Refacing Kitchen Cabinets

miltonburl | Posted in General Discussion on January 5, 2007 05:20am

I am going to reface all kitchen and bath cabinets in a six-flat apartment building going condo. The question I have is: I’ll be using the pressure sensitive adhesive veneer on the face frames and I heard to rough up the surface. use water based contact cement and apply, it gives a greater hold. I have been doing some test pieces on the frames and wonder what’s going wrong. I clean the frames with denatured alcohol then sand the frames with 100 grit sand paper cleaning the frames again with denatured alcohol. When I apply the veneer onto the contact cement, it sticks but I could pull it off the frames almost as easily as with out contact cement. When the test pieces are pulled off, the contact cement doesn’t stick to the frame, but comes off all onto the back of the veneer. Any ideas? I’ll have to check in again later to see the responses. Thanks.

Replies

Ray | Jan 05, 2007 07:49am | #1
It sounds like you have some sort of oily finish on the frames. Try a coat of shellac on the frames, then sand lightly and apply the contact cement.
hammer1 | Jan 05, 2007 08:19am | #2
Forget the contact cement. it's obviously not helping or sticking. You need a J roller to apply pressure to the pressure sensitive adhesive. The same is true with contact cement when it is appropriate to use it. Often, the existing face frame gets hit with Liquid Sandpaper to prep the surface and clean grease. You can hand sand and clean if you want.

Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
Kaleo | Jan 05, 2007 10:25am | #3
I use to workk for a company that refaced kitchens. We never used contact cement. There is a veneer out there that comes with an adhesive already on it. I don't know what it was called or where they got it form, Sorry. But all we did was like you said, we cleaned the cabinets with a special solution ( which was propiertary to the company ) , then roughed the surface with 180 sandpaper, then cleaned again. Let everything dry, and cut veneers pieces to fit, then peel, stickk and trim.

But I would definately try to find the venner with the adhesive already on it.

The company was called Kitchen Tune-Up. You can look them up on the web and find a rep close to you and maybe they will tell where to go to get the supplies.

Kaleo

http://www.kalafinefurniture.blogspot.com
woodbadger | Jan 06, 2007 03:15am | #4
Did you say you are using pressure sensitive pre-glued veneer, and also applying water based contact cement(to both surfaces) to improve bond?

I've done that in the past and it should work. But I have experienced problems with water based contact cements not sticking.

It seems at sometimes the cement takes to long to dry to the touch and apparently exceeds its "open time". Try using a fan to improve air circulation. The cement also acts up in areas of high humidity.

I wonder if the alcohol you use to wipe down the cabinets might be attracting extra moisture to the surface,(it's hydroscopic), throwing off the drying of the cement. So maybe try letting the wiped down surface dry longer.
10saw | Jan 06, 2007 03:55am | #5
Hi,

i was spec'ing out job such as this. It never came through but I was researching the PSA veneer and was very leary of it. A local reputable lumber yard here in San Diego, Frost Hardwood-said they had been selling the 3M brand PSA backed veneer for over 20 years with not ONE problem!

They were very cool and explained the whole process to me and I was sold. Like I said I never used it but if Frost said good I beleive them.

once again they specified it was 3M so if it's not too late....

HTH

10saw
forestgirl | Jan 06, 2007 07:59pm | #6
I'm no expert on the various veneers and adhesives, but the use of denatured alcohol caught my attention. I'd be suspicious that it's not really cleaning well.

forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)