Installing Raw Wood Veneer Over Previously Finsihed Cabinets

[Frank Hill]

I guess the simple question is how? Our house is an older one and the cabinets are built into the house. The few exterior sides are poorly finished plywood and the grain can be easily felt and seen through the finish. The wood faces are finished with high gloss and are smooth. I thought the 'Heat Lock' shown on Joe's Woodworking site would fit the bill. Apply both sides, let dry, position and iron it out. I sent him a message and his reply was that there was no glue that could be used to attach raw wood veneer to finished wood. I thought as long as I degreased the cabinets filled in surface defects and then roughed the surface up with 80 grit sandpaper, I would be good to go. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

[Jamie Buxton]

As I understand it, the usual way to reface kitchen cabinets is to use backed veneer with contact cement. (The backing is usually paper. It holds the wood together into large sheets, and reduces the threat of finishing solvents penetrating through to the contact cement.) There are also peel-and-stick veneer sheets available, but you pay a price for the convenience. Either the contact cement or the peel-and-stick should adhere to cleaned and scuffed varnish.

Here's an outfit with a lot of materials: http://www.tapeease.com/cabinet.htm

[keith micinski]

I just refaced my old cabinets with iron on maple and it worked great and I have no problems with it. I have no clue why you were told that adhesive would not stick to wood. What else would it stick to then if not a cleaned wood surface?

[Frank Hill]

I just refaced my old cabinets with iron on maple and it worked great and I have no problems with it. I have no clue why you were told that adhesive would not stick to wood. What else would it stick to then if not a cleaned wood surface?

Me either but here is an email from a site that was frequently mentioned during my search of installing wood veneer here on the site. Chronologically, they are in reverse order so you will need to read the last first to not be confused.

Frank,

There are no adhesives designed to bond raw wood veneer to a non-porous (finished) surface. I would suggest using a solvent based contact cement and getting some paperbacked veneer. Honestly, that is the only way to go.

Joe



Frank hill wrote: Wow, that was fast. Okay, I will be resawing white oak into 1/8" raw wood veneer. It will not be backed. The existing cabinets are finished plywood. I don't know the exact finish. I am almost tempted to say shellac only. Definitely not a high gloss since I can still feel the grain. Perhaps satin. I know I will have to first degrease and then rough up with 80 grit sandpaper. I have several areas that I guess was tear out when they built these cabinets. I figured on some natural wood putty sanded smooth.

Everything is vertical that I need to veneer. Everything I read seems to suggest that without a press I'm out of luck and contact cement should only be used if the veneer is large enough to cover the piece. This is very confusing. I thought there would be something out there that I could cover one or the other and then press them together and get good adhesion. If I have to buy veneer, I've lost my cost advantage to cut it myself. Any enlightment you can give me will be definitely appreciated.

Thanks

Frank

--- On Tue, 12/15/09, Joe wrote:

From: Joe
Subject: Re: Veneer Supplies Inquiry
To: "Frank Hill
Date: Tuesday, December 15, 2009, 3:10 PM

Hi Frank,

You'll have to be more specific. How thick is the veneer? Is it backed veneer? Is there a finish on the cabinets already? If not, are the cabinets clean, porous, and free of defects?

Joe



Frank Hill wrote:
> I will be installing raw thin cut wood veneer that I cut on my wife\'s kitchen cabinets. Obviously I can not put the cabinets in any type of press and from what I have read, contact cement is not the way to go if the veneer sheet will not completely cover the piece. In my case, I will be working with random width pieces of veneer to install on the vertical cabinet surfaces. What glue do you recommend?

Perhaps the answer is an attempt to sell me veneer, I don't know. I do know that in my then current state of confusion if he had a recommendation to buy a certain type of glue he sold, I would have ordered a couple gallons on the spot. At the very least it seems I could use some type of quick grab panel adhesive and a few pin nails but I thought of that after he told me there was nothing available and I was hoping to avoid the pain of filling pin holes.

I'd be interested i nhearing more about how you did yours.

Thanks

[Joe Jensen]

I would think there are several ways to do this. I would not be worried about the finished surface. Glues need to "grab" the surface but I've never read you need more than a light sanding. It would be easy to test.

What does concern me is that it sounds like the surface of the existing sides is old cheap pine plywood where you can feel the grain meaning it's not really flat. Thin paper backed would be a distaster as it would telegraph that grain right through. IMHO you need a FLAT substrate. With 1/8" thick veneer you could maybe use something like a construction adhesive and finely notched trowel to put on the glue, and then just press the 1/8" veneer on. If I did this, I'd glue up the individual pieces into a final sized sheet before attaching it. I use a fair amount of real wood veneer and I always glue my leaves together with yellow glue before pressing. I do this because the epoxy for veneering bleeds through a joint that is just taped and I can see it when I finish. I tape the veneer sheets together on one side, fold the sheets along the seam, use my finger to spread a fine line of glue on the 1/40" wide joint, unfold the sheets to close the joint and tape the back side. Once dry, the sheets are surprisingly durable. A testament to the strength of yellow glue I guess.

How will you handle the faces? More veneer? I assume yes. Here is what I'd do.
1) Make sheets slightly larger, attach with the idea I had above (after thinking about this for only a minute) or some better way.
2) Once dry, trim them flush with a router. Where the bit can't get, use a file and then sandpaper.
3) Then do the faces. With these, I am assuming a face frame cabinet and that you are using more 1/8" veneer. Instead of the construction adhesive, I'd use yellow glue, a caul coverd with rubber, and c-clamps. The rubber on the caul would let it apply even pressure across the entire surface of the veneer piece.

Make sense? Stupid?

[Frank Hill]

Joe, that is what I was thinking initially however now that I'm at a point where I'm ready to pull the trigger after reading about the different glues and installations, presses, visiting recommended veneer sites, etc I pretty much got myself back to square one on this project of how am I going to do this. I was pretty much convinced my idea wasn't going to work and wanted to avoid cleaning up the mess from a failure. For the sides I figured on a construction adhesive with a quick grab. I had not got to the point of figuring how to join the individual leaves prior to installation but your suggestion is something I'm going to try tomorrow. I have a bunch of red oak scrap (I'll be using rift saw white oak for the project) I can resaw and glue up and attach on my shop walls). Most of the faces are 1x4 and with laminating a couple of 2x4 and joining them down I can have exact sized cauls for C-clamping. Thanks for your help. It's good to know my initial ideas on how to do this weren't insanity.

[Doug W Swanson]

I refaced my built in bathroom vanity with oak veneer 10 years ago and it still looks great.

I used a combination of contact cement on the larger pieces and iron on with the smaller pieces.

If it were me I would just buy the thinner veneer and use that.

JMO,
Doug