Post by PT on Dec 29, 2019 11:08:03 GMT -8
Laminate projects are unforgiving and require sharp router bits and solid woodworking skills. My lack of both combined with a streak of perfectionism made for a memorable project. It turned out OK but damn near made me cry a couple times. The old…
The Holiday House dinette table is a three part leaf table made from 3/4 inch plywood. So you have 10 edges of top laminate to trim. At first I was going to use aluminum edging - but then I thought the original table had laminate edging.... I should reproduce that. Spoiler alert - unless you're god's gift to laminate or a masochist this is a bad idea. You now have 20 edges of laminate to trim and half of them are sitting on a 3/4” edge – and some are curved.
If you try to band the edge of the table with laminate YOUR PLYWOOD CUTS MUST BE PERFECTLY SQUARE. Mine were slightly off - so the first time I trimmed the top laminate edge I ruined the side laminate I had applied. The best part is I had glued up a practice piece and it had not happened when I practiced. So I routed off the ruined edging without touching the top piece (a nail biter) and was able to apply new edging. Dodged a bullet – one leaf done…
I was not going to scrap things and start over so the solution to not destroy edges is to use a 1/2” bearing on a 3/8” trim bit and then you file/sand the top laminate edge flush with the sides. This is stupid and takes a long time but works.
The plywood was very slightly warped – but all leafs were running the same way so were flush and even. That is - until I gouged the top plywood surface while trimming the ¾ inch laminate edge on leaf number two and had to use the other side for the top. Now – one leaf was warped the other way. It was off by a little under an 8th of an inch which is a big deal if you’re trying to slide a plate across a laminate surface. These table leaf aligners from Rockler Woodworking saved the day. I no longer had to do dowels between the leaf sections and these are strong enough to take a little warp out and align the top. 2nd leaf done.
Now I got a little less dumb. I’d been using a full size router so far – but I was about to do the leaf with the radius edges so I bought a small inexpensive trim router on Amazon. For the 5 minutes it worked it was really cool. I dry fit two edge pieces and snapped them both at the radius bends. The third held and after contact cement looked pretty good without huge gaps along the bends. This is where the new micro router and a new flush trim bit are helpful but trimming both sides of the ¾ inch wide edging is not fun. Came out ok and started on the top of this leaf. Even with a ½” inch bearing on a 3/8” trim bit when your new trim router throws a bearing and starts to wobble it puts a 6” long scar on your edge trim…
Hence the laminate project from hell.
Looks pretty good from a few feet away – just don’t look too close
The Holiday House dinette table is a three part leaf table made from 3/4 inch plywood. So you have 10 edges of top laminate to trim. At first I was going to use aluminum edging - but then I thought the original table had laminate edging.... I should reproduce that. Spoiler alert - unless you're god's gift to laminate or a masochist this is a bad idea. You now have 20 edges of laminate to trim and half of them are sitting on a 3/4” edge – and some are curved.
If you try to band the edge of the table with laminate YOUR PLYWOOD CUTS MUST BE PERFECTLY SQUARE. Mine were slightly off - so the first time I trimmed the top laminate edge I ruined the side laminate I had applied. The best part is I had glued up a practice piece and it had not happened when I practiced. So I routed off the ruined edging without touching the top piece (a nail biter) and was able to apply new edging. Dodged a bullet – one leaf done…
I was not going to scrap things and start over so the solution to not destroy edges is to use a 1/2” bearing on a 3/8” trim bit and then you file/sand the top laminate edge flush with the sides. This is stupid and takes a long time but works.
The plywood was very slightly warped – but all leafs were running the same way so were flush and even. That is - until I gouged the top plywood surface while trimming the ¾ inch laminate edge on leaf number two and had to use the other side for the top. Now – one leaf was warped the other way. It was off by a little under an 8th of an inch which is a big deal if you’re trying to slide a plate across a laminate surface. These table leaf aligners from Rockler Woodworking saved the day. I no longer had to do dowels between the leaf sections and these are strong enough to take a little warp out and align the top. 2nd leaf done.
Now I got a little less dumb. I’d been using a full size router so far – but I was about to do the leaf with the radius edges so I bought a small inexpensive trim router on Amazon. For the 5 minutes it worked it was really cool. I dry fit two edge pieces and snapped them both at the radius bends. The third held and after contact cement looked pretty good without huge gaps along the bends. This is where the new micro router and a new flush trim bit are helpful but trimming both sides of the ¾ inch wide edging is not fun. Came out ok and started on the top of this leaf. Even with a ½” inch bearing on a 3/8” trim bit when your new trim router throws a bearing and starts to wobble it puts a 6” long scar on your edge trim…
Hence the laminate project from hell.
Looks pretty good from a few feet away – just don’t look too close
