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cab covering opinion
SNAAAKE:
--- Quote from: Nervous on March 05, 2003, 02:38:11 pm ---For the quality of the finish, and the savings in time and effort, I'd say laminate is well worth the money.
You'll of course need a router though...
--- End quote ---
Everything in my cab is done without a router..i did the t-molding slots with a dremel.And cut laminate with plexi glass cutter..score it couple of times and snap..works great(its cheap solution for me) :)
Frostillicus:
--- Quote from: Xphile on March 05, 2003, 12:19:16 am ---It's a serious pain in the ass to really hide grain well even on sanded high quality ply. I made a couple side pieces to replace the damaged ones on my space harrier and I must've sprayed 6 coats of primer over a week and a half (high quality stuff we use at work) filling and sanding between coats before I was really satisfied it was glass perfect (even on the edge grain:-) . got them home, applied them, and 1.5 months later a couple fine cracks began to appear on each side running with the grain...totally pissed me off. >:( I was gonna leave them gloss white, but I have to find some kind of signmaking sheet vinyl to made replactment artwork now..
I dunno if it's normal, but with laminate you don't have to risk it..
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Actually that's not normal if you do it right - look at the finish on the cab i made(link under avatar) .
It's very simple - if you go with wood and do not want the grain to show at all, ever, then follow these few steps:
-Get "Sanding Sealer" from woodworking store
-brush it on 2-3 coats of it, sanding very lightly between coats with fine sandpaper to remove the rough spots. This should only take about 1 days of drying per coat in the current northern weather.
-find a nice wide, fine finishing roller for painting, and roll on some paint. I used 2 coats I think.
I used a high gloss black and it's highly reflective with no polishing but with a slight texture left over from the roll on brush. I prefer that to a plastic looking covering like laminate.
But speaking of laminate - snaaake where did you get yours for that cheap, is it a national store like Home depot or a local place in NY?
SNAAAKE:
--- Quote from: Frostillicus on March 05, 2003, 10:35:18 pm ---
But speaking of laminate - snaaake where did you get yours for that cheap, is it a national store like Home depot or a local place in NY?
--- End quote ---
What i meant was the plain black laminate cost $14 per 4x8 sheets..the wood looking onces cost like $60 a pop :o.
the one i used..just black didnt look right.
its a laminate place where all they sell is laminate..there was like 1000 designs to choose from :o.
They have the black onces for only $14 while home depot sells the exact same thing for $46 a sheet :-\(thats my local).
Xphile:
--- Quote from: Frostillicus on March 05, 2003, 10:35:18 pm ---
--- Quote from: Xphile on March 05, 2003, 12:19:16 am --- I dunno if it's normal, but with laminate you don't have to risk it..
--- End quote ---
Actually that's not normal if you do it right - look at the finish on the cab i made(link under avatar) .
--- End quote ---
I was talking about the hairline cracks not being normal, not the grain.., the grain wasn't showing after the second primer...it was the edge grain that I put the rest of the coats on for..didn't wanna use t-mold :-)..turned out great except for the cracks...I'll take a pic and edit with it in a bit..
<edit>
thumbnail:
Really hard to get a good picture of these, but about 2 inches to the left of the blue lines (Crack is running vertical) is one of them (of two on this side).. the paint itself hasn't cracked, it's the top layer of ply underneath that's cracked.
full size (33kb) here:
http://members.shaw.ca/space_harrier/sh.jpg
spidermonkey:
A $32.00 difference :o That doesn't sound right to me. That can't possibly be the same stuff. I know for a fact that Home Depot doesn't make as much of a profit on an item as you would think. They profit from selling sheer quantity. I install overhead doors for a living and I happen to know that they only make $1.00 yeh thats right 1 measely doller on each standard size garage door they sell. They practiclly cut their own throat on the sale just to keep you from buying the door from somebody else because they know that chances are you will buy other stuff while you're there. So I find it hard to believe that they would be THAT much higher then another retailer that is most likely smaller then them. With markup percentages like that nobody would buy from them. I could be wrong but $14.00 for a whole sheet of laminate sounds unrealistic to me. If I am wrong then by all means post the store or manufacturer that sells it for that cheap. I'll be stocking up on it. :D