Advice on making contiboard cabinets

This must have come up before but I can't find info in the FAQ or the wiki.

I'm going to make up some cabinets out of contiboard using biscuit joints.

  1. Will ordinary PVA wood glue work at the corners (i.e. edge to face) or will I need to skim off the melamine surface with a router first?

  1. The advice I've seen is for biscuits every 12" - any problems in having them closer (how close)?

  2. Any better ideas than biscuits?

Alan

Reply to
Alan
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I doubt if wood glue will stick firmly to melamine (it can usually be chipped off when dry) so you will need to remove the melamine to a depth of about 2mm at least.

You might find that your biscuit cutter breaks through your contiboard (5/8" - 16mm) so it would be worth doing a test to see which biscuits will fit - if any. You can get thicker contiboard - B&Q sell 18mm.

There are plenty of good mechanical fixings (no glue) available to do this job which you might consider unless you're determined to use biscuits. If you do use biscuits there's no practical close limit except to ensure that they don't overlap.

Look at

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for a variety of mechanical fixings. Try 'pinging' The Medway Handyman here for his opinion on which are the best mechanical fixings as he seems to do a lot of flat-pack assembly for clients.

Cic.

Reply to
Cicero

I'd suggest either:

  1. Not using chipboard.
  2. If you must, use MDF core rather than chipboard.
  3. If you are using chipboard, then not using biscuits. Any expansion force delaminates it too easily. I'd go for the old plastic Contiboard blocks instead.

If you do use biscuits, plywood ones generally expand a little less than plain beech. You can also over-width the slots slightly.

Not a hope. Epoxy will, but even then the melamine will peel off the core under any real load. It's also near-impossible to bond to the "end grain" of the chipboard core.

The closer you pack them, the better they are at splitting the board.

12" biscuits are comparably as strong as chipboard. No point in putting them closer.

You should be able to biscuit into 5/8" boards OK, so long as you use small biscuits. You can do 1/2" if you're careful, but that is tricky (there are tricks like offsetting the cut depth to put more into the end board and less into the face board).

Plastic uglyblocks on the surface. Just about the only fixings that _do_ hold in chipboard are chipboard screws (correct thread) in at right angles to the surface. Ugly, but that's chipboard for you.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

If I'd found a supplier of veneered mdf in wild & wooly Norfolk, I'd be looking at mdf but, unless someone knows different, I haven't found any.

Reply to
Alan

perhaps run square or triangular section wood along the inside of the joints and glue and screw to it

depends how valuable your time is compared to real wood..

[g]
Reply to
george (dicegeorge)

Suggest you look at Confirmat screws.

I did when making/remaking several bathroom cabinets and kitchen units. Given care, they work very well, are strong and yet remain undoable.

Of course it is best if the surfaces from which you screw are hidden (e.g. top and bottom). But, if you can bear them, screw covers can be used.

(I bought a Trend bit that drills the three hole sizes required in one go. Works very well.)

Reply to
Rod

As others have said, little plastic joining blocks - screwed to both pieces - are probably the most effective way of fixing the parts together - but they do show, of course.

If you want invisible fixings, I would suggest dowels rather than biscuits. These go much further into the 'end grain' and make stronger fixings. They can go almost all the way through the mating bits - but you'll need a drill with a depth gauge, to prevent breaking right through. You'll also need a dowelling jig to ensure that all the dowel holes are in exactly the right place.

PVA wood glue is ok for gluing the dowels into the chipboard, but I would use an epoxy glue where the melamine faces butt against each other.

Reply to
Roger Mills

I wouldn't use biscuits in ths application, they really only hold the joint flush until the glue dries.

If you want to go with the current trend of "screw heads are horrid & must be hidden" then it has to be cam dowels & cam locks

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?_dyncharset=UTF-8&fh_search=furniture+fittings&searchbutton.x=9&searchbutton.y=13&action=movePage&fh_start_index=0&fh_view_size=100but you need some accurate holes.

If you are happy to see a blanked off hole, then a confirmat screw is what you want.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

If you're hell bent on using biscuits I can only suggest mitreing all the corners. That does take some pretty accurate machining though.

Reply to
gunsmith

Sharp intake of breath....

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

Aaargh! I thought this wouldn't be much of as problem - now I'm not sure what's best to do.

I was going to go for B&Q's 18mm wood-effect (sic) chipboard but the consensus appears to be that chipboard is a no-go without screws or blocks. maybe I'd better rethink and go for 18mm mdf and just paint the stuff.

