Thread: Kitchen Shaker Cabinets - Material & Paint Recommendations

Do the carcasses out of melamine coated chipboard. its cheap, easy to work with, already coated so you don't have to prime and paint everything

You can’t make the rails and stiles from plywood because of the edge. You can however use mdf. There will be a lot of pre-paint prep with fillers and edge sealing. A lot.

Solid wood will move because no coating is completely gas-proof, so there will be some water vapour transfer and hence movement. How much depends on species, moisture content range and size. Movement may lead to cracking of the finish later-how visible, and how offensive that might be is subjective.

Regarding painting: a two-pack paint job on cabinets around here goes for >$140/m2 +/- depending on prep and detail. You have to figure on both sides of everything. There are other, cheaper paints, but I don’t know anything about them. A complete spray rig for two-pack is expensive, and there is a learning curve. And you need a booth with dust control.

(I was going to go down that road myself, but have decided against it. I am paying a local backyard panel beater to shoot paint instead, but doing the prep myself.

That said, in the UK there is Smallbone of Devises, an ultra top end cabinet maker. Their most expensive finish is brushed on by hand, by master painters. Punters there pay hundreds of thousands of quid for their cabinets. Seriously,

Personally having done a few cabinets and installed pro - IÂ’d be getting my melamine panels cut at a boards supplier and when youÂ’ve got the carcases set up then measure and buy your doors from them too. There are a surprising number of pieces of the carcasses in a kitchen and you will spend a little more but get a top notch job. Square too.
if you still want to go yourself then use 18mm ( not 16 cos itÂ’s a bit harder to hit centre when edge screwing) melamine and use same for backs of cupboards cos youÂ’ll be screwing through them to install and it braces well. Especially overheads.
Go to Bunnings and have a look at their kitchens and youÂ’ll figure a lot out.
To even cut melamine youÂ’ll need at the least a track saw and then route the edges to get rid of chipping. Some way of getting the panels dead square. A panel saw like the pros use is a big investment in dollars and space. IÂ’d imagine most use CNC to cut panels now. The place I did work for did. You will pay surprisingly little for this service if you get your panels pre-cut.
once youÂ’ve done one car case it gets boring so do yourself a favour.

Originally Posted by Greg Q

You can’t make the rails and stiles from plywood because of the edge. You can however use mdf. There will be a lot of pre-paint prep with fillers and edge sealing. A lot.

Solid wood will move because no coating is completely gas-proof, so there will be some water vapour transfer and hence movement. How much depends on species, moisture content range and size. Movement may lead to cracking of the finish later-how visible, and how offensive that might be is subjective.

Regarding painting: a two-pack paint job on cabinets around here goes for >$140/m2 +/- depending on prep and detail. You have to figure on both sides of everything. There are other, cheaper paints, but I don’t know anything about them. A complete spray rig for two-pack is expensive, and there is a learning curve. And you need a booth with dust control.

(I was going to go down that road myself, but have decided against it. I am paying a local backyard panel beater to shoot paint instead, but doing the prep myself.

That said, in the UK there is Smallbone of Devises, an ultra top end cabinet maker. Their most expensive finish is brushed on by hand, by master painters. Punters there pay hundreds of thousands of quid for their cabinets. Seriously,

Thanks for that, I had considered mdf for the face panels on the drawers and doors so think I'll go with that option so no separation appears on the joints once painted and looks to work out a bit cheaper too.

We have bought a new (old) house so there will be alot of projects over teh coming years hence the investment in the sprayer but I am conscience of getting a professional finish on them so might tackle the interior of the carcasses myself as problems less likely to show up while getting a professional to do the drawers and doors.

Originally Posted by AndrewPatrol

Personally having done a few cabinets and installed pro - IÂ’d be getting my melamine panels cut at a boards supplier and when youÂ’ve got the carcases set up then measure and buy your doors from them too. There are a surprising number of pieces of the carcasses in a kitchen and you will spend a little more but get a top notch job. Square too.
if you still want to go yourself then use 18mm ( not 16 cos itÂ’s a bit harder to hit centre when edge screwing) melamine and use same for backs of cupboards cos youÂ’ll be screwing through them to install and it braces well. Especially overheads.
Go to Bunnings and have a look at their kitchens and youÂ’ll figure a lot out.
To even cut melamine youÂ’ll need at the least a track saw and then route the edges to get rid of chipping. Some way of getting the panels dead square. A panel saw like the pros use is a big investment in dollars and space. IÂ’d imagine most use CNC to cut panels now. The place I did work for did. You will pay surprisingly little for this service if you get your panels pre-cut.
once youÂ’ve done one car case it gets boring so do yourself a favour.

