Techniques for Painting MDF to Get an Antique Finish
George VondriskaDescription
Many woodworkers have a love/hate relationship with MDF. The good news is that it’s very inexpensive, and machines well. The bad news is that MDF isn’t much to look at. This leaves a lot of woodworkers wondering about techniques for painting MDF.
Antiquing
The real gee whiz part of the technique we’re teaching in this video is that it can give your MDF projects an antique look. This is done by using a combination of paint types, and wiping through the top coat to expose the lower layer. When it comes together the way it should, it’s an amazing effect. When you use this technique to paint MDF not only will it look antiqued, but it will also look like it was made from metal, not wood.
Sheet goods
Although this video concentrates on MDF, it’s important to know that there are many types of sheet stock available to you. Choose the right sheet stock for your project is an important first step in ensuring that your woodworking project is well crafted.
Mastering finishing
Finishing can be intimidating, leaving lots of woodworkers concerned about messing up the project they’ve worked so hard to create. WoodWorkers Guild of America wants to help you get your finishing just right. One of the most important choices you can make is in choosing a brush for your top coat. Be sure to check out the info we have on that topic.
MDF is a great product to work with because it's inexpensive at machines. Well, the downside is when you're looking at raw MDF it's not much to look at. That's how this started out. I cut that on a CNC machine. And then what I did is I used this beaten copper paint to get an undercoat on here. The beaten copper itself is pretty cool product makes it look a little bit like metal. Now what I'm going to do to take it one step further and give it a little bit of an antique look as I'm going to take this green and I'm going to give it a shot. And we want to act fairly quickly here because we don't really want the green to dry because what we're going to do is direct. When I'm going to take a paintbrush and start pulling some of that green off, and this is what we want at the brush strokes, like I just hit on the saw hair. We don't want this to level back out. We want it to look randomized. So we're trying to pull the green off to expose the beaten copper that's below it. Now this is something, this is a art, not a science. There are lots and lots of different colors of green in the marketplace. If you look for something that would kind of fall into a very day category it would actually probably have a little more aqua to it than the green I'm putting on this one. So when you're working with MDF and you want to give it a little bit different look kind of unique and a little bit antiquey. Try this base coat of beaten copper with a top coat of Verdi or green that you're then going to pull through to expose the beaten copper below. I've got one down here that's already dry and it'll get you toward something like that. So I'm going to pull a little bit I'm going to pull a little bit more green off of this one. And wrap this up try this the next time you're working with MDF.
Would one be able to put this outside or the rock finish if using an outdoor finish on MDF?
I am unable to watch the video, there's nothing there??