Need advice on melamine faced plywood or alternative

colm_mcm

Not sure whether this falls under DIY or not but..

We are in the middle of building a camper at the moment and are now looking at options for cabinet doors.

One option is lightweight plywood by Morland. It’s fine, but I don’t want to have to put a knock-in protective edge or edge banding on it.

What I’d really like is a high quality melamine faced plywood (approx 15mm) which I can use the sawn edge as the finished product (no problem lacquering or varnishing it or whatever.

Is this realistic? Is what’s out there hard enough with a melamine coating tough enough not to chip?

I’m sure I’ve seen this done in kitchens.

colm_mcm

Just to add, ideally looking for an off-White glossy finish

tabby aspreme

Woodworkers, near Harold's Cross sell melamine faced birch ply

colm_mcm

tabby aspreme wrote: »

Woodworkers, near Harold's Cross sell melamine faced birch ply

Thanks, I saw that alright but I think they only do white.

tabby aspreme

colm_mcm wrote: »

Thanks, I saw that alright but I think they only do white.

You could try Dublin plywood and Veneer also, they could have some specialist stuff. If all you can get is white, would you consider wrapping the white with the color you want, I recently did some work with white melamine plywood that was wrapped afterwards to give the desired look, Canary Yellow, bit of an offcut in the pic, be luvlee in the camper.

colm_mcm

https://www.dpv.ie/assets/Superva-Brochure.pdf

This might work, but I think the ply might be too soft to leave exposed? I see they sell T-Trim and aluminium corner profiles so is probably the same idea as the Morland board.

Will contact them tomorrow, thanks for the info

colm_mcm

Superva not actually available - but they did give the option of 12mm birch ply with a Formica layer inside and out.

This might be just the thing...

tabby aspreme

colm_mcm wrote: »

Superva not actually available - but they did give the option of 12mm birch ply with a Formica layer inside and out.

This might be just the thing...

You won't go wrong with Formica on Birch ply but it can be difficult to cut without chipping the edges, you could get the sheet of Formica and cut it oversize, glue with Bostik contact adhesive to the ply when the ply is cut to size and trim the Formica with a laminate trimmer .

colm_mcm

They say they will bond the Formica layers to the 8*4 sheet, and then we cut the sheet down. Does that sound unlikely without damage?

neutral guy

From experienced cabinet maker.
To cut that kind of material you need good panel saw with scoring blade.Most cabinet making workshops has them.
You will never cut that kind of material at home without good experience and good tools.
Ask guys at kitchen places ,they could do this job for you for some extra and they could even put good quality PVC edging if they will have machine for it just dont forget reduce size of the doors because edging has different thickness.
I can cut this kind of material by jigsaw and clean edges by router or belt sander but as I said before you will need good experience to do that.
Ask guys who will put melamine to cut sheet to your sizes they must have good panel saw

colm_mcm

That’s the plan, to farm it out - the table saw we have would make Shiite of it!

Another option we might have is to CBC router it, not sure how wise that is. We got that done with the last build.

I don’t want any edging on it though, just the look I want on it. That wouldn’t be an issue would it?

neutral guy

No problem to sand and put laquer on edging to keep ply visible.You can remove laquer from melamine by thiners ( we wash melamine chibpoard using thiners no problem ) after .