I was looking for an alternative to ContiBoard. A search for laminated board does not bring up manufacturers or suppliers.
I want to buy 18mm Beech laminated in chipboard or MDF. The material I see in B&Q however leaves me cold.
Who supplies the material that high quality desk and bookcase manufacturers use?
Beemer
Is that the `photograph of beech stamped on melamine' type? There's a very good reason why that stuff looks a bit like plastic...
Virtually all proper timber merchants stock blockboard/ MDF/ [various grades of] plywood (and probably chipboard) with good quality veneers laminated onto one or both faces. The range of veneer facings stocked at any particular merchant is limited and might, or might not, include beech.
The larger, more serious, sort of proper timber merchants have their own presses and will laminate any combinations of veneers from an impressive range of species onto a stock board for you. You will often have to give them several days notice for this.
Both sorts are listed in the yellow pages and IME are happy to supply DIY'ers---because they usually charge higher unit prices for small numbers of boards. The merchants with which I have dealt almost exclusively deal in 2440*1220mm boards. YMMV.
Mark,
Sorry I should have qualified my use of the words "high quality". I'm building a bedroom wardrobe so real veneer is too expensive for me. My desk is top is 25mm thick plastic laminated board. The surface and the edges are miles ahead of Contiboard brand product. It is this type of material in 18mm that I do not know where to purchase.
Beemer
How do you know? It sounds like you have talked yourself out of using real wood veneers without having even investigated whether they are as expensive as you think.
The sort of boards I am talking about use effectively the same processes and materials as are used to make the faces of plywood doors---which are not exactly known for their great expense (B&Q only seem to have fire doors of this type these days). In fact, I've boxed my bath in with sapele-faced plywood/ solid stock and intend to replace a fitted wardrobe with the same when I've gathered a sufficiency of circular 'tuits. I fully expect the material costs to be lower than the price of a flat-pack wardrobe from a furniture shed.
You might find that boards with decorative faces in a relatively common wood like beech are cheaper per unit area than the Contiboards in B&Q. Indeed, once you've visited a decent timber merchant or three and compared the prices/ quality with DIY shed timber, you might begin to wonder how the sheds manage to get away with extorting money from the public to the extent that they do.
Of course; if you wanted some top graded rare species applied to an unusual sized board, then it might be prohibitively expensive. But from your description, I'm not convinced that your wardrobe falls into this category.
Have you got any close-up pictures of the surface/ edges of your desk that you can put on a website? Are you sure that it's not a real wood veneer sprayed with a hard lacquer?
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