I am currently building a set of cabinets with countertop workspace in my “man cave”. Not wanting to spend a fortune and still wanting it to look nice I decided on white melamine carcasses (frameless or “euro” style) with laminated MDF slab doors and drawer fronts. I decided on the laminate because I want a certain wood grain that is available in the laminate and not the melamine.
I am planning on laminating the fronts, backs, and edges of all the doors/drawer fronts to prevent warping.
The question I have is about the carcasses. One side of some of the carcasses will be exposed and therefore will require the same laminate to match the doors and drawers. Also gong to use the laminate on the front face edges of the carcasses so the front faces of the boxes will match the doors and drawers. My question is will laminating one side of a carcass cause problems with warping? Basically I will be putting laminate on 1 side of the melamine sheet. I will be laminating them after the carcass is already assembled so it will cover screws. Will this cause any problems to those out there that may have tried this before?
Replies
Warping
If the laminate is formica you may have problems but if it's a vinyl paper I wouldn't think so.
SA
Probably not, but no guarantee
The melamie is probably watertight enough to counteract the impervious formica and the case is probably rigid enough to counteract warping under normal humidity, but no guarantee. You could do a test by putting a piece of the melamine with laminate on one side and then exposing it to high humidity for a day or two, and see how much, if any it warps.
On a side note, test the bond between the contact cement and the melamine, so see if it needs to be roughed up or otherwise treated.
Think about countertops
This issue seems to pop up a lot, but nobody laminates the underside of countertops. They're in a somewhat moister environment than a lot of other projects would be, and they rarely warp unless the underlayment gets really wet.
The melamine should be fine.
Countertops are secured down
Hi,
The countertop example isn't quite the same, as a countertop is would normally be quite securely fixed down, which would prevent it from warping. Melamine is pretty vapor tight, so adding laminate to one side of a door should be OK even though it is not simiarlly fixed, but again no guarantees.
Frequently not
I was pretty sure that comment would come up, but I've run into quite a few that are barely fastened. Definitely not enough to prevent warping. But, as they say, YMMV.
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