I've got a pretty good setup with my table saw, mitre and handhelds with a number of blades so not too concerned about the cutting and keeping it square. My issue with melamine was more the lack of sturdiness when compared to plywood as some of the joints would likely be dadoed out as well as the drilling into end grain. Also with any sanding and filling and the fact we wont be going with a standard white or anything Im thinking they will need to be painted regardless of the laminate on it.

That said I am planning to make a few cabinets for my workshop first so think I'll build at least one with melamine and see how I go with that vs a plywood cabinet too

If you do use MDF for anything, you may wish to consider using shellac as a first step in sealing the cut edges. Since shellac has mostly no water, the MDF won’t swell, and the fibres then take a sanding well. Afterwards a couple of coats of normal primers will quickly give you a finished edge.

I have used traditional shellac, but find that it is now so expensive for flakes and metho that I just buy the Zinsser B-I-N, which is a white-tinted shellac. Bunnings. About $95 for a US gallon.

I was cautioned that when assembling cabinets from melamine panels to get the specific adhesive for melamine as standard PVA won’t work. And buy the best screws that you can find at some non-Bunnings vendor. Trying to use Zenith brand screws typically makes me say bad words and pop an aneurysm.

16mm HMR melamine chipboard for the carcasses works fine. You could use ply if were wanted the plywood look, but don't use it because it's going to be 'stronger'. Melamine chipboard will also come in at about a third of the cost. I used the same melamine for the drawers as well, with the bottoms grooved into the sides. Makes them immensely strong but also quite heavy. Don't rely on just glue for the carcasses or drawers, use staples and screws as well.

For the drawer and cabinet fronts, MDF works but you'll have to do a fair bit of prep:

-Sanding to remove any blade marks
-then priming with something like Zinsser 1-2-3 Bullseye
-fill any gaps
-sand again to remove any fuzzies
-primer second coat
-light sand
-first coat of paint
-light sand
-second coat of paint
-light sand
-water based poly final coat

If you want an excellent finish, you must spray. And don't do what I did and brush on the primer, then spray the paint coats. The paint hides nothing so even the tiniest imperfections will show. If you're using water based paints, thin them down with Floetrol.

My laundry project was fun enough but it was just two large cabinets and 4 gi-normous drawers. Making the drawers and drawer fronts was much more interesting but prepping for paint and then painting takes awhile and depending on your workspace means you can't work on anything else as you need to keep dust to a minimum. I've attached a photo of the laundry - I'd say it was an acceptable result (well I think so, don't laugh at me) but unless your kitchen is really small there is going to be a lot of 'busy' work involved. After you've made one carcass, you've made them all. One of the unspoken things to make a DIY job not look like a DIY job will be lining everything up - i.e. cabinet hardware locations, consistent reveals, consistent overhang, properly scribing countertops - there is plenty to do even without cutting everything from scratch.
IMG_20210623_111428.jpg

For my kitchen I'll be getting the sheet goods cut and edgebanded from Mister Ply&Wood. Drawers will be Blum boxes because of the time and weight saving involved. If I do painted drawers/cabinet fronts again, then I will likely get use pre primed MDF and have it sprayed professionally.

^^^

Really nice work. And your finish looks as good as anything I have seen lately. As you say, prep is everything. Soul destroying, but the foundation of the entire look.

You're much too kind Greg Q! Just thought I'd throw in a bit more information about the tools used.

For cutting, both a Festool TS55 with a Festool 32T blade and a SawStop PCS with a SawStop 80T cross cut blade. I broke the sheets down from the full 2400x1200 size, so the track saw is kind of a must have unless you have a right proper slider. Neither of these have scoring blades but I got almost entirely chip free cuts from both blades on melamine. Wrangling large boards on the SawStop is not fun all. Edge banding was the iron on stuff from Bunnings. Works fine for the carcass but I wouldn't edge band drawer fronts or cabinet doors with the stuff. Trimmed with a sharp chisel then rounded over with a single cut file. I found the file much nicer to use than sandpaper.

