Getting a charge from melamine
How to mitigate the creation and transmission of static electricity during the handling thermofused melamine. April 2, 2002
Question
Yesterday I bought a unit of 3/4 thermofused melamine by American Laminates (not my normal brand). Today I started cutting it up into cabinet components. I was shocked by the amount of static electricity generated by handling these panels. Every time I touch a metal object, zap, and some of these jolts are pretty intense. Has anyone run across this?
Forum Responses
I experienced a similar situation, and had the opportunity to discuss it with the factory rep. Although my experience is with a different product type, and I haven't tried the solution yet, here is what he suggested. Use a piece of metal pull chain, like the little ball type you find on the pull switch lights, and lay it on the unit, with one end grounded. The theory being that the metal chain will provide a path to ground for the static. As you slide each sheet off, you are creating even more static, but hopefully the chain will continue to dissipate the accumulating charge, and the chain will slide off the sheet you are pulling and onto the top of the next sheet. He suggested hanging it overhead so I didn't have to worry about tripping on it.
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