Kitchen Cabinet Doors

[Cerney Tonto]

Our fitted kitchen has cabinet doors which have a large recessed panel on the visible side. The vinyl coating on most of the doors is coming away from the surface within the recess and the appearance would be as if you had blown air under the surface. Is there away of rebonding the vinyl to the doors? Our biggest problem is that the colour of the doors matches the facias etc and will be impossible to replace in isolation.

 

[Scrit]

No. Sounds like you have got what the trade call vinyl wrapped doors. These are made by routing moisture-resistant MDF then spraying a heat reactive glue onto a thin vinyl roll which is then stretched across the door and formed to the shape in a membrane press under a combination of heat and vacuum. The problem is that vinyl tends to scorch not far above the temperature at which the doors are pressed. Like many plastics it also has polymer memory which means that when you heat it it will try to return to its original flat shape. Have you tried talking to the original supplier? Depending on age this might be viewed as a quality defect as the vinyl wrap has delaminated - I suspect either a glue line problem or a damp/over-warm kitchen (one reason that manufacturers insist on heat shields above ovens as well as kettles and other steam-producing devices, etc being kept away from upper cabinets). I'd expect at least 7 years out of doors like these, but I doubt that they have a 20 year lifespan.

Scrit

 

[Cerney Tonto]

Thanks for the reply, unfortunately, it confirms what I feared.