Laminating kitchen cabinet help

Planning on redoing my kitchen cabinets. Currently they are painted plywood - really ugly. I do not want to tear them down and completely rebuild them if I can avoid it. I thought I'd make some oak or ash doors and face frames. The cabinet sides and possibly bottoms are the issue. I was thinking of trying to laminate melamine or possibly thin oak ply(?) on those surfaces. I've never worked with laminating melamine before.

Any suggestions, caveats? If I can find thin ( < 1/4" ) oak ply, should I glue the entire surface or spot glue & nail.

Thanx,

Vic

Reply to
Vic Baron
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Are those surfaces finished in any way? If so, then properly gluing to them might be difficult unless you strip whatever finish is applied.

Reply to
Upscale

Unfortunately they've been painted - probably will have to strip, I guess. :(

Vic

Reply to
Vic Baron

Please let me know how this works out for you. I have a relative that is thinking about undertaking something similiar.

I'm not sure how much labor you save though by stripping the cabinents and gluing 1/4 oak ply to them. Since you are making new face frames and doors anyway, you might be better off to just buy some 3/4" oak or birch plywood for the cabinents themselves. it's not that much more expensive.. at Home Depot, 1/4 oak ply is about

20/sheet, and 3/4 ply is about 40/sheet. I'd be concerned about how it would look to just slap 1/4 plywood over the existing stuff.. but maybe there's a good method to do it.

You could build and finish all the new cabinents in the shop and then just have one day of hell taking the old ones down and putting up the new ones.. so your kitchen is only disrupted for a day or two.

I've never undertaken a project as you've described before, so I am interested in how it works out for you. Didn't mean to be a buzz kill, I was just describing how I'd do it.

Reply to
bf

LOL! Not a buzz kill at all - that was my original plan but being inherently lazy I thought I'd explore alternate methods. Forgot about the stripping though - you're right - doing that "in place" is a chore. Not ready to start quite yet though but I'm leaning back toward the remove and replace original scenario.

Thanx,

Vic

Reply to
Vic Baron

Roughing it up with some 36 grip in a beltsander will work. Then wash it down with something nasty, like lacquer thinner. Then use PL 700 (no nails) construction adhesive...annnnnnnnnnnd a couple of brads till the glue sets. Make sure the face-frame protrudes enough to cover the 1/4" plywood. (I use 1/4" ply for that kinda thing.)

Reply to
Robatoy

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