hi everybody I'm Leah of CJ drill and
today I want to show you how to laminate
the countertop and I got to tell you
you're going to be really surprised at
how simple a process it is now behind me
is the laminate we're going to use okay
so what I have here is a piece of a
commercial uh countertop now you may be
asking yourself well Leah if I can buy
it if I can purchase it in a home
improvement store why do I want to make
one myself well the reasons are simple
let me tell you what they are now I've
got a piece of white laminate here and
that's what we're going to use today for
demonstration purposes but the beauty of
laminate is you can get laminate in any
color you want you know when you go to
Home Improvement store you got basic
colors like maybe three but when you
build your own countertop well then your
choice are endless they're as limited as
your own imagination so the other
benefit of creating your own countertop
is sizing you know you can cut it and
design it to fit your own personal space
whereas when you go to a home
improvement store you're kind of stuck
with what they give you okay I have my
laminate here it's cut to
size this is our particle board it's
also cut to size but I have to tell you
you don't want going to
cut
your laminate exactly the same size as
your particle board you always want to
have a little bit hanging over the edge
because we're going to trim it later I'm
going to show you how that's done next
we have our contact cement okay now uh
I've taken off the lid but before we get
started you always want to make certain
that you Stir It Up first now this is a
gel contact cement okay so we're going
to start and we're going to roll it on
and what I'm going to do
is I've got it flipped over right and
I'm going to take my contact cement and
I'm going to put a little dab right in
the center there
okay now I've got a roller here it's
just a regular hot dog roller you can
apply the contact cement with a brush or
you can use a roller I'm going to use a
roller because I want to speed the
process up and if you're doing a large
area of course a roller is the way to go
so I'm just going to roll it on
one of the things that I want to say to
you is it's very very important that
when you start the process of putting on
the um contact
cement that you put it on in a well
ventilated
area you want to really make certain
that you coat the
surface well distribute you know
distribute that glue
evenly now I'm going to take this and
just going to set this
aside it's time to repeat the same
process on the particle
board okay so we're going to let this
dry it's going to take 15 20 minutes for
this particular product just make
certain that you read the manufacturers
instructions where it talks about drying
time because your drying time for your
product may be different than in this
product all right so I'm touching the
surface of the back of the laminate and
the contact cement is dry now I'm going
to touch this this is dry as well here's
the thing about contact cement notice
how it's dry it's not like you're taking
Carpenter's glue you're squirting it on
a surface and then you're bonding two
pieces of material together and clamping
it and the waiting for that glue to dry
it doesn't work that way contact cement
it bonds to itself so that's why I'm
able to touch it with my hand and it
doesn't feel wet now let me show you the
rest of the process because now it comes
time to marry the laminate to the uh
particle board okay so what I have here
are I have wooden dowels cut to size so
now what we're going to do is we're
going to take our wooden dowels and
we're going to place those wooden dowels
on top of the um particle board now what
these dowels do is they create
separation between the laminate and the
uh particle board now the reason why you
want to create separation is because
again contact cement it bonds to itself
and it bonds instantly and permanently
so you can't make a mistake and what
these dowels do is it gives you an
opportunity to adjust your laminate just
right before you press it into place
okay so I've got my wooden dowels in
place now I'm going to take my l
laminate and I'm going to place it right
on top here okay so what I want to do is
I want to make certain that my laminate
is hanging off the
edge all around the perimeter of the
particle board okay so you notice that
the Dows allow me to roll the laminate
back and forth without coming in contact
with the surface of the particle board
now once you have everything the way you
want it okay with a little bit of
overhang around the perimeter
you start from the center it doesn't
matter how long the span of countertop
is or how small it is you always start
in the middle and work your way out okay
so what I'm going to do is I'm going to
take out the center Dow I'm going to
slide that right on out and I'm going to
press down
firmly now once I've really got it going
my way I work it out toward the
ends so I'm I'm applying good firm
pressure now I'm going to move on to the
next Dow and I'm going to I'm going to
remove that
Dow I'm going to continue to work my
hands out now it's going to get to the
point where I'm going to want to apply
even firm pressure and there's a tool
you use and it's a roller come on in
close let me show you what the roller
looks like now this is the roller we're
going to use to roll out the laminate so
we can apply nice firm pressure to it
now rollers do come in a smaller size
now I'm going to take my roller and
going to start applying firm pressure in
all directions
okay and I'm going to remove the last
Dow now I'm going to work my
way in the other
direction and I'm going to remove the St
here now I'm going to remove my last
Dow now I'm just going to roll over the
entire
surface so I feel it's made real firm
contact and it has
so we've got our surface on there right
now it's time to trim these edges up so
they come right up to the edge of the
board now the way we do that is we use a
router we're going to use this router
here and we use a special bit okay so
this is a our router bit and what it's
called is it's called a bevel trim bit
so this is the kind of bit that you're
going to want to use in your router to
trim up that laminate Edge now they make
laminate routers and those laminate
routers are probably oh I would say um
half the size of a regular router this
is a regular router but those trim
routers okay those laminate routers this
a specialty router you can use a regular
router and that's what we're going to do
here today so I'm going to put in my bit
and then we'll get
[Music]
going now I'm going to continue around
to the other side so the next step is to
take a a file and we're going to smooth
down the edges here a little bit just to
very
lightly you're going to want to continue
around the perimeter of uh your counter
well there it is that's our nice clean
Edge okay so just keep in mind that this
is a mockup if you're going to truly
laminate a countertop at home you're
going to want to start with the edge
first before you laminate the top now
just keep in mind that the thickness of
the side of the countertop is going to
be a lot more beefy than what you're
seeing here cuz this is just a mockup so
that's it it's all there is to
laminating a countertop pretty
straightforward pretty simple right
didn't I tell you I told you didn't I
this is Leah saying that you can do this
see you next time