| Question: | Someone told me that Formica can be repaired, and that you also can paint it to renew it. Is this true? |
| Answer: | A firm, flat "no" is the reply I received when I posed this question to Formica spokesman William B. Roush at the International Builders Show in Orlando last week. By the way, the company is Formica, but the product is laminate, and the manufacturing process is the same today as when the company began making it in the early 20th century.
Laminated plastic is made of papers and resins. The papers - brown Kraft paper and high-grade print paper - are saturated with phenolic and melamine resins and dried, then stacked in layers and pressed under heat. In the press, the resin is cured under high pressure, and the separate layers of paper consolidate to form a single sheet. Although the resulting material is durable and versatile, if you hit it with a hammer or gouge it with a knife, you cannot repair it, Roush said. When you put a hot metal pot on a laminate countertop, it will leave a burn mark that cannot be removed. It also cannot be painted to renew it, Roush said. Even if you succeed in getting a coat of paint on the surface, it won't last, or even adhere, since the process used to create the countertops is designed to repel water and the laminate isn't porous. |
This from The Philadelphia Inquirer, Your Place, by Alan J. Heavens.