To Laminate or Not?

[wcndave]

My Kitchen drawers will be dovetailed maple on the outside, however I have some options for the inside.

One is to just use the wood - however then I need some maple veneered 12mm and 8mm plywood which is pretty expensive and comes in 3mx2m panels, which is too much.

I could use stick grey laminate on just the inside faces, however then when using the router to do the dovetails I will have laminate in place, and it's hard to attach after glue up.

One thought it is use the neutral laminate just for the bottom, and leave the inside sides wooden. Most of the wear and gunk is on the bottom anyway. Has anyone tried this? Does it look odd? Any other ideas?

Thanks

Dave

 

[johnwc812]

Hi Dave
Not the most up-market of solutions,
but I have successfully used inexpensive laminate flooring for drawer bottoms
6mm MDF with a maple laminate top surface (or oak, beech etc.).
The glued snap together joints, to make up the width, do not show and are quite strong.
I have also used the same "boards" for the backs of cabinets.
Cheers John

 

[wcndave]

Hi Dave
Not the most up-market of solutions,
but I have successfully used inexpensive laminate flooring for drawer bottoms
6mm MDF with a maple laminate top surface (or oak, beech etc.).
The glued snap together joints, to make up the width, do not show and are quite strong.
I have also used the same "boards" for the backs of cabinets.
Cheers John

Thanks, that's certainly an idea to get round the large board wastage problem.

I am taking a lot of pride in this, many of my friends are builders, roofers, carpenters, joiners, and tend to scoff at my level of attention to details. (When you're raising a roof tolerances are different I tell them, however they think my cabinet scraping and careful mortise shoulder attention is quite funny.

Given also I am doing dovetail drawers with real oak frame and panel doors and trim, with Blum Movento under drawer slides etc, I think I'd like to keep it there ;-)

Also I have some drawers that are 110cm wide, so I was looking to use 12mm bottoms for them, so varying depths would be an issue.

I suppose I just can't picture what it will look like with a wooden drawer with a pale grey laminate bottom...

However your idea is definitely a good one to bear in mind!

Thanks