Arron 5th December 2021, 10:39 AM Hi. Firstly I apologise that this is not about real wood - I just don’t know where else to post it.
Back in the 90’s, I was taught how to make melamine faced particleboard kitchen cabinet carcasses. The builder who showed me was emphatic that the only long-term reliable way to build carcasses was with chipboard screws. Anyone building with glue or brads or any other method was a cowboy producing carcasses that would be failing before the decade was out, apparently.
Since then I’ve done a number of kitchen/bathroom/laundries diy - for my own renovations. His method served me well and I never bothered to update my thinking.
Recently I saw some Titebond ‘melamine glue’ for sale, and did some experiments with glue and 40mm C1 brads. I did some backyard destruction testing and was pretty impressed - although I know the limits of diy testing and especially with adhesives where i really want to know how well it holds up to a couple of decades, not days.
So my question is what is the current best practise for assembling melamine faced particleboard carcasses? Is my thinking out of date? Can you get long-term-reliable cabinetry out of any other method?
And please, if you are involved in kitchen building or any related trade and you reply to this post, please consider credentialising yourself. I listen to everyone’s advice but I do like to know when I’m listening to a professional.
Arron 5th December 2021, 10:45 AM And I should have pointed out that the reason I’m rethinking this is because I’m ownerbuilding our home - a large one. I’ve had all the melamine faced particleboard for the kitchen, butlers pantry, walk-in robes, other wardrobes, laundry and 3 bathrooms cut and stacked in the garage. Bought forward because of the escalating costs and delays in everything building-related. Now I’m looking at the enormous stack of cut-to-size boards and am overwhelmed. I need to know I’m using the quickest method to put it together - with no compromise to quality.
elanjacobs 5th December 2021, 11:41 AM 10 years building custom furniture and cabinetry, never used glue for melamine.
C or C1 brads to pin components together (not strictly necessary, but it makes life easier), then pilot drill for 50mm chipboard screws. No mess/squeezeout to clean up and 100% guaranteed to last forever.
EDIT: For small stuff like drawers, you can get away with 50mm C brads alone.
Arron 5th December 2021, 12:06 PM Thanks Elan, I was hoping you would respond.
Btw do you do a pilot hole in both boards? I was taught to do a pilot hole in the board being screwed through (crosswise), but not the one being screwed into (longwise).
Cheers
samo 5th December 2021, 12:16 PM All the joiners I have ever let contracts to for commercial construction projects only ever use chipboard screws.
elanjacobs 5th December 2021, 12:18 PM I usually just went all the way, minus about 10mm; there's enough give in everything for it to pull up tight anyway. Partial thread screws give the effect of a crosswise clearance hole and longwise pilot hole with just a pilot drill bit.
Wurth (and probably others) make thinner screws that don't need a pilot hole in the longwise board as long as you're within a mm of centre.
Arron 5th December 2021, 06:18 PM I usually just went all the way, minus about 10mm; there's enough give in everything for it to pull up tight anyway. Partial thread screws give the effect of a crosswise clearance hole and longwise pilot hole with just a pilot drill bit.
Wurth (and probably others) make thinner screws that don't need a pilot hole in the longwise board as long as you're within a mm of centre.
Using that method, how close to the end of a board would you place a screw ?
Arron 5th December 2021, 06:50 PM I usually just went all the way, minus about 10mm; there's enough give in everything for it to pull up tight anyway. Partial thread screws give the effect of a crosswise clearance hole and longwise pilot hole with just a pilot drill bit.
Wurth (and probably others) make thinner screws that don't need a pilot hole in the longwise board as long as you're within a mm of centre.
And are you saying that you just drill one pilot hole, through both boards, rather then a separate clearance and pilot hole?
In that case you would be drilling the pilot hole once the boards have been placed together ready for assembly, wouldn’t you ?
