Cabinet fronts for vans - best method?

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dilby

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Hi everyone - I'm currently converting a van into a camper and am trying to plan out my cabinet fronts, and was hoping some kind folks could help me reach some conclusions as my brain is absolutely friend and a lot of this is new territory. So please forgive the waffling in advance while I spill my thoughts - I will try to be as concise as I can!

In short I've seen enough vans where the finish of the cabinets don't last, and I'm also trying to watch the weight of the construction; practically I don't know how much weight really will affect fuel/handling in a real world sense but it's certainly a consideration.

How to finish?

I've seen enough vans where people have painted their owns doors with off the shelf paints - a commonly taught method is using good quality foam rollers with Dulux oil based trade paint or specialist furniture paint, but I've seen too many that scratch and scuff too easily. My mother in law restores furniture and uses some high end paint and although it looks lovely it just always scratches. In a van the hard wearing nature is all the more important. From my research it seems that kitchen cabinet fronts are usually finished with a 2k paint that has a hardener in it, applied via a proper compressor setup which I do not own. I have considered going down this route, but that's just another thing for me to learn and invest in, plus I understand it's dangerous without the right amount of space, which again I don't have much of.

So an initial question is are there any paints out there that are proven to be hard wearing for this situation that I don't know of?
And secondly is there a way that paints with hardeners can be applied via the little electric hand sprayers such as the Wagner models?

I have also considered getting formica faced ply and leaving a raw ply edge (oiled) like in the photo attached. it can look really smart, but weight may be an issue (see below). I know as well that trim is a common option here, hammered into a routed slot, but I am just not a fan!

1670605471218.png


Materials

I've also considered just buying off-the-shelf kitchen fronts - I've worked the dimensions out and can make it work and have installed a few so far so have a decent knowledge of how to make it work, but again the weight
may well be an issue as they are all around 18mm thick and dense mdf.

So my other options are:
- Use MDF to make a simple shaker like peter millard does here. This helps save some weight, but if I need to go to MR MDF (Im still undecided how necessary this is - thoughts appreciated) then the stuff weights a ton!
- Go with the above formica idea, and perhaps try to get poplar ply to save some weight
- Ignore the weight and go with pre-made doors.

And as for the carcasses I haven't even got there yet, but will likely either go with some melamine faced chipboard if i decide weight isn't as much of an issue, or just have bare ply with some hard wax oil or similar that I've had pretty good luck with.

As you can tell me brain is mess, so thanks to anyone who has made it this far! If it's any excuse I've got my first newborn in the house and am running on very little sleep!

Thanks again
 
It sounds to me that you have considered many options. My choice of your options would be purpose made bespoke kitchen unit doors if you can get them in your required sizes. This at least gives you the hinge holes pre drilled into the doors which will help with keeping everything in line once hung. The only other option I could suggest is to face your own made doors with Perspex as this can be ordered cut to size and is available in many colours and designs-glitter, stars it’s out there . Good luck with the newborn baby and the sleepless nights 😢😢😢
 
The question of weight saving vs furniture material depends on the van - payload will be specified by manufacturer. Personally I would avoid going over ~60-70% or performance will be compromised and brakes/suspension continually stressed.

Loading a van to the max occasionally may be OK for a builder, but you will have the weight onboard all the time.

Paint - although the range of colours is limited, you could use floor paint - I have used it for workshop cabinets and it seems robust.
 
I'll put my tuppence in. furniture board is available for this it's light and durable. paint I'd use a water based pu lac with a cross linker. ask and they'll make it brushable as well.
mrmdf has a nice hard surface as does beech this helps stop dings and dints.
 
Terry makes a good point there, a lot of commercially built campervans only allow about 150kg of user payload before you go over the plated limit. I don't know if you are planning to put in insulation, electrics, rock and roll bed, water heating, night heater etc but it'd be easy to go over
 
On my van I used good quality exterior 12mm ply and had the doors simply as the cut outs. Simple but effective. Finished with polyurethane varnish. Last well will ask the junk I chuck in it!!

