Thread: Real truth about assembling melamine cabinetry

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

Originally Posted by Arron

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.

Originally Posted by Beardy

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 ?

Originally Posted by Arron

Wouldn’t that mean you have a couple of screw heads visible inside the cabinet ?

They usually put the screws behind the hinge

Originally Posted by woodPixel

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

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

We build entire houses with nothing but nails

5
...nothing but nails and a pallet load of silicone gap filler.

Oh wait, that's not funny, I'm building a house now...

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

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!

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.

PXL_20211206_054938231.jpg

Originally Posted by Arron

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.

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.

Originally Posted by rustynail

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.

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

Originally Posted by Arron

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