Step one. Bought the van.
Hello Everybody, First post. I camp a lot in tents but after spending three days straight in a tent in the rain at Dolly Sods I swore I'd make a change. Here it is. Bought it Wednesday. Dro...
Forum Discussion
Sofa-bed continued:
I'm going to finish the End Pieces of the sofa-bed with Formica. I've not really messed with Formica before so this will be a learning experience. All I know I learned from reading the Internet and the back of the contact cement can. Anyone reading this who wants to point out my mistakes go right ahead. I sure do.
Warning: I learned this the hard way. If you bend Formica too far it will snap. The problem is the broken edges. They can be as sharp as a razor blade. If you're not careful it will cut you long, deep and awful.
Here is full sheet of Formica as I brought it back from Lowe's. Take a friend or get a sale associate to help you roll and tie the sheet. It's a lot harder than it looks.
First things first. Disassemble the sofa-bed. Paint what won't be covered with Formica. Thanks to landyacht318 for pointing out that I need to also paint the unseen bottom edges of the plywood furniture. Else if you spill water it could be absorbed by the plywood and cause it to swell.
Before you unroll the Formica be sure to sweep the floor clean. I'll come back to this.
The sheet is 4' X 8'. It takes up a good bit of space.
Mistake number one. I made a point of cleaning the floor before I began. But I forgot to mind the string that I cut off the roll. Sure enough it fell below the Formica and I happened to step right where the string was. That small knot is all it takes to make a crack in the sheet.
Here's Bob pointing out my mistake.
Bob loves to gloat.
Lay out the pieces I'll be covering on the sheet to get the best idea how to cut it up. Then mark the sheet with pencil. You cut the Formica so it's larger than the surface it will be applied to. The edges are trimmed down later.
The sheet was too large to feed through my table saw. To cut it I stacked four 2x4's in sets of two to raise the sheet off the floor. Place the cut marks between the two sets of 2x4's. Then used a circular saw to make the cuts.
This cutting method works well enough since the pieces will be trimmed later so the cuts don't have to be exact.
If you're using a circular saw you're supposed to cut the sheet from the bottom side to reduce chipping at the cut edges but I don't find the chipping to be that bad.
I was unable to cut around the small cracked spot but I arranged the pieces it so it shouldn't be visible when all's done.
continued -
I'm going to finish the End Pieces of the sofa-bed with Formica. I've not really messed with Formica before so this will be a learning experience. All I know I learned from reading the Internet and the back of the contact cement can. Anyone reading this who wants to point out my mistakes go right ahead. I sure do.
Warning: I learned this the hard way. If you bend Formica too far it will snap. The problem is the broken edges. They can be as sharp as a razor blade. If you're not careful it will cut you long, deep and awful.
Here is full sheet of Formica as I brought it back from Lowe's. Take a friend or get a sale associate to help you roll and tie the sheet. It's a lot harder than it looks.
First things first. Disassemble the sofa-bed. Paint what won't be covered with Formica. Thanks to landyacht318 for pointing out that I need to also paint the unseen bottom edges of the plywood furniture. Else if you spill water it could be absorbed by the plywood and cause it to swell.
Before you unroll the Formica be sure to sweep the floor clean. I'll come back to this.
The sheet is 4' X 8'. It takes up a good bit of space.
Mistake number one. I made a point of cleaning the floor before I began. But I forgot to mind the string that I cut off the roll. Sure enough it fell below the Formica and I happened to step right where the string was. That small knot is all it takes to make a crack in the sheet.
Here's Bob pointing out my mistake.
Bob loves to gloat.
Lay out the pieces I'll be covering on the sheet to get the best idea how to cut it up. Then mark the sheet with pencil. You cut the Formica so it's larger than the surface it will be applied to. The edges are trimmed down later.
The sheet was too large to feed through my table saw. To cut it I stacked four 2x4's in sets of two to raise the sheet off the floor. Place the cut marks between the two sets of 2x4's. Then used a circular saw to make the cuts.
This cutting method works well enough since the pieces will be trimmed later so the cuts don't have to be exact.
If you're using a circular saw you're supposed to cut the sheet from the bottom side to reduce chipping at the cut edges but I don't find the chipping to be that bad.
I was unable to cut around the small cracked spot but I arranged the pieces it so it shouldn't be visible when all's done.
continued -