If you want frame and panel doors then birch / birch ply would be lightest. Maple would be too bad either.
 
Have you thought of using the modern floor boarding laminated onto a thin ply?
 
I am just coming to the end of fitting out a Transit for a customer. Being semi-retired, and not wanting to be involved with major materials purchases, the customer sorted out this side of things. This was a 'first' for me, but we did decide to use the ready face-finished poplar ply boards. that are used for camper-vans I have used the best part of 7 of these and there is a weight saving - both because of the lighter poplar, and because they are 14/15 mm instead of the 18mm of something like MDF. You don't need to to go any thinner than this, as you will experience difficulty putting cabinets together without the fixings showing,

I have used the PVC edging but not on everything. To go around corners you have to radius them - which does give things a certain look, but you can get away with quite a sharp radius - it is just a matter of experimenting. The alternative edge treatment is to stain them to match the face ( this is very white with poplar ) I then applied al least three coats of water based varnish. You have to be quite scrupulous in wiping down the faces between coats as they can get smeared. After an initial wipe with a rag, it was really beneficial to give the faces a further wipe with a meth's soaked rag before the coating fully dried.

The board was put together using No 10 biscuits ( 20's would poke through the face)
It was also reinforced on the inside with a few plastic blocks ( modesty blocks). I have used copious amounts of masking tape, placed on the board surface, before marking out, as any line seems to disappear in the busy grain pattern. Where screws have to go through from the surface I have used matching plastic plugs to cover, though you do have to be careful not to damage the surface with any depth stop used on the drill.

An additional advantage to using these boards, is that there is obviously no finishing needed, which means a lot of time can be saved at the end of the job. This is obviously off-set by the extra cost of the boards.
 
niall Y said:
I am just coming to the end of fitting out a Transit for a customer. Being semi-retired, and not wanting to be involved with major materials purchases, the customer sorted out this side of things. This was a 'first' for me, but we did decide to use the ready face-finished poplar ply boards. that are used for camper-vans I have used the best part of 7 of these and there is a weight saving - both because of the lighter poplar, and because they are 14/15 mm instead of the 18mm of something like MDF. You don't need to to go any thinner than this, as you will experience difficulty putting cabinets together without the fixings showing,

I have used the PVC edging but not on everything. To go around corners you have to radius them - which does give things a certain look, but you can get away with quite a sharp radius - it is just a matter of experimenting. The alternative edge treatment is to stain them to match the face ( this is very white with poplar ) I then applied al least three coats of water based varnish. You have to be quite scrupulous in wiping down the faces between coats as they can get smeared. After an initial wipe with a rag, it was really beneficial to give the faces a further wipe with a meth's soaked rag before the coating fully dried.

The board was put together using No 10 biscuits ( 20's would poke through the face)
It was also reinforced on the inside with a few plastic blocks ( modesty blocks). I have used copious amounts of masking tape, placed on the board surface, before marking out, as any line seems to disappear in the busy grain pattern. Where screws have to go through from the surface I have used matching plastic plugs to cover, though you do have to be careful not to damage the surface with any depth stop used on the drill.

An additional advantage to using these boards, is that there is obviously no finishing needed, which means a lot of time can be saved at the end of the job. This is obviously off-set by the extra cost of the boards.
Click to expand...
Any pics!!
 
Snapped a couple of photos in the fading light - enough to show the general layout.
Board colour was customers choice. Worked off a couple of images the customer showed me. Fairly basic - but what was requested.
IMG 3895EN.jpg
IMG_3896_1EN.jpg
 
Jameshow said:
What's the Base van??

Transit custom??
Click to expand...
Ah.... you've got me there:) Wasn't paying attention to the specific model. It's not a full mini-bus as only one row of seats was taken out. Less windows, than yours, but carpeted and trimmed. It was a very minimal conversion, as customer did not want: insulation; additional electric; gas lines; plumbing ;loo etc. All a bit Spartan to my taste, but enjoyable to do
 

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