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Thread: Where to buy melamine

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
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    cincinnati, oh
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    Where to buy melamine

    I am building a tv entertainment center and the plans call for 1/4" black melamine. Where can you get this. Does it come already on plywood or do you have to apply it yourself. I can go either way just not sure where you can find it to purchase.

    Any help would be appreciated.

    thanks
    Mike

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
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    Belleville, IL
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    I don't know about black, but I buy white melamine at the BORG. Lowe's and Home Depot both carry it. You may have to order black, though.

  3. #3
    I hear you can get it in Chinese milk.
    --
    Life is about what your doing today, not what you did yesterday! Seize the day before it sneaks up and seizes you!

    Alan - http://www.traditionaltoolworks.com:8080/roller/aland/

  4. #4
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    Oct 2006
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    Bloomington, IL
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    Menards has black laminate that you can apply yourself. The Melamine here is white and it is already applied.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2005
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    walnut creek, california
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    get it from a plywood supplier if you can as it's usually much higher quality than the stuff you get at the borg.

  6. #6

    Black

    Fine cabinet shop here in Lake Arrowhead gets it. I find a piece or two in the scrap pile from time-to-time. It's cabinet grade ply, and I used the scraps for jigs and such.


    Lon

  7. #7

    Frank is right

    Go to a place that supplies cabinet grade sheet goods -- the nearest place that the cabinetmakers go to. Their melamine will be cabinet-grade. The stuff at the BORG is lower quality (and I suspect is the reason that so many people have a bad feeling about particle board core melamine).

  8. #8
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    Northwestern Connecticut
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    They sell it in many colors through a good cabinet supplier(white, black, yellow, blue, red, green, etc), usually in either a particle board or MDF substrate, but the main office for melamine supplies is in HELL. Pretty sure the devil himself invented the stuff. Explains the milk thing too.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Peter Quinn View Post
    They sell it in many colors through a good cabinet supplier(white, black, yellow, blue, red, green, etc), usually in either a particle board or MDF substrate, but the main office for melamine supplies is in HELL. Pretty sure the devil himself invented the stuff. Explains the milk thing too.


    ROFL....good...good


  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Peter Quinn View Post
    They sell it in many colors through a good cabinet supplier(white, black, yellow, blue, red, green, etc), usually in either a particle board or MDF substrate, but the main office for melamine supplies is in HELL. Pretty sure the devil himself invented the stuff. Explains the milk thing too.
    Melamine is great for boxes. No grain, wipes clean, and no finishing required. You do need the right blade to cut it. Just finishing a $11K job that has melamine boxes, with wood exteriors. All the ladies brag about the "white interiors" being so light, instead of looking like a dungeon. Boxes were built using Danny Proulx's method.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike McCann View Post
    ... 1/4" black melamine. Where can you get this. Does it come already on plywood or do you have to apply it yourself...
    "Melamine" is common shorthand for "Melamine-covered particle board". It consists of a thin layer (.005" or so) of melamine thermally bonded to particle board at the factory.

    A related product is high pressure laminate. Formica is a leading brand, and that name is often used to mean high pressure laminate made by any manufacturer. HPL is about a sixteenth of an inch thick -- thick enough that it can be shipped and sold separately from a substrate. You buy a sheet of it and adhere it to your substrate.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
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    Indiana
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alan DuBoff View Post
    I hear you can get it in Chinese milk.
    ah, hell! Someone beat me to the punchline! I also hear you can find it in dogfood too.

  13. #13
    Oh no...dogs need to worry also?

    Seriously, my kitchen cabinets are lined with melamine, but I didn't build them, a friend I went to middle and high school that I have known most of my life built them for us before I was getting back into woodworking.

    I can say that if you spill milk ON it, it wipes right up!

    My wife is pretty happy with it, the sides and shelves are lined with it, over particle board as Jamie mentions. If any liquid did penetrate inside the particle board would fall apart, so that would be one downside.

    It is easy to clean, which is good for my wife. We actually like it, just don't want it inside our kid's milk...
    --
    Life is about what your doing today, not what you did yesterday! Seize the day before it sneaks up and seizes you!

    Alan - http://www.traditionaltoolworks.com:8080/roller/aland/

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
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    Rio Rancho, NM
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    All of my kitchen cabinets, plus my dining room built-in china cabinet and buffet, plus my pantry cabinets, plus my sunroom cabinets, are built from white (or almond) melamine, with oak faceframes and doors. They are super easy to clean - just a damp cloth or, for sticky or stubborn things, a spritz of 409 cleans them right up.

    Word of warning---if you are going to rabbet and/or dado for the backs, joints, and/or shelving, do NOT use the "special" glue that is recommended for use with melamine. If you do rabbets or dadoes, you will be gluing MDF (or particleboard) to like, or melamine to the substrate, and the glue does not work, unless you are gluing melamine to melamine. Use regular yellow carpenter's glue, and also screw the boxes together about every 6-8". The melamine glue will only soak into the substrate, the joint will dry out, and the box will fall apart in a very short time. Do NOT ask me how I know that--the recollection is too painful.
    Nancy Laird
    Owner - D&N Specialties, Rio Rancho, New Mexico
    Woodworker, turner, laser engraver; RETIRED!
    Lasers - ULS M-20 (20W) & M-360 (40W), Corel X4 and X3
    SMC is user supported. http://www.sawmillcreek.org/donate.php
    ___________________________
    It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Aug 2005
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    Melamine was more available to the regular guy and gal back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I was able to get it in white, gray, almond and black. I was also able to get it in 3/4", 1/2" and 1/4".

    Today, only white 3/4" is readily available at Lowes or Home Depot. Black is available at only one select lumber yard near me with limited stock.

    Melamine certainly has some advantages: stable, inexpensive, no finishing, and a clean-able surface.

    Here's a re-post of a melamine kitchen that was refaced about 2 years ago. The door faces have high gloss formica applied over the melamine surfaces. The sides of the melamine carcass's are real wood veneer and are now 20 years old.

    -Jeff


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