Melamine Edges

[John Hulett]

I'm venturing to make a custom closet for one of my kids closet. When I've worked with Melamine in the past (first kids closet and some shop cabinets) I had figured the edge would be eased after applying the edge banding. Not so, however. So what do you do to ease the edge so it's not so sharp? A sanding block?

- John

[Dave Falkenstein]

John - I trim the edges with a Rockler hand trimmer, and then use a sanding block to ease the edges.

[Greg West]

What dave said is the best way to do it. Make sure you ease the edge with sandpaper after trimming though as sometimes you get edges that didn't trim well and will snag and pull off if not eased.

Greg West

[frank shic]

sanding and filing will break the sharp edges of the melamine tape AFTER using a hand trimmer like the one dave mentioned, but you can also get pretty good results with just a laminate trimmer (or a router) with a seven or eight degree bevel bit. it'll take you a little bit of time to adjust the bit just right so that it takes off the tape without cutting into the melamine, but you can eliminate the two steps with just one pass fairly easily. i am a big fan of melamine and try to utilize it wherever i can.