Filler was either Selleys rapid filler you can get from Bunnings or gap filler from a tube for sealing the gap between the panel and frame on the drawer fronts - this must be done otherwise there will be a gap visible when painted. After the filler is dry, sand until it looks and feels smooth.

For painting, the Zinsser primer was brushed on but I would recommend spraying it. Paint was Porter's Paints with eggshell finish. I love the sheen of eggshell but it was far too delicate to be used as a drawer front paint (I was very sad when I realized this), so after letting it cure for a few days, I sprayed Cabot's water based poly over it. Air compressor is a belt driven 345L/min FAD which did the job nicely. Gun was a TradeTools 2.0mm gravity fed which I couldn't fault. If I was to do this again, I'd see about using automotive paints instead as they're certainly better suited to spraying using compressed air. If you were doing a lot of drawers/cabinets and wanted to use water based enamel, I would really suggest getting an airless sprayer, something like a Graco handheld. Much less thinning required and you can get a superb finish using a fine finish spray tip. I used a larger Graco unit for spraying my house interior, including gloss for the doors and trim and they came up excellent.

I wouldn’t be so sure about the Graco handheld. I read that they are fantastic for the first small job, then fail and the repair parts are very expensive. That little Graco is around $700 too. I have a big Graco pump that we are using on our house (including 25 doors and miles of period trim). as you say, with the fine finishing green tips you can get an excellent result.

If I could find a good water based paint I would be tempted to spray my own cabinets rather than send them out for two pack. Since we are using face frame cabinets there will have to be some onsite finishing too, which makes the DIY spray more attractive.

Originally Posted by Alkahestic

You're much too kind Greg Q! Just thought I'd throw in a bit more information about the tools used.

For cutting, both a Festool TS55 with a Festool 32T blade and a SawStop PCS with a SawStop 80T cross cut blade. I broke the sheets down from the full 2400x1200 size, so the track saw is kind of a must have unless you have a right proper slider. Neither of these have scoring blades but I got almost entirely chip free cuts from both blades on melamine. Wrangling large boards on the SawStop is not fun all. Edge banding was the iron on stuff from Bunnings. Works fine for the carcass but I wouldn't edge band drawer fronts or cabinet doors with the stuff. Trimmed with a sharp chisel then rounded over with a single cut file. I found the file much nicer to use than sandpaper.

Filler was either Selleys rapid filler you can get from Bunnings or gap filler from a tube for sealing the gap between the panel and frame on the drawer fronts - this must be done otherwise there will be a gap visible when painted. After the filler is dry, sand until it looks and feels smooth.

For painting, the Zinsser primer was brushed on but I would recommend spraying it. Paint was Porter's Paints with eggshell finish. I love the sheen of eggshell but it was far too delicate to be used as a drawer front paint (I was very sad when I realized this), so after letting it cure for a few days, I sprayed Cabot's water based poly over it. Air compressor is a belt driven 345L/min FAD which did the job nicely. Gun was a TradeTools 2.0mm gravity fed which I couldn't fault. If I was to do this again, I'd see about using automotive paints instead as they're certainly better suited to spraying using compressed air. If you were doing a lot of drawers/cabinets and wanted to use water based enamel, I would really suggest getting an airless sprayer, something like a Graco handheld. Much less thinning required and you can get a superb finish using a fine finish spray tip. I used a larger Graco unit for spraying my house interior, including gloss for the doors and trim and they came up excellent.

Cheers mate appreciate all the detail of your firsthand experience and I was curious if gaps were encountered in the panel frame or not so Id rather take the time to prep it all properly and get a better result even if it takes longer. There will be alot of painting of our place in general as its interior needs an update so I was going thinking of investing in a sprayer regardless for that purpose so I could use some of the internal walls as a practice run before deciding if I try my hand at painting the cabinetry as well because I want to make sure the missus is happy with the end result, no point saving money doing more of it myself if it turns out rubbish.