Kitchen Fitting

How best to seal cut chipboard edges and join chipboard kitchen worktops

Anonymous user 16/03/2024 - 2.37 PM

I'm a DIY'er fitting my own kitchen. My kitchen is small and I guess a professional fitter would aim to fit the units and laminate worktops in a day or two while I don't care if it takes me a week. Bearing that in mind, what is the best way to seal cut chipboard edges (both worktop and carcass)? I'm thinking yacht varnish, which I know may need to be left overnight to dry for each of maybe two coats. I'm also thinking of sealing the edges of laminate worktop pieces in this way before joining them. I know from reading other forums that this is never done, but I favour belt and braces approaches to things. As for what to fill the joint with when bolting the pieces together I've read that all manner of things are used. I'm leaning towards ColorFill but I've never used it and I've read it can go off very quickly. Any views on this? I'd quite like to build in the flexibility to be able to break and remake the joint in future if I decide to put a joint in the other end of the worktop to change the kitchen from an L shape to U shape. Is this feasible? Thank you all for your answers. When I asked about sealing cut edges I didn't mean visible ones. I was thinking of holes cut for pipes or cables and sink/hob cutouts, that kind of thing. Thanks for your answers. This is how I fitted the worktop. I used ColorFill, which gave enough working time for me. I lifted the piece with the female cut and applied it that side of the joint. The piece with the male cut was only about 1mm short but I also chipped away the plaster from wall on the other side and slid the worktop into the resulting recess. That gave a 4mm or so gap which was enough to lower the piece with the femaie cut without disturbing the ColorFill.

S. MacCabe Carpentry

Rating: 5 out of 5

5/59 reviews

Hayle

varnish would be ok for helping to prevent water ingress in cuts but Iron on banding would be much easier and leave a presentable finish on the carcasses. As for the worktop if you are thinking this far out the box I'm sure most people would give you different answers, personally I'd consider using an epoxy with a decent open time to give you time to work. Colour-Fill can go off fast but clean up is easy with acetone and has the added advantage of being colour matched to fill any chip out or damage that may occur, for those reasons I would have a tube handy regardless of your joining method. The epoxy could be sealed and glued in one go but best to tape edges as clean up is not so easy. As for breaking the joint you would need to cut the joint and re shape it. you could simply cut with a circular saw (remove bolts first!!) but in all you would lose a few inches of length. if losing the length was a real issue the least amount of lose would be to use your worktop jig and router to cut the joint in which case you would only lose the kerf of the cut, circa 10mm. This technique would require the worktops to be moved clear of any walls etc to fit the jig across your joint. The majority of this answer is hypothetical so do some research if you decide try any of it.

Answered31 October 2020

Like

12

---

Cavern Construction and Joinery

Rating: 5 out of 5

5/576 reviews

Stoke On Trent

Hi, Belt and braces are good but on this occasion you may be over thinking the job, yacht varnish?? Keep it simple and the way a thousand tradesman do it daily. Jointed cut edges that butt together use colourfill, apply to both sides, clamp together with bolts, let it go off 5 mins then scrape excess off from joint with plastic scraper. End edges use evo stick adhesive, apply to worktop and edging trim, wait till tacky then stick together. Wait 24hrs before trimming with sharp blade. If you want to take apart in future use none of the above and use metal jointing bars and ends. Hope this helps. 👍

Answered31 October 2020

Like

2

---

Anonymous user

Hi I am sure there are many many different ways to do what your trying to do but ultimately start with the worktop joint .these are not meant to be separated once fitted correctly as you say ppl use colourfill on a regular basis me personally I think it's a bad thing it will cover any little chips but it goes of way to fast and to me it's a poor excuse for a bad mitre join if the join as been routered the only thing I would recommend is cascamite you have around 30 mins to bolt together and level joins then it's not coming apart or blowing when you boil a kettle over the join wich is pretty much common with other adhesives .in fact it's the only adhesive wich once it's gone off you can soak the wood in the bath and it will rot before it comes apart .worktop edges are best sealed with worktop edging tape using thixofix contact adhesive then trimming up with router .any other chipboard edges can be sealed the same way .

Answered31 October 2020

Like

1

---