I ask because I have traditionally drilled the clearance hole to one size, with the boards disassembled, then bought the boards together and drilled the pilot hole through the clearance hole with a lightly smaller bit. It is obviously more time consuming plus needs a dedicated drilling station for the clearance hole which can be hard to maintain on a building site.
elanjacobs 5th December 2021, 07:58 PM And are you saying that you just drill one pilot hole, through both boards, rather then a separate clearance and pilot hole?
In that case you would be drilling the pilot hole once the boards have been placed together ready for assembly, wouldn’t you?
Yes and yes, everything still pulls up nice and tight.
50mm is pretty safe from the edge for screws, but you can squeeze it right down to 20mm if you have to for cabinets that just have top rails instead of a solid top.
havabeer69 5th December 2021, 09:01 PM wouldn't the glue...just glue melamine to melamine? basically relying on the what ever is holding the melamine to the chipboard substrate for over all strength?
Beardy 5th December 2021, 09:50 PM Agree with Elan’s methods and is the industry standard. Pin together with a Brad gun for ease of construction then screw off cabinets with no glue required
If you look at even the oldest pyneboard based cabinets their demise is usually due to the degradation of the board due to moisture ingress rather than construction technique.
malb 5th December 2021, 09:54 PM wouldn't the glue...just glue melamine to melamine? basically relying on the what ever is holding the melamine to the chipboard substrate for over all strength?
Melamine glue is normally used to glue raw chipboard to melamine coating, rather than melamine to melamine. For example a sawn edge on a cabinet base being attached to a coated cabinet side rather than coated cabinet side to coated cabinet side. 'Regular' glues generally don't adhere to the melamine coatings because the coating prevents them achieving adequate mechanical keying into the coating.
The point that you raise about bonding to the coated surface is correct, but if you work around the stuff enough, you soon learn that the bond between the coating and MDF or particleboard substrate provides most of the sheet strength, so an effective bond to the surface of the coating is effectively a bond to the substrate. If something is going to fail around a joint, it will be the substrates that let go, followed by the coating cracking where the substrate failure has caused a loss of support.
I occasionally see people arguing that cutting dado's in melamine coated stock, or raw MDF/particleboard adds strength because the joint is housed and secured. My understanding is that this is a fallacy for the simple reason that the strength of these products is located at the faces (coating and skins) while the core itself is as weak as soggy biscuits, so breaking through the coating or skin for the length of the joint weakens the structure. It might allow 'regular' glues to work gluing core to core, but the structural integrity of the panel is severely compromised.
At the place where I worked, glue was used only for situations where it would be difficult to get at least 3 screws along a joint, for example assembling a drawer box with melamine sides, base, front and back. Everything else was pin in place then screw for permanent fixing. All components were CNC cut, bored and drilled through faces, with drilling pilot holes for the threaded portion of the screw at assemblers discretion.
woodPixel 6th December 2021, 12:46 AM Dumb question here... So kitchen cupboards are essentially held together only with a few screws?
No glue?
They are chock full of cups, plates, pots and other heavy stuff.... And all of this is reliant on not having 3 screws pull out?
That's really amazing.
Simplicity 6th December 2021, 07:20 AM Dumb question here... So kitchen cupboards are essentially held together only with a few screws?
No glue?
They are chock full of cups, plates, pots and other heavy stuff.... And all of this is reliant on not having 3 screws pull out?
That's really amazing.
Yes basically, but from my experience there’s more than three screws, an the screws are in shear.
Also the cupboards are basically just static, they don’t move a lot[emoji6].
Also remember in kitchen they all get screwed together, too become one big “Cupboard”
Cheers Matt.
Arron 6th December 2021, 07:25 AM Talk of glue raises another question I should ask while I have your attentions. What is the preferred way to fix those little thin strips at the ends of cabinets. The ones whose purpose is to provide a little standoff from the wall and a little tolerance when sizing.
