Laminates for a Westfalia Cherry interior - Market research

Due to the number of images, this thread has to be posted over a number of posts.

The condition of my interior is very poor with very few panels being without chips or scratches, and the side panels being completely faded, so I want to refurbish it.
One option for the furniture is to gradually replace each panel with others that come up for sale but this will take a long time and at today's prices, very costly. The next option is to re laminate the bad areas. Unfortunately for me, this is 80-90% of the units so although this will mean a lot of man hours (I will DIY), I reckon on 2 to 3 sheets of laminate at a cost of about £100 per sheet plus glue so should be more cost effective. As I am planning to do the whole interior though, it should look like new.
For the side panels I do not reckon on laminate as they are pretty thin and trimming the laminate will be more hassle than it is worth, if at all possible for my skills. So I thought about 'Sticky Back Plastic' (Blue Peter influence from the 70's seems appropriate) as an alternative.
So the next step was to get some samples which are available free from all of the manufacturers mentioned in this thread. The result in my opinion, is that you cannot match the original laminate whether it be through woodgrain, hue, or new v old. However, you may decide yourself that one of the laminates below is close enough for the one or two patches you need.
In the thread below you will find alot of pictures with an index at the end. Each sample in a picture is numbered to help you find the name/manufacturer for each one.
First photos are samples against the locker door (cleaned and polished) in the conservatory and therefore under daylight.

 

The next ones are the same comparisons but indoors under artificial light with no daylight

 

Still with me ? As I intend to replace all laminate, I then started to match up the different laminate samples with Plastic samples. First daylight.





And then indoors (with door for comparison)





Finally the index


Summary
Apologies for the length of the post and the number of hi res photos but I reckon if you were at all interested in trying to do your westy interior, you would want to see a (fairly) decent pic to compare.
So...I hope it helps you if you need to patch or want to do the whole lot. At the end of this I actually am thinking about covering in Plastic for this season and maybe re laminating through the 2013/4 winter in order that I have the van available when I need it with all furniture as the time to cover will be less than re laminating, but I'll think on it.

 

Great post dude and good on ya for taking the time to photo and post it all up

To me non of it matches enough so id go for one i like and do it all in that lol

 

Please don't use sticky back plastic.
Do any of these samples get oiled or something after fitting? This will drastically change the colours. Some of my light brown ply went red!

 

I think these are all melamine zed so plastic and printed fully finished.

 

I agree, though I think I will go for plastic on the side panels as trying to fix a laminate to a substrate and trimming without a router will be nigh on impossible due the material thickness.

What's wrong with the plastic on the side panels ? These were only paper in the first place I believe and not laminate. In th eflesh they are actually very similar in surface finish and texture to th elaminate. The trick will be ensuring they have a sound base to stick to.
None of them they need oiling, they are all self coloured.

 

It's just I see loads of Devons like this and the sticky backed plastic has shrunk, then expanded leaving it crinkly all over and sticky glue round the edges. Kind of puts me off the stuff.

 

I think the sound base will be a problem for the sticky back plastic, the most minute bit od dust or lump underneath will always annoy you, as temp option though fair enough.

To me it looks like you kinda want a cross between 15, 17 and 6,

Thanks for posting this up by the way, i will need to do the same later this year on my westy

 

Fair point on the Plastic guys, heat and dust will be a factor. For the furniture it will be laminate, just a question of whether I can get it done for this season or not. If not, the plastic will be a stop gap for this summer to make it feel better inside, especially when it looks like this at the mo.




For the side panels though, I am open to some help on how to use the laminate. Clearly it would look far better if it matched with cupboards.

 

Excellent bit of research. I can see why you want to get it done, though! Good luck with it

 

Lofty looks fine to me isn't that what they call patina

 

Ha ha. Will keep me busy for a while.

 

Some great research there. For me nos. 2 and 17 are the ones. You could do the side panels in no 2 as the originals on mine are not laminate anyway and not an exact match but that's how Westfalia supplied them, just thin ply with a stick on vinyl. Also although I don't think you'll be able to do much with the units with big pieces of laminate missing, the seat panel can look a lot better with some polish. I wonder how close the JK panels are to originals BTW - have you checked ? Hell of a price I know.

 

Andyv
I haven't checked the match with JK or any of the other suppliers that do new furniture as I really could not justify the cost for a bit of melamine plus it would cost a fortune for me to replace the amount i need to
Thanks for you feedback though.

 

Have you explored all of the suppliers of laminate and fablon to try for a better match to your units. I see you have plenty of samples, but maybe there is a better match available?

 

Where is Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen when you need him??

l like number 2.

 

17 for me.

 

For the plastic, I could only find D-C-Fix who had a decent range and I had to go to their HO in Germany for the samples. For the laminate, I searched on UK manufacturers/distributors so I knew I would be able to get it without problems. There may be more but to be honest, you have to draw the line somewhere. For me, nearly all of my furniture needs to be recovered so matching 100% to original does not really matter as it will be recovered anyhow. If i was trying to match to one or two panels, I might be tempted to carry on the search (but all my research on here and other forums suggest is there is no exact match).

 

As on your other post on a similar subject, here is a view of the side panels done with laminate (Resopal 'pure latino cherry' E4327-90 HGP to be precise)




This laminate is very close, but with no knots - I made the mistake of matching it to a dash table from a berlin, which I later realised was not quite the same as the main units. If I'd twigged this sooner, I would if used a completely different wood laminate, as I've ended up re-laminating the entire interior.