Thread: Edge banding options?

I purchases melamine pre glued edge banding from Surteco. Cannot comment on quality in use as have not used it as yet but seems thin compared to other melamine edge banding I have used (very little in reality). maybe I ordered the wrong one.
Their website list a lot range so might be worth a look
Surteco Australia: Veneer Edgebanding

Hope you're going to do a WIP of the cabinets, Alex.

Ross

Originally Posted by jonsey850

...Been looking at making some cabinetry for my shed and have decided to make some kitchen style cabinets with melamine....

My workshop is not really set up to cut sheet material, and I absolutely hate the dust from cutting MDF, melamine, chipboard, etc.

I get a local joinery shop to supply cut and edgeband all my melamine requirements.

• They can buy melamine far cheaper than I can,
• Their sliding saws cut far more accurately than I can do at home,
• Their edgebanding is far thicker and much better than any iron-on stuff I can buy.
• And the price is extremely competitive- less than 10% above the price at which I can buy melamine sheets, in most cases.

And I do not have to lug awkward sheets of melamine, breathe noxious dust and fumes, make cutting errors, and then clean up that penetrating fine dust that keeps reappearing for six months. I hate melamine dust.

All I do is give them a cutting list detailing sizes and which edges to be edgebanded, and then pick up the components three days later.

Thanks Pete they look the goods. Although I can only seem to find pre-glued in the basic white. I will give them a call later and ask what the go is.

Hi Ross, yeah I will probably tack the cabinets onto the shed build thread. At the moment I am just spinning wheels trying to work out a few things before I get into it.

There seems to be more than meets the eye when it comes to building kitchen cabinets. Edge banding is only one problem, I have had a bit of a head ache the last few days researching the 32mm system...

Originally Posted by jonsey850

Anyway just wondering what options there are for applying ABS or PVC edge banding without owning a hot melt glue edge bander?

Contact glue. White, black and veneer are generally available pre-glued, any patterned stuff is very often unglued and probably a 100m roll minimum, 50m if you're lucky

Originally Posted by jonsey850

I have had a bit of a head ache the last few days researching the 32mm system...

Anything in particular? It's just 32mm spacing, 37mm back from the front edge.

Hi Graham

Yeah that may be an option, it does seem like the difference between trade and retail price on Laminex products is pretty substantial.

Good news - Called Surteco and they said only white and black are sold as pre-glued but if you ring up and ask you can get pre-glued in all colours but will be a weeks wait. Success!

Hi Elan

The main problem I am having with the 32mm system is each hardware manufacturer seems to have slightly different interpretation of it. It seems mainly to do with the starting positions of the holes.

For example I want to use Blum drawer runners, their hole system starts 28mm below the top of the cabinet. I modelled their standard and Metabox runners in CAD and the 28mm offset for the 32mm system.

Neither of the runner systems work with the 28mm offset. From what I understand all the drawer fronts plus the cabinet height are meant to be multiples of 32mm but it just doesn’t seem to work.

I’ve checked everything from adjusting the reveal height on the top drawer to checking if the cabinet height should be a multiple of 50mm ect?

I even signed up to their online cabinet design software and when you add a drawer the mounting holes don’t align with the 32mm system holes!

Sorry...where's this 28mm coming from? Unless you're buying pre-drilled material, you can completely ignore height multiples and start points and all that stuff; just work out how high you want the drawers and work up from the bottom of each one for runner holes. It can be completely arbitrary.

Metabox is going to be more confusing than it needs to be because each size has different vertical dimensions, if you go for under-mount runners it's the same offset from the bottom of the runner for any height.

This is a layout I did for Blum Tandem runners in a map drawer unit, holes are 38mm up from the bottom and start 37mm back from the front regardless of drawer size.

drawer.jpg

Thanks for the explanation Elan, I will have another look tomorrow at the Metabox dimensions and draw it up again.

The 28mm comes from their cabinet design program it is a fixed input. I have to say it is a pretty good program for free, you could just use it to make the cabinets as it’s spits out fully dimensioned plan of each panel. But it doesn’t have Metabox drawers on Tandem and standard runners.

Jonsey, take a look here for 32mm reference: Blum's Process 32™ Manual (PDF)

I've also got this PDF that might also be useful: 32mm System and the Festool Hole Guide.pdf

And finally, if you're a bit like me and learn by watching/seeing - this series of videos by eRock over at FoG was well worth watching: Festool LR32 Introduction part 1 of the series - YouTube (this is a series, check his channel for more).

Also, if you want some good edgebanding without investing too much in tools - take a look at the FastCap FastEdge product: https://www.fastcap.com/product/fast...anding?cat=332 You can but this from Timbecon among others, and the applicator is as simple as a SpeedRoller, and optionally a Quad Trimmer if you don't want to use/don't have a trim router (see the related products tab on the page I linked).

Yeah, sometimes these automagic cabinet design apps can make things more confusing than they need to be. IMO, being able to create your own cut list and layout is a key skill to have and there's only a few basic equations to get from an overall carcase size to a cut list; if you're handy with spreadsheets you could even make your own calculator pretty quickly.

Happy to help if you get stuck, I've built a lot of cabinets with blum hardware. If you can possibly stretch the budget to get Tandem or Tandembox runners I can't recommend them highly enough.

Solid timber edge strips are the go on workshop cabinets, last longer and will still look good in 30 years.

Wow thanks for the info guys.

Elan how much are you paying for the Tandem box kits?

I have priced them at $90 for the 550 M kit. I’m looking at 25 drawers so $2250!

Metabox kit is $30 so a considerable difference.

Not quite sure about Tandembox pricing, we generally used Tandem and made our own drawers, but that sounds about right. I'm not there anymore, but I think the Tandems were $60ish a set.

They're a huge step up from Metabox; ball bearings, soft close, fully adjustable for face alignment. It is a lot of money though, maybe not for the shed, definitely for the kitchen