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| Building material question |
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| hunky_artist:
what would this old cabinet be made of? is it particle board with laminate over? whats the easiest modern equivalent that you all use? (and yes, I realise that this is the 'before' picture... I just love how this looks) ;D |
| paigeoliver:
plywood, plywood, plywood. Having gone through over 100 classic cabinets in the last 4 years I can say a few things about the assorted cabinet types. Particle board, t-molding or not, these are always in the worst shape, they always have damage, and get water damage way too easily. Heavy MDF cabinets. Uncommon, not quite as easily damaged as particle. Heavy as sin. Empty MDF cabs easily outweigh the equivalent populated plywood cabinet. Plywood cabinets. Light, light, light, light. strongest cabinet type. Most difficult to damage, easiest to repair damage on. Easiest to repair damage on. Never have water damage (unless left sitting in water, or outside for years, or other idiocy that would reduce a particle cabinet to dust). Laminated cabinets. All types of cabinets are also available laminated. This can be a plus or a minus. It does look great, and makes the cab harder to damage, but the only way to repair damaged laminate is to replace the whole piece. Also you can simply sand down and stain plywood cabinets. You don't even particularly need the high quality wood to do this. I have even stripped down old plywood cabinets and stained them and gotten great results. |
| vputz:
On screwing and particleboard: If you know anyone with a biscuit joiner (plate joiner), they almost always have paid quite a bit for it and don't use it very often, meaning that they are DYING to loan it out and justify its existence. A biscuit joiner cuts two matching curved-depth slots into pieces of material into which you then slot a football-shaped "biscuit" of wood, which bridges both pieces. If you bathe the slot in glue, you then have three pieces of wood (particleboard, biscuit, particleboard, or what have you) which are soaking up glue like sponges. In short: you get a very clean, very permissible (ie you have a touch more flexibility to line things up than with dowels), and VERY strong joint. I used a friend's biscuit joiner on my CP and found it to be a very easy and very attractive way to do business, even just doing butt joints. Highly recommended and avoids the problems of screwing into edges of particleboard. -->VPutz |
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