Miter-Folding Laminate
A fabricator seeks advice on making joints fit right and hold tight. April 14, 2005
Question
We need some help with V-groove and miter folding. We purchased a used V-groover and are trying to set it up to run our P-Lam countertops. We have it about 90% tweaked. The problem we are having is on finished ends where two miter folds meet. We can't get a tight edge. The point of the corner isn't holding tight. We've tried multiple methods, but just can't seem to get it to work. Any ideas?
Forum Responses
(Laminate and Solid Surface Forum)
From contributor P:
I didn't realize anyone was trying to v-groove laminate!
From contributor R:
We miterfold laminate by the mile. I'm not clear on what the problem is. Are you saying the outside corner won't stay glued? If it's springing open, it may be because you don't quite have a 90 degree fold. This could be from not joining quite deep enough or it could be your cutter. If you have a good sharpening guy, you might try getting it sharpened half a degree over 90, which would give you a little wiggle room with the fold. The tolerances are very fine in this work.
From contributor M:
Check a glued fold with a square to make sure you are getting a true 90. Make sure you clean all the dust out of the groove and don't use too much glue. Both these things can keep the fold from being completely tight. Check your tooling and the depth of the cut. What looks good on a straight piece can be unusable on a corner.
From contributor S:
That is right about the cut being a true 90, or 90+ being better. You also need to check on the cutter shaft being parallel to the table. Even with a 90 fold, a tilted arbor will influence the corner, one way or the other. You also need to check your depth of cut. My guess is that you have it set exactly down to a single layer of tape, and your corners will have 2 layers of tape, thus a deeper cut at the corners.
