Melamine cabinet boxes

[Phil Dixon]

I am thinking of using melamine for the cabinet boxes on my next project. But when I look at the melamine box cabinets in my house I cant figure out how the face frames were attached to the boxes.These are cabinet shop made and have 2 1/4 inch oak face frames with no puttied nail holes. I have always nailed and glued my face frames to my plywood boxes. Someone enlighten me please.

Thanx
Phil

[Ron Dunn]

Probably biscuits or dowels.

[Matt Meiser]

They could also just be glued or they could use pocket hole screws that are in invisible spots.

Having just built some melamine cabinets, I'd recommend taking a hard look at prefinished ply. Melamine edges chip easily during cutting or handling, and they are literally razor sharp. To add insult to injury, the white surface shows every blood drop and smear!

[Karl Brogger]

Dado'd on perhaps?. My cousin has a cabinet shop and that is the way he does it. He has some sort of square clip that you shoot into the dado, then you just line it up, and bash it on with a dead-blow. Sounds like a pain in the butt to me. I don't think he does the decks, just the vertical parts, ends/partitions. His reasoning was for alignment for build out for drawers being easier, juice isn't worth the squeaze in my eye's.

I think a fair amount of box cabinets are built this way as well.

[Karl Brogger]

To add insult to injury, the white surface shows every blood drop and smear!

Spit takes blood right off of melamine.

[Matt Meiser]

Spit takes blood right off of melamine.

Yeah, but your mouth gets really dry after a while.

[Joe Chritz]

The frames will be held plenty with just glue and clamps.

The dado's or dowels are for alignment. Pocket screws are both for securing the frame and so you don't need clamps.

I will sometime do both on one box. Screws down one side and clamp a visible side so no fasteners are visible.

Joe

[Jim Andrew]

The shop I worked in used a 1/4" groove in the face frame, glued and stapled through the tongue, the tongue was on the outside of the plywood edge, they ran the sides, bottoms and tops through a router table that made about a 1/4" offset, using 1/2 " material. Glued, clamped, stapled and taken out of clamps. Boxes were clamped face frame down.

[David DeCristoforo]

"Most" shops just glue the face frames on. Some use a groove or dado but most just glue them. Some shops even just use hot melt glue. And I'm not talking about "small" shops or "slam" shops. I once worked on a job where they had bought cabinets from a "well known quality cabinet" vendor. Several of them had to be modified. We disassembled them with a heat gun! In my shop we mostly make "frameless" cabinets but when we do use face frames, they are mostly glued and clamped. But we use plywood for case work not melamine of MDF so the bond is pretty strong. On "better" work we dado the cases into the face frames but the attachment is still glue and clamps. On our "best" work, there are usually no "discrete" face frames as the facings end up being more "integral".

[David Giles]

Melamine sides can be pocket holed to the face frame. It's easier to lay the FF face down and attach the case sides one at a time to the FF instead of building the case first and adding the FF. I usually start with the floor which centers the side pieces. It's easy to make the FF cover the floor edge by 1/32". Then attach each side, then the top spacers and throw on a back.

Pocket holes are covered by a plywood skin or raised panel for end cabinets

The advantage of dados is that they cover up any chipout.

[Roland Chung]

I also use pocket holes to hold faceframes on melamine cases.

Someone mentioned gluing and clamping the ff's on and then shooting headless pin nails through the ff. The hole is so small that it practically disappears when finished.

I've also seen a thread where someone was gluing, clamping and then shooting short pin nails through the side of the case and into the ff. The angle really helped hold the ff on after the clamps were removed.

[Vince Shriver]

The Kreg Jig people used to put out a video on how to assemble cases to face frames - very simple, effecient and easy with the right stuff. I'm sure they still must offer it - check it out.

[Steve Clardy]

I've also seen a thread where someone was gluing, clamping and then shooting short pin nails through the side of the case and into the ff. The angle really helped hold the ff on after the clamps were removed.

Thats how I attach mine. Glue, clamp, brad nailed from the inside