I am always on the lookout for new products for my customers. I have a few hospital end user customers so whenever a door company says they have manufacturered an indestructible door I am all over it.
Maiman recently came out with a thermally fused door that is supposed to hold up to tough environments. The doors are fused to a substrate core using high heat and pressure which creates a durable door that will not delaminate or telegraph. The key word for me was durable so I called and asked if they offered a try me door and thankfully they said yes.
The door arrived and my customer hung the door in a soiled laundry room. Well darned if within 30 minutes someone moving one of the large blue fiberglass carts scratched the door. I couldn’t believe it.
I emailed my Maiman representative the next day and told him what happened. Apparently Maiman has a repair kit that will help with most scratches, similar to a furniture stick. The repair kit finally came in and last night the very wonderful rep and I went out to the jobsite and gave it a try.
The door was a custom finish to match the hospital standard so none of Maiman’s standard color sticks were an exact match and a darker color stick was sent. Next time it might be better if both a dark and light color stick were sent. We worked on the scratch for about 30 minutes and while it certainly isn’t perfect it did look better.
I will be honest I am not completely sold on the Maiman door. The pro - it is reasonably priced and except for the 1 scratch the door looks good. The con – it only took 30 minutes before it was scratched.
Here are before and after pictures of the scratch - what do you think?
Hmmm...I'm dismayed that it was that easy to so deeply scratch the door so quickly. Seems they need to work on their finishes.
ReplyDeleteA - I agree. Thanks for commenting!
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI've seen this door in the marketplace, but not seen in use. My suspicions are proven in your blogpost. I don't feel that thin printed veneer is not going to hold up in a hospital or any other tough environment.
By the way, I try to blog myself; feel free to cruise over to blog.phillips-langley.com for our musings.