I'm mostly a residential face frame shop except the odd small PLam commercial job.
I'm starting to get more requests for frameless, no one else really does them around here. I'm looking to offering a line of frameless as another option.
What I can't wrap my head around is the finishing, If its clear finish then I've been using prefinished banding. How do you deal with a custom stain or paint job is there stained options for banding? Do you mask off the whole box? I hate to think of stain oozing all over the place. It seems that any of the time savings would be lost.
I'd love to hear how you fameless guys deal with this.

We use a vinyl colored .5 mill edgeband to match door color. If real high end, we stain edgeband on drum then apply to panels.

Mask and stain. Or stain the edges with a rag by hand.

Staining and prefinishing edgebanding on a drum works for the face, but as soon as it's trimmed it shows it's original color.

I don't do much Euro style boxes, but when I do I use prefinished interiors and mask them off, stain, clear.

If I'm finishing I usually use prefinished plywood, edgeband, then stack the parts and spray finish the edges with pigmented precat lacquer or stain and precat clear.
I've tried using PVC matches with mediocre success.

Anytime possible use PVC that matches or close. Once its all put together if you are a shade or so off you can't tell. The doors create shadows. If you can't find anything close stack your parts and spray them. Its a lot easier than it sounds. Turn the good side of the UV down. If you happen to get a little paint on there it wipes right off. Then build your box.

If you don't already try prefinishing your faceframes before you build the box. Its a lot easier than spraying the whole box.

Our veneer jobs are usually melamine interiors. We band in matching veneer and then finish the edges with parts stacked before assembly.

Click the link below to download the file included with this post.

20170209_130957.pdf

Alan, do you layup your melamine interior panels in-house or bring them in? Do you run just a white cab liner on the interior with wood veneer exterior and then just run standard white melamine for decks and stretchers?

Mark,

We bring in melamine panels, its only certain parts that get matching cabinet liner and that is done at the veneer layup company we use.

Our residential jobs are custom veneer layup (blueprint, sequence matched) so we have the veneer company layup with cabinet liner to match the interiors. Doors are always two sided, so its just ends and wall bottoms.

But if the interiors are prefinished veneer panels we still edge cut parts and finsih the same way.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Alan

On the more simple tract home type cabinets you can get away with a PVC edgebanding. For nicer work or where there are exposed areas of edgebanding, get two sheets of 60" x 60" plywood and two of the 12" lazy susan bearings. Cut two big circles, add some stretchers to make it about 24" wide. Then some bending plywood to cover the outer surfaces of the drum. Take a pallet, make a stand out of plywood, and you have a nifty drum for finishing a roll of edgebanding. It will take two 250' rolls at once, a simple wood clip and a screw lock down the ends. You just spray and rotate the drum till done, come back and sand and top coat.

Yes, when you trim it shows a faint line of unfinished wood but it is barely noticeable or hit it with some glaze.