glue for finished plywood

[paul cottingham]

Any thoughts? I am building a cabinet from pre-finished ply, and am struggling with glue. both types of regular glue I tried didn't stick at all.

[Sam Layton]

Hi Paul,

No glue will stick to pre-finished ply that I know of. I use tongue and grooves, plus pocket screws for my cabinets. The tongue and groove expose raw ply so the glue will hold.

Sam

[Jamie Buxton]

There's a glue called Roo Clear that is intended to glue materials like melamine and vinyl. My experience is that it is not as strong as PVA-to-wood, but it is a lot stronger than PVA-to-prefinish. I dunno exactly what your prefinish is, but give Roo Clear a try.

www.rooglue.com/rooclear.html

www.wwhardware.com retails it.

[Joe Chritz]

Any melamine glue will have some stick. It is rubbery and not nearly as strong as wood to wood PVA but still helps a lot on the joints.

You can also run a very shallow dado on the panels to expose some raw wood. Not a bad plan but adds a machining step.

Since I use applied ends for almost all my cabinets I just use melamine glue and zipRscrews through the sides.

Joe

[Richard McComas]

My typical cabinet box uses a butt joint and no glue. I have some boxethat are 15 years old and doing just fine.

I tack the box together with a brad nailer, then if there's any miss alignment I can easily adjust with a rubber hammer. Then I pre-drill with a fuller counter sink bit and screw together with real cabinet screws NOT drywall screws.

[Van Huskey]

You really do want to try to aim for a mechanical joint if you can, glue hates the stuff.

[Matt Armstrong]

prefinished ply is a good opportunity for pocket screws.

[paul cottingham]

I dowelled and screwed it together. Seems strong.

[Peter Quinn]

gorilla glue works decent for wood to prefinished or to laminate layers of prefinished. But regardless of the glue you use you are gluing wood to finish or finish to finish, and thats not a strong mechanical plan. The joint is only as strong as the bond of the finish in that case. That precat stuff or conversion varnish sprayed on most prefinished is tough, but still just finish.

Plan to use dowels, biscuits, screw, confirmats, pocket holes, dados with screws and glue, something. I really don't build any different with prefinished, I just take a bit more care not to scratch it.