Repairing Kitchen cabinet doors????

The Pig

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

votes for new doors and holds onto her ears.

Barry, you're not going to be able to do anything that will last. The guy bought cheap and gets the lesson about quality lasting.

Roo glue  *LINK*


https://www.woodworkerexpress.com/melamine-glues-melamine-glues-rooclear-16oz-bottle.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=product_search&utm_campaign=google_product_ads&source=googlebase&country=US&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjNa00vLE6AIVSl8NCh0XQwTWEAQYASABEgIkn

Re: Repairing Kitchen cabinet doors????

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

I had a coworker and friend whose stock response to office decorating questions was, "Contact paper," followed by a giggle. I think you're in that place with this job.

I'm with Mark: just as you can't fix stupid, you can't fix junk. If you must, try some alternate glue, tape stuff in place with painter's tape until the glue dries, and keep your fingers crossed, after telling your friend there's no real way to repair something like this; all you can do is kluge it.

We lived a long, long time with kitchen cabinets that had been assembled in place by the homeowner after World War II (we chose 1948 as the date they were built for no particular reason, except by then, materials were becoming a little more available). I made several "repairs" to keep them going that neither improved nor took away from their attractiveness. You can't remove attractiveness from something as ugly as those cabinets were. I'm glad, at least, that they were wood (and warped plywood), because I could do something repair-like on them.

No one knows the owner's situation

Dick Coers

Money is tight for millions of Americans all the time, and especially right now. Job security is completely out the window. Repairing the kitchen right now is a smart move in my opinion and could easily be a necessity to keep the existing cabinets for quite a while.

Re: No one knows the owner's situation

Barry Irby

The owner bought this house three or four years ago to get a first floor master for his wife who has health issues. It's about a $400,000 house built in 2003 and they got the cabinets that were in it.

The drawer I fixed for them had been repaired before. Clearly a amateur repair. There were extra nails and staples, all four corners were broken, the bottom was fastened in, but wampus, which may be what caused the wheel to come off one corner. Drawer was at least 30" wide and 22" deep and had a 1/8" Masonite bottom in it. Over sized, poorly built out of extremely poor materials.

The owner is a Dentist in a small town about an hour away. (lives here/works there). His practice is closed except for emergencies because of the Virus. He practices there because he grew up there. The community is not terribly prosperous. I think some of his clients have literally tried to pay by giving him a chicken.

When my cancer reappeared the doctor said that with any luck at all I may die of something else first. So, if we can repair these doors maybe he will die before he has to replace them. Sometimes good enough is good enough.

If

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

your dentist is married, why not ask his partner about door replacement. You can start with one cabinet unit and move along as $$ allows rather that quoting a wholesale replacement. Just make sure the doors are "open stock".

Hey, there was a time that my old man, a big city New York lawyer, got paid in pastrami. My mother had more pastrami recipes than have ever been written!

Re: If

kneale brownson

My grandfather, a rural country doctor in the 1920s-1930s regularly accepted a ham/chickens/sweet corn/etc. in payment. He did kitchen table baby deliveries routinely too. Only had a car the last few years. Mostly traveled by buggy or sleigh.

I would love to get paid in pastrami....

John in NM

Though I think I would need someone who paid in beer too...

Re: Repairing Kitchen cabinet doors????

Jim O'Connor

I had done a couple of small jobs for this homeowner, rehanging sticking interior doors, etc. and she came up with a project like that and I told her to burn it. Never got another call. But it was worth it.

Re: Repairing Kitchen cabinet doors????

nickb

I've used a penetrating epoxy to stabilize dry rotted wood (should have replaced the section of wood, but I had fixed the water problem, it was non-structural and in a place where no one but me ever sees it, oh, and I was too lazy to get excited about a doing the real repair) - maybe that could work? The stuff isn't cheap, but has to be cheaper on a per volume basis than CA (and I would think it would wear better as well).

Re: Repairing Kitchen cabinet doors????

Barry Irby

Good Idea. If I cared, I would go with that.

I used thin CA because I had it and it is going bad, so I used it up.