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Adhesive for melamine to particle baord?

specfab

Titanium
Joined
May 28, 2005
Location
AZ
I am throwing together a router table/extension table for a Powermatic 66 table saw. The material is 3/4" thick melamine-faced particle board, I am looking for any recommendations for an adhesive to bond edges of particle board stiffeners to face of melamine surface. Normally, I would rout the melamine surface away so I could use Titebond wood glue, but would like to avoid this step if possible. Thanks for any suggestions --
 
Menards has some real nice 7 ply 3/4" plywood, I think that beats particle board.
And with plywood things can be screwed together so less need to glue, and at the time of moving can be torn down.
 
Titebond makes a decent melamine glue (4014)that's available retail, or get ROO Glue at a wholsale sheetgoods distributor - I beleive ROO was the original product in this category.
Make sure to clean up any squeeze out before it dries - the glue will take away chunks of material with it when you chisel / scrape it off.
Also, you don't want to get it on your skin - it will dye your hands.
Martin
 
Thanks for the info. The 4014 glue sounds just about right, but looks like it is a lot less available than their "normal" products. I have the material cut up already to assemble, so want to have the adhesive in hand after I drill the screw holes in all the parts. I was hoping to finish it tomorrow, but looks like later in the week with glue availability, either for the 4014 or RooGlue.

The melamine facing on this stuff makes for a nice router table surface and sliding surface for the table saw fence, which is why I wouldn't use plywood for this application, unless I wanted to spend the extra time to cover it with Formica. I agree that plywood in general is a better structural material in a number of ways, but the melamine board gets to a usable result faster in this case.
 
I agree that melamine will be nice and flat, and it will allow you to be making parts just that much faster. You won't get laminated plywood panels to lay as flat - we have a 200ton laminating press, and in my experience MDF or high density particleboard is always flatter in the end.
Plywood has it's place, as do HPDL / high pressure decorative laminate (Formica) and low pressure decorative laminate (melamine). Take moisture out of the picture and engineered cores (particleboards of various densities) have some very desirable properties. We had our guys build their back-benches in the shop using melamine for the drawer units, cabinets and even the countertops back in 2003 when we moved in to the "new building" because money was tight. Tens of millions of dollars of commercial woodwork later, they're still just as functional as they were almost 20 years ago. We even have one outfeed table on a regular table saw made with melamine, and although the perimter of the table is worn from sliding material off onto carts, the table is still entirely functional.
Our beam saw is 15 years old, and the solid phenolic tables are worn just as badly - but they've seen > 1,000,000 parts slide off them - the center area of the tables everything floats on an air cushion, but the edges slowly get rounded off and worn away.
If your router table is going to be a family heirloom, plan accordingly. If you just need to make some parts, Plexiglas or melamine are both great and fast ways to go.
My $0.15
Martin
 
Titebond has a melamine glue that works fairly well. It's for gluing one porous surface to a non porous surface. I have to order it in, just be sure to open the bottles up to check it, I've received partially set up glue before from different vendors.
 
Over thinking this. Hardwood stiffeners screwed on from below. Not a big process. I have melamine table extensions on several saws. 40 years on a Unisaw. The Altendorf extensions are maybe 35 years.
 
I am looking for any recommendations for an adhesive to bond edges of particle board stiffeners to face of melamine surface.

I did something similar many years ago. After a bit of research about bonding melamine, I used "Roo Clear" glue. It's still holding correctly. As I recall I also did some tests, gluing pieces together and knocking them apart with a hammer. The particle board beneath the melamine surface failed, not the glue line.
 
A quick follow-up: I got some Roo Clear and put the table assy together today. Looks like it should work nicely, with everything screwed and glued. I got the Roo glue since I could have it more quickly than the Titebond version. The Roo stuff smells like a latex-derived adhesive.

Scruffy887 -- Thanks. I did consider that, but I have a liking for screws with glue for ultimate durability. Glue seems to add a lot of shear strength.
 








 
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