Joining laminated bench

[WoodenHeart]

Hi Everybody, Havent been on here for ages. Wow the sites grown huge!! I now have a new man, new town, new job, new life and he's got WOOD WORKING GEAR.
Okay, I have a problem. I bought a new kitchen and benchtops. Because we live in a town 300kms away from a city we installed it ourselves. Its really nice - but when i ordered the bench tops, (I have to ask my man to share the blame - cos he wasnt interested in a new kitchen - thort the 40 year old one was okay????! - so i had to do it on my own) Welllll, I ordered the four pieces of benchtop ( U shape) seperately and now where the two joins are, because the edges of the laminate are rounded on one side we cant butt a cut edge up close to it and we dont/cant run the risk of trying to cut a 600 long straight edge on the 2.500 x 900 x 40 bloody heavy benchtop. This is probably as clear as mud.
Anyway is there a cover strip in a metal maybe 10mm/15mm wide with a T profile that we can use to cover where the tops meet?
The benchtops now fixed, but if we can find some sort of cover strip that would be perfect. The benchtops a mottled grey colour.
Thanks everybody.

[Master Splinter]

I think what you need is a mason's mitre in the top.

If you have a router and a pattern following router bit they aren't all that difficult to achieve.

Have a look here.

Otherwise you'll have round about a 10mm gap in your bennchtop - to cover that you'd need an aluminium strip at least 2-3mm thick so it doesn't flex, and maybe 30mm wide, which is going to be pretty unsightly.

You could even do a semi-decent mitre with a jigsaw and a good sharp blade; put masking tape over the surface of the laminate for extra protection and do the cut with the top flipped upside down (so that the saw blade is pulling the laminate onto the benchtop, not away from it).

[Just George]

Call your nearest Carbatec store, I bought one from them in December from the Brisbane store. Maybe your nearest one has them too, you'll nee a 30mm template guide and a router that you can use a template guide with. If you get one from Carbatec, you'll spend $250+ plus postage for the jig, make sure you use good clamps when you use it as you don't want this jig to move even a fraction of a mm - you'll see it in the finished result. The other and possibly best option is to take the cabinet measurements to a cabinetmaker who can cut them(even if this is 300km+) as they'll do an awesome job and it shouldn't cost too much. A Mason's Mitre in Brisbane would cost you $55 per join.

[Just George]

I did 2 bench tops with my jig, and had trouble with the second so won't use it again, I made my money back though. And no, it's not for sale. I wouldn't recommend going through all of the 40mm in one pass but do it in several to avoid over working your router.

Cheers

[WoodenHeart]

Thanks Master Splinter and Just George, will give it a go.

[Maverick2000]

Anyway is there a cover strip in a metal maybe 10mm/15mm wide with a T profile that we can use to cover where the tops meet?
The benchtops now fixed, but if we can find some sort of cover strip that would be perfect. The benchtops a mottled grey colour.
Thanks everybody.

I personally wouldn't do it this way because I think it looks pretty cruddy but IKEA sell these strips for their kitchen bench tops in the different finishes. They are designed for exactly the purpose that you mention, you should find them in the kitchen section of their website.

Looking in their Kitchen catalog one of them is call the FIXA cover stip, 67cm long in Aluminum. $10.