Browse Forums Kitchen Corner Re: Cost of different colour cabinets 16Aug 12, 2007 2:56 pm To answer this question we need to go back in time a bit, so, into the Tardis...
When cabinetmaking started becoming an industry of premade boxes hung with coloured doors, the primary materials were melamine, which is the white coated chipboard that the cupboard "carcasses" are made of, and laminate which is the coloured/patterned plastic stuff that was laminated onto a substrate, normally chipboard. Melamine is a plastic surface that is bonded onto the surface of a composite board during manufacture, either chip/particle board or MDF. One of the distinctive aspects of Melamine is that it is a lot thinner than laminate and very difficult to seperate from the board. HPL (High Pressure Laminate) was used on benchtops, often in that fetching lime green colour, and also used to provide coloured doors, frequently in a very tasteful knotty pine finish. Making laminated doors is a time consuming exercise and also uses a lot of laminate, which is, on average, more expensive than the board it is put onto. Then a few years ago the producers of laminate refined techniques for producing melamine in different colours and patterns besides the ubiquitous white. This allowed for doors to be cut to size directly from sheets of coloured material without requiring the extra laminating stage. The edges of the doors can then be finished with a number of different types of edging in a matching (or contrasting) colour in a process called "edgebanding". A distinctive aspect of melamine boards is that they can only be flat with square edges. These days, coloured melamine board is generically referred to as "Colourboard". Some manufacturers make their colourboard out of HMR (High Moisture Resistant) particleboard, others use MRMDF (Moisture Resistant Medium Density Fibreboard). Laminate is used almost exclusively for horizontal/ benchtop applications, as it is tougher than melamine, and, being a laminate, can be "Postfomed", which is the process of wrapping a sheet of laminate around a curved benchtop (or other board) edge. Laminates are also used for vertical applications where a rolled profile is required (rollform doors), where a tougher surface is required, or simply because a pattern is desired that is not available as a colourboard. The Sheen range of melamine now available from Polytech will not be affected by exposure to heat or steam in the same fashion as a thermolaminate such as vinyl wrap. The Sheen range of boards are also no more expensive than the more traditional matt or velvet boards. Being a gloss (Sheen) board does mean that like any gloss plastic compared to a similar matt finish, it is less impervious to scratching - but I would still rate it above a vinyl finish in terms of durability. I hope this has answered some of your questions. Cheers, Earl You can really use anything you want the main consideration would be how it looks once painted/finished - or the look you want. Cabinetmakers use MDF because its cheap… 2 9959 Thanks mate. Yeah good points! Leaning towards Option 3 to get a bit extra space in the cabinets but not going too crazy high (and expensive). Would require a mini… 13 39690 yep you need a joint, foam is easiest, will look fine once rendered with a joint. 2 5233 |