They are usually made and fit last because their exact dimensions are not known till the cabinets go in, plus they often need scribing for wobbly walls. At least that’s how I do them.
Can’t put anything into the face like a Brad because it will show.
Can’t use melamine glue because there is no easy way to get a clamp onto them.
I’m not really happy about using contact glue for gluing melamine.
So how do people do them ?
double.d 6th December 2021, 07:39 AM The only time i use screws is on an end cabinet where an end panel might be fixed. All intermediate cabinets are held together with skewed brads, no glue. I hand nail the backs on with 25mm full head fibre cement nails.
Once the cabinets are in place and screwed together they are not going anywhere or falling apart.
Rick47 6th December 2021, 07:49 AM A long time ago when I was an apprentice c&j we made the first set of pine board kit cpds for the housing commission, the sheets were cut on a saw master radial arm saw and the cabinets hand nailed and glued. The general opinion was "this s**t will never last"..... but what did we know.
Cheers. Rick
Beardy 6th December 2021, 08:14 AM Talk of glue raises another question I should ask while I have your attentions. What is the preferred way to fix those little thin strips at the ends of cabinets. The ones whose purpose is to provide a little standoff from the wall and a little tolerance when sizing.
They are usually made and fit last because their exact dimensions are not known till the cabinets go in, plus they often need scribing for wobbly walls. At least that’s how I do them.
Can’t put anything into the face like a Brad because it will show.
Can’t use melamine glue because there is no easy way to get a clamp onto them.
I’m not really happy about using contact glue for gluing melamine.
So how do people do them ?
You are referring to the scribed fillers at the end of a cabinet run I assume? You can either make a little backing angle piece out of melamine board and screw your scribed face filler to it from the back if it is a large filler but mostly a backing piece is screwed in from the side cabinet and the filler is glued to it with a bit of tape or a packer wedged between it and the adjacent door to hold it until it dries
Silicone is as good as anything to do the job, I guarantee you won’t get it off without damaging it.
Arron 6th December 2021, 08:21 AM but mostly a backing piece is screwed in from the side cabinet and the filler is glued to it with a bit of tape or a packer wedged between it and the adjacent door to hold it until it dries
Wouldn’t that mean you have a couple of screw heads visible inside the cabinet ?
Beardy 6th December 2021, 08:32 AM Wouldn’t that mean you have a couple of screw heads visible inside the cabinet ?
They usually put the screws behind the hinge
elanjacobs 6th December 2021, 10:01 AM Dumb question here... So kitchen cupboards are essentially held together only with a few screws?
No glue?
They are chock full of cups, plates, pots and other heavy stuff.... And all of this is reliant on not having 3 screws pull out?
That's really amazing.
We build entire houses with nothing but nails :shrug:
DaveVman 6th December 2021, 11:23 AM We build entire houses with nothing but nails :shrug:
5
...nothing but nails and a pallet load of silicone gap filler. :D
Oh wait, that's not funny, I'm building a house now...
rwbuild 6th December 2021, 02:42 PM 2 worst products that have been introduced to the building industry, no more gaps and silicon, they both make lazy trades and make lazy trades look good
Alkahestic 6th December 2021, 02:42 PM For packers/scribers between a cabinet and the wall, you can screw or pin them from inside the cabinet. If you've got drawers you can hide the fixing under the slide if it's a side mounted slide and if it's a cupboard , put the fixer under the hinge arm so it's hidden when the doors are in place.
As for you fancy lads with your screws and glue - when I pulled out my two largish laundry cabinets, they were held together only with staples. The house by then was around 16 years old and these cabinets were original to the house, and were still pretty solid. The top was screwed into the cabinets and the cabinet backs were screwed into studs at least. It will be interesting when the kitchen reno rolls around, it looks like the same outfit did the kitchen (drawers are constructed exactly the same way) - will there be any screws? Who knows!
elanjacobs 6th December 2021, 04:53 PM This is how I was taught to do fillers. Strip of board screwed to the outside of the cabinet, then the filler is attached with either a loose tongue of 3mm MDF or biscuits and a few drops of glue.
