# kitchen cabinet door in hot humid climates



## stevee (Sep 22, 2012)

hi all, i wonder if i can get some advice from kitchen builders working in hot humid places. i'm in Phuket, Thailand (tropical island) and building a European style kitchen with simple, flat panel veneer coated doors then polyurathaned

i know the standard door substrate is usually MDF but i'm worried it may have a problem with humidity. i'm also a bit worried about the weight since the doors are quite large and not sure the screws for the hinges will hold.

i can buy marine ply here (expensive) and standard ply (cheap) and i can get lumber core ply (cheap) but the quality isn't that great, i cut some open and the wood strips don't seem well glued together.

what do you think? i can't get good quality high density particle board here. would you risk MDF, or go ply, if so, what type?

thanks, steve


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## cabinetman (Jul 5, 2007)

If you are after a wood grain finish, I would just buy the hardwood plywood with the hardwood species faces. You can lay out the sheet so to cut doors in a sequence to move as a pair (distortions). 

Your climate is similar to mine, and that's what I would do. IMO, a better method than veneering a substrate...less hassle, and less cost.













 







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## stevee (Sep 22, 2012)

cabinetman said:


> ​If you are after a wood grain finish, I would just buy the hardwood plywood with the hardwood species faces. You can lay out the sheet so to cut doors in a sequence to move as a pair (distortions).
> 
> Your climate is similar to mine, and that's what I would do. IMO, a better method than veneering a substrate...less hassle, and less cost.
> 
> .


thanks, i actually tried that as an experiment yesterday, something like anyhow.

i can get nice teak faced ply here but its only 3mm thick. so i cut a piece of 15mm normal ply and a piece of 3mm teak face the same size by brad nailing together and cutting both pieces together, face down to avoid breakout of the surface.

then i flipped one over and glued together with the edges aligned as best i could.

this a.m. i checked it out and saw the edges were not perfectly aligned, so i put some masking tape on the faces/edges to try avoid breakout on the upside and trimmed off about 1mm with the panel saw (maybe i could have used a router table or even a plane, i'll try that next time) .

now the edges look pretty clean with no breakout on the teak side and very little on the normal ply side which will be the door inside anyhow.

now i just need to edge band with teak veneer and it looks pretty good

i will check out the price of marine ply tomorrow, assuming its not outrageous, i will use that for the real thing.

thanks


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

MDF wouldn't be my first choice but if you are happy with it there is no reason you can't use it. MDF is simply a thick sheet of paper and like any paper it doesn't do well when wet. Occasionally I have a customer that wants to cut costs and has me build a kitchen using MDF for the interior construction. I know when building the kitchen that sooner or later there will be a plumbing leak under the sink. When I build the cabinet I mix caulk the color of the finish color (if stained) and caulk all around the inside of the cabinet where the shelves meet the sides and back. Then when I finish the cabinet I thoroughly coat the inside of the cabinet with polyurethane or spar varnish. One of these kitchens I built, the plumber hooked up the plumbing to the sink, turned the water on and left without checking his work. Soon a neighbor saw water coming out the front door of the house and turned the water off. Even though the house was flooded from the sink plumbing, there was no water damage to my cabinets.


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## cabinetman (Jul 5, 2007)

Steve Neul said:


> I know when building the kitchen that sooner or later there will be a plumbing leak under the sink. When I build the cabinet I mix caulk the color of the finish color (if stained) and caulk all around the inside of the cabinet where the shelves meet the sides and back. Then when I finish the cabinet I thoroughly coat the inside of the cabinet with polyurethane or spar varnish. One of these kitchens I built, the plumber hooked up the plumbing to the sink, turned the water on and left without checking his work. Soon a neighbor saw water coming out the front door of the house and turned the water off. Even though the house was flooded from the sink plumbing, there was no water damage to my cabinets.


What a great story. Thanks for sharing that with us. How do you stuff tinted caulking back into the tube...just wondering?











 







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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

cabinetman said:


> What a great story. Thanks for sharing that with us. How do you stuff tinted caulking back into the tube...just wondering?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You can use a tube of dap by cutting the bottom out of the tube and removing the caulk. Then wash the remainder of the white caulk out of the tube. After mixing a universal tinting color with the caulk I scoop it back in the tube with a putty knife. After I have all I can get back into the tube I fold the end of the tube over and wrap with duct tape. This way is very messy but works for small quanties. Another way I like better is to take a tube made for a caulking gun and take the end cap out with needle nose pliers and remove the caulk with a cake spatula. I then wash the tube out, tint the caulk and scoop the tinted caulk back into the tube and re-insert the cap. Before color caulk became more available I used this method to match caulk to the Formica counter tops I made.


