# Lacquer vs Formica



## damianpenney (Jun 22, 2007)

So I'm in the very early stages of thinking about a potential project that will have white sides. I'm considering either spraying with lacquer or potentially using something like Formica. Which of these options do you feel would give the more 'luxe' appearance? I'm not too familiar with how modern Formica looks/feels so any input appreciated.


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## pintodeluxe (Sep 12, 2010)

Sprayed lacquer or latex would look more luxurious than formica. The main benefit with paint is you can still shape / ease your edges as desired. With formica you are limited to square and gentle radius shapes.
Woodcrafters has a gravity feed hvlp gun for $34. It looks exactly like my Porter cable gun, which I really like. Get the 2mm tip kit for latex.
Best of luck


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## LeeJ (Jul 4, 2007)

Hi Damien;

Modern formica looks and feels just like old formica, it's just cleaner.

I would go with lacquer, too. Unless it was something that was going to take a beating.

Good to see you posting.

Lee


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## damianpenney (Jun 22, 2007)

Hi Lee  Yeah it's been a while - we moved house last summer so it's taken a while to get settled and get back into things. Electrician comes tomorrow to install a new sub-panel in my now much larger shop space so I'll be making some dust very shortly 

The only downside to the move is that the piece I'd been building for a specific spot in our old home no longer has a place to live so it's still only about 20% complete. Ah well  Figure I'll just shelve it and move on.


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## damianpenney (Jun 22, 2007)

New project is a credenza/media cabinet. I'd thought about buying one but the one I liked would be prohibitively expensive to ship from the East Coast so now I'm thinking I'll just build it myself.


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## damianpenney (Jun 22, 2007)

Look I'm going for is smooth white gloss sides - wood doors and interior. Sounding like lacquer is the way to go.


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## 33706 (Mar 5, 2008)

Makes me wonder, whatever happened to that plastic laminate that was solid color all the way through? It was briefly available in the late 70's, early 80's then disappeared. That ugly black substrate only looks good on.. black formica, and having those black substrate edges makes everything look like chunky commercial fixtures. Being able to wrap a piece of furniture in solid color laminate, with no black lines along every corner, would be awesome.


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## damianpenney (Jun 22, 2007)

Is formica not solid color all the way through?


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## 33706 (Mar 5, 2008)

Damian, most plastic laminates that I've ever worked with, formica, arborite and others had a thin topcoat of color pressed under high pressure to layers of resin-impregnated paper of a hideous brown/black color. When the edges are exposed on your project, they show that ugly line at every outside-corner joint. This was one of the reasons why Corian became popular, it is solid color all the way through. There was, some time ago, that some plastic laminates were available with same-color substrates, but I haven't seen any in quite a while.


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## cabmaker (Sep 16, 2010)

As far as I know color core is still available in 5-6 differant colors. The only one ive used was formica brand though its been several years.


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## bfd (Dec 23, 2007)

Hi Damian,

Whenever we asked to respond to an RFP at work the designer 9 out of 10 times calls out White High Gloss Lacquer vs. Laminate. Laminate as others have pointed out has a black substrate that will be visible. You could probably find color core in limited colors but Laminate also doesn't have the depth that a lacquer finish will have. It is like comparing wood to wood grain laminate. One looks rich and has depth while the other looks flat and and well… plastic looking. I would build the case and then have it professionally finished to get that luxe look unless of course you are comfortable/experienced at finishing with high gloss lacquer/paint. good luck sounds like a fun project.


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## bfd (Dec 23, 2007)

PS I wasn't aware that frank lloyd wright was on lumberjocks.


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