The thing I've always had against had against mdf is how to seal the cut edges. I've seen suggestions using 20% PVA, 50% PVA, acrylic primer - any other ideas.

Thanks for all the input.

Alan

Reply to
Alan

Having used MDF for many shelves and desktops, all I have done (having cleaned the stuff up as well as I could) is paint it with a few coats of emulsion followed by a good acrylic varnish. Sides and surfaces. (We have used Aqualac which was available from Screwfix - but no longer, it appears.)

Reply to
Rod

========================================= Have a look at the cam and dowel fasteners from Screwfix (suggested elsewhere in this thread by TMH). These are frequently used by manufacturers and they're really quite easy to use provided that you can measure accurately and drill vertically. They're perfectly secure in chipboard or MDF.

Axminster (and Wolf at a much higher price) sell a jig to use your hand drill for all the required holes.

Cic.

Reply to
Cicero

Oh, its on with DOWELS. Its just that you MUST get through the melamine, and into the chip. AND its not that strong, but its strong ENOUGH.

The key thing is that a cabinet is more strong by virtue of its shape than by a quality glue join. If you drill sides carefully to about 10mm depth and use custom glue dowels and PVA into the 'end grain' of the bits that fit between that's good enough PROVIDED you have a back to stop the thing parallelogramming. On a normal crap contiboard flat kit, that's hardboard painted black tacked on with ultra small tacks..its better to use screws though. Or if you can mill as lot in the board and slide the back in with glue, that's best of all really.

Or you can use ultra long screws through the sides and those plastic covers on..

A lot of the above. like 3 coats of primer.

If MDF will work, it makes a decent enough cabinet. Its just finishing it as you know.

I've painted it and tiled it. It works but again, its hard to make a decent join without an internal batten, Still if its painted, simply screw it and glue it..you CAN screw into the end grain. It aint brilliant, but it holds till the glue dries. Then use plastic wood or car body filler over the screws.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Bloody good idea I've got lots lying around from flatpacks with extras..:-)

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

I've snipped it there...

1 - Strength is going to come from the backboard (white-faced hardboard)

You can staple the backboard to the rear - limited strength. You can inset the backboard inside the rear - much stronger, which means you lose a bit of depth.

2 - Extend the insetting of the backboard further - so you can fit rear corner pieces.

Sufficient to permit say screw or whatever fastening method you want, at the expense of 20mm lost depth.

3 - The front is more difficult, but dowel jointing is viable - there are cheap kits.

The most basic kit consists of a centre-point drill, copper peg to mark & dowels. The better kits involve an adjustable metal jig which gives the (really) required precision.

Some kitchen cupboard designs use a "frame" at the front of the cupboard. Basically like a window frame inside a cupboard, aesthetically it works ok and makes the selection of possible fasteners much easier.

Alternatively, "consider off the shelf" mouldings which you cut, jig, slot in panel, assemble. This wastes more space compared to the "contiboard cupboards" however it is vastly stronger, longer life and better made. You could mix MDF & real wood here - like most low-mid furniture, without it looking as such.

Can you not tolerate screws top & bottom? IE, is there no angle at which they are invisible. Alternatively matching adhesive strip to hide countersunk screws.

Reply to
js.b1

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A hardboard backboard is really not good enough by itself to produce rigidity. Full width bracing (at least 3" deep)top and bottom, of the same material as the main panels is the way to go. This is also much stronger and neater than corner pieces.

Cic.

Reply to
Cicero

Screwfix chipboard screws (indistinguishable from plasterboard screws?) are pretty good, and don't swell the ends of shelves. The black screwheads don't look too bad either

Reply to
Stuart Noble

I've tried dowels in the past (only using a cheapo dowelling system tho') and the dowels never seemed to be /exactly/ in line no matter how careful I thought I was which involved trying to force the bits together with a a big hammer :-).

Yep, I was trying to avoid the paint solution ...

If I paint the stuff in the house, SWMBO will gripe about the smell (even with water-based paint) and the garage, the only other available space, is small.

Oh well - these things are sent to try us :-)

Again, thanks

Alan

Reply to
Alan

Unless you need custom sizes it might be worth looking at Wickes 'Miami' range. You can buy a 1000mm base unit for £35. Comes with plain white doors, but I guess you would have to sort doors if you made your own units.

When you look at the cost of the Contiboard, hinges, fittings, legs etc its not much cheaper making your own.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

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