Reinforcing Melamine Shelving using Domino Machine

[Dave Ronyak]

My Domino set came yesterday, thanks to "Uncle Bob."  For my first learner project I would like to straighten a couple of 16"W X 3/4" T X 60" L shelves made from particle board core melamine.  The shelves are supported only at their ends and both lengthwise edges are exposed.  The ends are scribe cut to fit the odd-shaped standards.  One edge is factory coated with melamine, the other is painted white.  I would like to add a strip of oak to one or both lengthwise edges reinforce these melamine shelves against sagging.  (They currently sag under their own weight.)  Should I add the oak strips from the bottom, thereby mortising into the face of the melamine shelves and ending with dominos perpendicular to the melamine shelves?  Or should I rip off a strip from the edges of the melamine shelves, mortise and insert dominos parallel to the plane of the shelves?  What glue should I use?  Should I apply any glue where the wood strip will be in contact with a melamine coated surface?  Should that be a different glue?  I have water-based aliphatic (Titebond) glue, and the PU equivalent of Gorilla glue.  What should be the vertical dimension of the wood reinforcement strips?  The shelves are intended to hold mostly stacks of clothing within a large closest that is accessible from both sides.

 

[greg mann]

Personally, I would rip the sides and put the oak strips there. This will dress up the look, put the dominoes in shear, and expose the particle board to whatever glue you use. Also, you will get more shelf clearance. Let's say your support strips are 1.5" high. If you put them under the shelf they will take up another 3/4" of opening, the glue will be in shear, and if you don't use glue specific for melamine surfaces, you get a lousy bond. I don't know which glue is best for bonding oak (long grain) to particle board. I am sure PU will bond well but it would probably be more cleanup. Might be overkill?

 

[mysterium]

Dave,

Greg's right about the glue.  Here's a link on "Tite Blonde" glue...
http://woodworker.com/cgi-bin/FULLPRES.exe?PARTNUM=808-017

About 2/3 rds down the page is info on the melamine glue.

jim

 

[Daviddubya]

Dave - I have made lots of melamine shelves reinforced with hardwood.  I always rip the shelf down to expose the wood edge, add hardwood to both front and rear edges, if possible, and use Titebond glue.  Titebond bonds to the particle board core and the hardwood.  As Greg mentioned, this method gives you a nice looking shelf with a hardwood front edge.

 

[art stratemeyer]

Hi Dave,

We almost never send a cabinet out without the front edge ( or sometimes the back also if a long span ) edged in 3/4 x 1 1/4 edging.  Generally we will bead the front edge to give it a nice detail.  The thought of getting called back to a client for sagging shelves sends a shudder through our shop.

Also, plain old titebond ..... NOT .. gorilla or other poly glues ... unless you really enjoy dealing with the foam out.

 

[Dave Ronyak]

Thanks, Gents, all of you.  Ripped edge, replaced with oak strip glued with Titebond it shall be.   Thanks for the good tip about rounding over the edge, too.  I have plenty of vertical space, so I will probably make the oak strip about 2" vertical to improve the bending resistance of the glued up shelf unit.

April 8, 2007 update.  I repaired one 5' X 16" shelf by ripping off a bit of the ugly painted edge, and using a Domino machine to create 11 mortises along the length.  I hand marked the locations on both the melamine and the 1 1/8" X 2" hard maple strip to be set flush with the top surface of the shelf.  When mortising the strip, somehow the fence slipped little-by-little resulting in vertically misaligned mortises in the maple strip.  I was overly cautious after reading that some users had possibly broken the fence clamp screw, and purposely did not make it very tight, and obviously not tight enough.  The solution was simple - fill those mortises with dominos and recut the mortises.  But wait until the glue has set or you will gum up the Domino cutter as I did!  I eyeballed the location of all the mortises and left the machine set to make a tight fit of the dominos, and everything lined up quite well.  For the other shelf I mortised the bottom side of the melamine because the edge was scribe cut to fit around some door jam trim.  I used the technique described in Rick Christopherson's manual for quickly registering the shelves to the standards of a bookcase - which worked great and avoids any issues due to fence movement.  From this second shelf I learned that domino tenons do not have much pull out resistance against a bowed shelf made of particle board, so I added a few screws through the topside of the melamine into the maple to help anchor everything together.  The previously bowed shelves are now flat!

Dave R.

 

[LaserGecko]

I've been most impressed with RooClear fromhttp://www.rooglue.com

It'll stick anything to melamine.