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## cabinetman (Jul 5, 2007)

Steve Neul said:


> You can use a tube of dap by cutting the bottom out of the tube and removing the caulk. Then wash the remainder of the white caulk out of the tube. After mixing a universal tinting color with the caulk I scoop it back in the tube with a putty knife. After I have all I can get back into the tube I fold the end of the tube over and wrap with duct tape. This way is very messy but works for small quanties. Another way I like better is to take a tube made for a caulking gun and take the end cap out with needle nose pliers and remove the caulk with a cake spatula. I then wash the tube out, tint the caulk and scoop the tinted caulk back into the tube and re-insert the cap. Before color caulk became more available I used this method to match caulk to the Formica counter tops I made.


Let me get this straight. You use a caulking container that looks like a toothpaste tube, or a tube for a caulking gun, and scrape out the contents and clean the inside. 

What do you use to store the contents after you have cleaned out the tube. Seems like most any caulking would start to kick off being exposed to air while you do the cleaning thing. And then stuffing that stuff back in. How do you keep it concentrated enough to eliminate the air bubbles? Just wondering. In any case thanks for sharing all that...a good story.










 







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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

cabinetman said:


> Let me get this straight. You use a caulking container that looks like a toothpaste tube, or a tube for a caulking gun, and scrape out the contents and clean the inside.
> 
> What do you use to store the contents after you have cleaned out the tube. Seems like most any caulking would start to kick off being exposed to air while you do the cleaning thing. And then stuffing that stuff back in. How do you keep it concentrated enough to eliminate the air bubbles? Just wondering. In any case thanks for sharing all that...a good story.
> 
> ...


 You can either use the toothpaste tube or cauking tube. The toothpaste tube sometimes leaks a little so I don't like it. I do remove the contents and alter the color. The whole process doesn't take that long and it works best to give the tube to a helper to wash out while your mixing. If I have it available I like to dump the caulk on a piece of formica to mix. That way it doesn't absorb the moisture out of the caulk. While mixing, your constantly stiring the caulk to get the color uniform so it really doesn't have chance to set up. When putting the caulk back in the tube you can turn it verticle and tap it on the table and most of the air bubbles work their way out. I got in the habbit of using formica to mix on because I started doing this for counter tops and I used the color laminate of the counter to mix on for color comparason. I suppose a person could use any non-porus surface to mix on and these days I'm not making so many Formica counter tops anymore. Everybodys has gone granite.


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## cabinetman (Jul 5, 2007)

Steve Neul said:


> You can either use the toothpaste tube or cauking tube. The toothpaste tube sometimes leaks a little so I don't like it. I do remove the contents and alter the color. The whole process doesn't take that long and it works best to give the tube to a helper to wash out while your mixing. If I have it available I like to dump the caulk on a piece of formica to mix. That way it doesn't absorb the moisture out of the caulk. While mixing, your constantly stiring the caulk to get the color uniform so it really doesn't have chance to set up. When putting the caulk back in the tube you can turn it verticle and tap it on the table and most of the air bubbles work their way out. I got in the habbit of using formica to mix on because I started doing this for counter tops and I used the color laminate of the counter to mix on for color comparason. I suppose a person could use any non-porus surface to mix on and these days I'm not making so many Formica counter tops anymore. Everybodys has gone granite.


Thanks for sharing that...a good story.









 





 
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## bandman (Jan 15, 2009)

*kitch cabinet in hot humid climate*

Might be a little off the original subject, but maybe helpful to an extent. I get my caulk in any color I want from my Ben Moore paint dealer. I believe it is made by Red Devil and I just take in a little paint
the color of what I need to match up and she does her magic. I don't know what she does, but this particular style of caulk is made for this. I use it for whenever a base board doesn't fit snuggly against a bad dry wall joint and you have a gap at the top of the base board and wall...works like a champ. I am a believer that anything you get from your Ben Moore Paint dealer is going to be top of the line perfect. I have also used this process with almond colored melamine in vanity and sink base cabinets. 

Bandman


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