504833
riverbuilder 7th December 2021, 02:14 PM Talk of glue raises another question I should ask while I have your attentions. What is the preferred way to fix those little thin strips at the ends of cabinets. The ones whose purpose is to provide a little standoff from the wall and a little tolerance when sizing.
They are usually made and fit last because their exact dimensions are not known till the cabinets go in, plus they often need scribing for wobbly walls. At least that’s how I do them.
Can’t put anything into the face like a Brad because it will show.
Can’t use melamine glue because there is no easy way to get a clamp onto them.
I’m not really happy about using contact glue for gluing melamine.
So how do people do them ?
screw a 20 x20 cleat on the back and then screw through the carcase into the cleats. under the hinge arms so the screws are hidden. These infill scribe panels are usually the same as the doors so as to give a good “built in” appearance.
rustynail 7th December 2021, 04:35 PM Some years back I was running a joinery shop for a mate who had suffered a serious nervous breakdown. Laminex Industries had just releasesd a glue suitable for melamine. We decided to give it a test. There were two specialist fabricators assembling carcasses.Why spicialists you ask? They were so bloody quick and spot on. All cabinets to this point had been brad tacked and screwed. We decided to let one guy continue as per usual while the other (the faster of the two) would incorporate glue into his assembly process. The outcome was the slower guy finished his batch of cabinets long before the other chap who swore he would never use glue to fab melamine cabinets again. Granted he probably would have become more proficient with practice but it would need to be dramatic and he wasnt having a bar of it.
Arron 7th December 2021, 06:56 PM Some years back I was running a joinery shop for a mate who had suffered a serious nervous breakdown. Laminex Industries had just releasesd a glue suitable for melamine. We decided to give it a test. There were two specialist fabricators assembling carcasses.Why spicialists you ask? They were so bloody quick and spot on. All cabinets to this point had been brad tacked and screwed. We decided to let one guy continue as per usual while the other (the faster of the two) would incorporate glue into his assembly process. The outcome was the slower guy finished his batch of cabinets long before the other chap who swore he would never use glue to fab melamine cabinets again. Granted he probably would have become more proficient with practice but it would need to be dramatic and he wasnt having a bar of it.
If you are using brads for alignment and drilling just one combined pilot/clearance hole then it’s easy to see that any speed advantage from using glue is lost.
Arron 7th December 2021, 07:04 PM A couple of questions on pilot holes.
If using Zenith 8-10 x 50mm chipboard screws then what diameter drill bit should I use for the pilot hole. Bear in mind that the clear section of the shaft is about 15mm long and has a diameter of 3.0mm. The screw threads have a maximum diameter of 4.2mm.
How do you drill the pilot holes, making sure they are well aligned with the centre plane of the board. Especially an issue if drilling freehand. I’m thinking of maybe making some kind of jig out of hardwood, but interested in what others do.
Cheers
Arron
elanjacobs 7th December 2021, 07:30 PM If using Zenith 8-10 x 50mm chipboard screws then what diameter drill bit should I use for the pilot hole. Bear in mind that the clear section of the shaft is about 15mm long and has a diameter of 3.0mm. The screw threads have a maximum diameter of 4.2mm.
Generally the pilot should be roughly the screw body size, so 3mm or 1/8" should do. Get a drill + countersink bit if you don't already have one
How do you drill the pilot holes, making sure they are well aligned with the centre plane of the board. Especially an issue if drilling freehand. I’m thinking of maybe making some kind of jig out of hardwood, but interested in what others do.
