My contractor is uncomfortable about attaching a beveled Formica edging to
my new kitchen Formica countertop.  The edging manufacturer told us
the contractor  needs to "rout" the countertop, for a "tongue and
groove" attachment of the edging.  Is there an instruction sheet or
pictorial description that could help?

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Clarification of Question by sandy1234-ga on 18 Jun 2003 07:58 PDT

I wanted to know why bevelled edge on a Formica countertop is hard for
a remodeller to apply in the home.  The comment by tlspiegel-ga was
useful and should be posted as an "official" answer.

Hi Sandy,

I found a several pages that might be of some help for you, and will
be happy to post as an answer if any of the links do provide the
information you need.


http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/remodeling/article/0,1797,HGTV_3659_1628676,00.html

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http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Applying_Kuhn_edging.html

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Gem-Loc FAQ's
Here are some frequently asked questions about Countertop Edge.

http://www.loticorp.com/faq/faq_5.htm

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http://truetex.com/formica.htm

"Laminate trimmer tooling: 
Three router bits are standard equipment for laminate finishing: (1) a
straight cutter with no bearing, (2) a straight cutter with ball
bearing, and (3) a beveled cutter with ball bearing. You use (1) for
free rough cuts such as I have already described. You use (2) to trim
edges which will be covered by more laminate, such as on the vertical
surface. You use (3) for finished exposed edges such as the outside
corner of the top layer of laminate."


Applying top layers: 
Once the vertical edges are laminated, the top laminate is applied.
This is cut and cemented in the same manner, that is, cut slightly
larger than needed and glued with an overhang, ready to be trimmed
back. Trimming on the top layer is done with the beveled bit (3)
instead of the straight bit (2). The beveled bit needs a careful fine
adjustment for depth-of-cut in the trimmer, such that the ball bearing
traces the vertical face and applies the rotating cutter to just trim
the full thickness of the top (horizontal) laminate and slightly into
the surface of the abutting edge strip (vertical) laminate.
Hand-filing is needed to finish tight inside corners and the tips of
3-way outside corners. Be sure to run the hand file in the proper
diagonal direction, so that the cutting edges shave instead of slice.
Inside corners of L-shape tops are best left with a slightly rounded
fillet of laminate, instead of a sharp internal corner, to avoid a
possible stress point that could cause a crack; the tiny overhang will
not be significant or even noticeable."

Best regards,

tlspiegel