Melamine is one of those products that is so extremly non porous that it's really hard to paint. There are two ways of going about this. One way you can get a 2 part epoxy paint made for ceramic tile and formica... however this is oil based and takes months upon months to offgas. It also runs arond $60-$75/gallon.



A cheaper and easier way to do it would be to use a primer that will adhere to melamine. This won't work as well or as long as the epoxy will... but I think that it should hold up well. This primer is called Zinzer Bulls Eye 1-2-3... they sell it at home depot. Depending on what color you want to paint the top coat you may want to tint the primer to get a better top coat color, however I would NOT get the deep tint base primer.



Some colors like reds are translucent in nature, so you need a medium to dark gray to get the true red out. (same is true with a few modifications to other colors.) The deep tint base bulls eye 1-2-3 is going to have less white pigment in it, so you can get more black colorant in the can...giving you a deeper base color. However the white is mixed with something else and this forms a portion of the adhesive. When you lose that you lose some adhesive to it... so just tell them you want the regular bulls eye 1-2-3. Then i'd reccomend a behr semi gloss over the top of that.



In my chondro cage I actually put down a primer then a semigloss paint, THEN put a layer of FRP down over the entire inside of the cage. I have put so much money and work into these cages I want them to last for a LONGGGG time! lol.
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