Always just eyeballed it freehand, you pick up a feel for when you're drilling straight after a while. You could set a marking gauge to 8mm so you have a guide line for the centre
Arron 7th December 2021, 09:24 PM Generally the pilot should be roughly the screw body size, so 3mm or 1/8" should do. Get a drill + countersink bit if you don't already have one
So you do a countersink as well ?
elanjacobs 7th December 2021, 09:26 PM Unless you have self-countersinking or funnel head screws, yes
malb 7th December 2021, 10:08 PM Dumb question here... So kitchen cupboards are essentially held together only with a few screws?
No glue?
They are chock full of cups, plates, pots and other heavy stuff.... And all of this is reliant on not having 3 screws pull out?
That's really amazing.
Consider a cabinet carcass. It has two side panels, a base and a top or top frame and a back, plus possibly some fixed shelves if large enough. Everywhere where there are joints, there are normally a minimum of three screws along the joint unless a particular component is so short or narrow to practically fit three screws without weakening the structure. So for example, a wall hung upper cabinet over a bench normally has a minimum of nine screws for the top or bottom panels, three connecting each side and three connecting the back. Both side panels have a minimum of nine screws, three securing the top panel, three securing the base panel, and three securing the back panel. The back panel typically has a minimum of twelve screws, three securing each of the top, base and two side panels. Adding a fixed shelf adds an extra nine screws, three from each side and three from the back, so for the carcass to fail normally requires more than three screws pull out.
The business I worked in had about a 50/50 mix of new builds and refurbishments, so I got a fair bit of experience breaking up older carcasses that had been removed, this ranged from a decent hit with a mallet to shatter a 3mm MDF back and a decent kick or push to collapse the carcass for a cheap poorly constructed 'softback' cabinet, to 6 to 10 decent blows with a mallet per panel distributed around the various seams to break up a solidly built 3 screws per joint carcass.
Also consider that any adjustable shelves of regular shape and moderate size are typically supported by five 5mm dia pins set 6-8mm into the side panels, and the limiting factor is the sag of the shelves rather than the failure of the pin sockets.
So no, your crockery and pots and pans should be safe and are not reliant on just three screws not pulling out.
malb 7th December 2021, 10:27 PM A couple of questions on pilot holes.
How do you drill the pilot holes, making sure they are well aligned with the centre plane of the board. Especially an issue if drilling freehand. I’m thinking of maybe making some kind of jig out of hardwood, but interested in what others do.
Cheers
Arron
In our case, all holes at right angles to the face are drilled or bored by the CNC, so you set up global profiles in the software for positioning them so they land along the centreline of the mating panel. Then when the mating panel is flush with the edge of the drilled panel, the screw hole will be on the centreline of the mating panel, and you have the predrilled hole as a drill guide to drill the pilot hole so manual drill aiming is not as critical as it would be for freehanding each hole. CNC screw holes were 3.5mm (tight for screw shank) but the same diameter as the pilot drill bit, screw is positively advancing for the full length of the screw.
We used self countersinking screws, so did not need a second pass with the CNC to countersink screw holes.
rustynail 9th December 2021, 08:08 AM If you are using brads for alignment and drilling just one combined pilot/clearance hole then it’s easy to see that any speed advantage from using glue is lost.They were bradded and glued only. No screws, no drill. Still way to slow due to slippery alignment and the need for glue clean up.
Midnight Man 16th December 2021, 10:25 PM I've also got a question to add to this thread if I may?
What is the "standard" size for screws for 16mm chipboard/melamine? What about 18mm? 12mm? I'm talking in terms of screw gauge here, and length.
I did pick up the "50mm" mentioned above, but is that applicable across all thicknesses of panels?
Thanks in advance for any information, and apologies on the thread hijack!
elanjacobs 16th December 2021, 10:38 PM I believe the rule of thumb is 1/3 through and 2/3 in. We used 50mm for 16-19mm material, 70mm for thicker stuff and 30/40mm for thinner stuff; Hafele Hospa and Wurth ASSY, no idea what gauge they are but the Hafele ones like a 1/8" pilot and the Wurth ones are thinner, maybe 2.5mm
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