have made it of red oak finished with blonde shellac and cabot gloss varnish.

[roman fedyk]

Just tell him you lost it and keep it for yourself....Dam shame to go to all that work and then hide that beautiful maple...

[Jeffrey Makiel]

I don't understand. Aren't we talking about finishes here, not materials or construction? :confused:

What difference does it make if the stain color for their project is taken from a sample of a melamine board, a photo in a magazine, actual sample of wood, or the picture on side of a can of stain at the store?

Besides, commercial melamine mdf patterns really do a great job at copying a real grain appearance. These days, to say it would be ugly, is to say real wood is ugly too.

Unless I'm missing something, I bet your work is going to look great and probably outlast the cheap stuff standing next to it. :)

-Jeff :)

[mickey cassiba]

Not exactly the same thing, but close. When we moved to Texas we bought an OLD mobile home in a retirement park. Built by TIMPTE in 1960 with real wood(Ash, I believe) paneling and cabinetry all Poplar and Ash. Charlotte, a great watcher of the DIY network, has decided that she wants(me)to mud and tape the paneling, so that she can paint. Then I am to take down all the cabinet doors and drawers and sand so that she can paint.
Go figger...

[ROY DICK]

[QUOTE=Bill Huber;1219734]Just put a Made in China sticker on it and they will never know the difference.

ROFL.

Roy

[Rich Neighbarger]

Not exactly the same thing, but close. When we moved to Texas we bought an OLD mobile home in a retirement park. Built by TIMPTE in 1960 with real wood(Ash, I believe) paneling and cabinetry all Poplar and Ash. Charlotte, a great watcher of the DIY network, has decided that she wants(me)to mud and tape the paneling, so that she can paint. Then I am to take down all the cabinet doors and drawers and sand so that she can paint.
Go figger...


Buy her some canvas.

[Vince Shriver]

Buy her some canvas.


Perfect solution!!

[Kelly Craig]

I can relate from so many angles. A couple years ago, a lady had me come out to her Street-of-Dreams-Home to repair water damage, which kept reoccurring to the exterior siding. The siding was swelling and disintegrating, so was garbage to begin with.

The damaged siding was of panels made to look like T&G horizontal cedar siding (three boards to a panel). No one sold replacement material. On a whim, I bought dried cedar fence boards and a three inch raised panel router bit. I then removed the bearing and ground its mount off, which allowed me to keep moving the board over until I had the same depths and width of cut as the original boards. Finally, I gave each board a tongue and a groove that would mate with the original product.

When I got everything back on, I primed it, sealed the knots and applied two coats of latex. Once dried, you could not tell where the cedar started and stopped and the particle board started.

I have to laugh at the thought of trying to closely imitate cheap with quality.

By the way, this was her fourth repair. I installed a ninety-nine cent piece of flashing and the problem has not returned in five years of Northwet weather.

Somewhat on a parallel to this is that I often have people come to me asking that I duplicate that bedroom set they saw downtown. Of course, they expect it to be fractionally as expensive as the mass produced item.

[Kelly C. Hanna]

I see he hasn't replied yet....but what makes everyone think the vinyl isn't woodgrain?