Can You Paint Straight Onto Hardboard?
If you are going to paint some hardboard you may be wondering if you can paint straight onto it? Or do you need to prime it or do any other prep work? Well, let’s have a look and find out.
Yes, you can paint straight onto hardboard. Emulsion, Gloss and Satinwood can all be painted straight onto hardboard with no need for primer.
Hardboard is actually a really nice surface to paint onto. Such a nice surface in fact that artists often use it to paint onto.

If you are planning on using the hardboard for art then do use an undercoat before painting. I am obviously no art expert but this seems to be the advice from those that are.
If you are just using the hardboard for decorating then you don’t need to prime.
Can You Prime Hardboard?
Yes, there is no reason why you cant prime hardboard before painting it.
If you have some primer to hand and the time to spare then go ahead. Nothing bad will happen.
Priming can help to strengthen your top layer of paint and also prevent any bleed-through of colour from the hardboard below.
So you can do it if you want to, you just don’t strictly need to.
Why Is One Side Textured?
Often you will find that one side of your hardboard is smooth and the reverse side is heavily textured.

This is leftover from the manufacturing process. There are two ways that hardboard is made, a wet way and a dry way.
If you see this texture then it just shows that the hardboard was made with the wet method.
The wet fibres are pressed together under incredibly high pressure and this texture is left on the reverse side of the hardboard.
What Is Hardboard?
Hardboard is the harder brother to MDF. MDF stands for medium-density fibreboard, hardboard is high-density fibreboard.
It is stronger than MDF and much denser. The fibres used in hardboard are exploded fibres which are then highly compressed. This is what allows it to reach such high density and strength.
Hardboard is often used as pegboard, or in furniture construction, particularly as a backer board.
You don’t see hardboard in thick sheets, you only ever see it in the really thin sheets.
I’m guessing this is because a thick sheet would be incredibly heavy and probably stupidly expensive as well.
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