Oak veneer mdf doors

[Simon C]

Hi - here's a decision I would love some advice on. Just ordered a sheet of very expensive 25mm mdf oak veneer which the local panel supplier cut into two for me for a pair of wardrobe doors. Unfortunately the guy there who was trying to be helpful taking it out to the car for me damaged the corner when he knocked it on the ground. I might be able to try and glue it up and take their offered £20 discount but the veneer is creased and it's on the side I would want to face out. Their other suggestions are to give me a new single door, but with no guarantees it will match the other door satisfactorily in terms of grain/finish or alternatively they have suggested that they give me enough 6mm solid oak to lip the doors up. The latter could be a good bet as I was only going to veneer edge them and this could be more sturdy but I haven't lipped doors before and concerned about getting into something I wasn't counting on. How tricky is this? Do the ends of the lipping need to be mitred? Anyone want to tell me what they would do in my shoes?

 

[Cabinetman]

I have made a U section to cap the edges of the veneered MDF in the past, mitred at the corners. Do you have a pic of the damage? The capping would only cover about 10mil.
Would it be possible to redesign the wardrobe with slightly smaller doors?

 

[Spectric]

Unfortunately the guy there who was trying to be helpful taking it out to the car for me damaged the corner when he knocked it on the ground.

The goods were damaged, you should have ask for a replacement because if it was not your fault then why should you find ways round the problem.

 

[Simon C]

Thanks both. Roy - you obviously make a reasonable point. Where it gets tricky is that they have said they will replace the damaged door but not the other one which was cut from the same sheet. If I say yes to this then find the new door is cut from different sheet doesn't match well then I'm worse off - the original two doors were cut from one sheet. You can tell me if I should be concerned about this - if not then all good they can replace it. On the other hand if lipping is easy and a sensible thing to do anyway in terms of edge protection then maybe I should just do that. I don't think that I would need to cap it with a U section - they could just take 12mm off the damaged bottom and side and I could apply the 6mm lipping all round. What's the convention - to mitre or just to butt it with the horizontal trim sat inside the vertical to hide the edging? Images attached

 

[Spectric]

Where it gets tricky is that they have said they will replace the damaged door but not the other one which was cut from the same sheet.

Yes I can see the concerns, what you need to do is lay your good half on another full sheet and compare, if it looks wrong or odd then another solution should be sought. What I would suggest to the supplier is that they will have to cut another sheet in two to replace your damaged one and if you take both halves and return both the original halves then they still end up with a good half and the damaged one with a happy customer.

 

[Dee J]

While agreeing that it's their fault, and ideally they should replace the whole sheet (which is what you bought), realistically that was always going to be a vulnerable point, and if they hadn't done it, something similar was likely to happen soon. Personally I'd try to fix it myself : clamp it flat, with some non-stick film against the veneer and soak the mdf with a hardening solution / pva glue / acrylic varnish / scotch glue / shellac or whatever will work with your preferred finishing system.

 

[Hornbeam]

How were you going to treat the edge of the doors if they hadnt been damaged.
My view would be that the raw edge needs needs reasonable lipping and that a veneer edging would potentially fail
I would lip all round with 6mm oak . See if they will give you the lipping for both doors and possibly the £20 as well.
A lot of the visible damage will repair by impregnating with glue and clamping between 2 pieces of melamine coated chip (or other non stick surface)

 

[HOJ]

Agree with @Dee J there's a high probability you'll ding all the other corners by the time you have them fitted.

I look for damaged boards when I go to buy, on the basis I'm going to trim and edge them anyway, so if you can lose the damage by doing so, that works well for everyone, plus you may need to go back to buy from them in the future, If you can be adaptable now, you could make friends for life!

You'll have to find some Oak though, if you weren't so far away, I have a mountain of Oak rippings I keep for this purpose.

 

[johnnyb]

So your doors have to be exactly the size of an 1220 by 2440 sheet cut in half?

 

[XTiffy]

For your purpose a 3mm strip will suffice, if it covers the damaged area. I would always put the hirizontal between the long edges. The normal procedure is to use a bearing guided trim router after gluing and I always then use a very small radius round-over cutter to take away the sharp edge. As we have done so much of this I set up a "baby" round-over in an old router and left it set permanently. It is possible to buy lipping in coils, I have some that is approx. 30mm wide X 3mm (Hafele the suppliers, I think)