Help removing plastic protection from kitchen cupboards

Joined
26 Aug 2016
Messages
6,833
Reaction score
1,010
Country
United Kingdom
Hi all, just a strange one so all help appreciated please!
We have the doors to our kitchen cabinets, they were manufactured 5 years ago and came with a plastic protection sheet that peels off.
A couple of the doors are brand new and the layer peeled in one piece although well stuck on .
The 5 year old ones just rip into tiny pieces and are generally impossible to remove.
At 60 quid a door i can't pay for replacements but does anyone have any tips to get them off! It's taking hours.
16456209648555559597087665776073.jpg
 
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links
It’s taken 5 years for you to remove film?
Haha no they were planned and the bulk of them bought 5 years ago but it made sense to leave the film on until we finished the kitchen, we only tried to remove them last week once it was all done...
The extra ones we bought just recently came off fine, just the 5 year old ones didn't!
 
Haha no they were planned and the bulk of them bought 5 years ago but it made sense to leave the film on until we finished the kitchen, we only tried to remove them last week once it was all done...
The extra ones we bought just recently came off fine, just the 5 year old ones didn't!
It's a temporary film the longer it's on the more the adhesive fixes.Bit like masking tape only not as severe.
 
The doors look like vinyl wrapped MDF. In which case they were almost certainly manufactured by spraying a heat activated PUR (polyurethane) adhesive onto the MDF, stretching the vinyl wrap over the top and bonding and shrinking the vinyl onto the face of the door blank in a heated vacuum press. The protective layer is often a very thin film of (I think) PVC with a light adhesive coat on one side, however, this layer is already attached to the vinyl when it goes into the press, so it has to have a higher melting point than the PUR which is used to attach the vinyl to the door blank - therefore if you can heat iut sufficiently to soften or melt it you will almost certainly delaminate the vinyl, or at least cause it to bubble. The PUR adhesive used on the vinyl can actually be reactivated by applying the right amount of heat (generally somewhere between 85° and 140° C) - which is why if you station a kettle just below the edge of a kitchen door all the time it will eventually either bubble or delaminate., It's also a very good reason why you should avoid applying too much heat to this type of kitchen door with a hair dryer.

What I've done in the past when trying to remove this sort of coating where the doors have been stored (for months rather than years) is to cover the area I need to remove with brown parcel tape (leaving a rolled over end stuck to itself forming a sort of tab at the edge), rolled on with a little wallpaper seam roller to get a good bond (the edge of an old plastic bank card may also do). I then gently pulled the lot off by rolling the protective coating back on itself (i.e. through almost 180°). This often works because parcel tape has a stronger adhesive than the protective coating, but it isn't 100% guaranteed. Qhatever you do don't stick the parcel tape down onto the door's vinyl as it can damage it

Whatever you do, if you do decide to try solvents - avoid using acetone at all costs because acetone dissolves PVC aka "vinyl". If you need to go down that track I'd consider starting with something like WD40 on an out of sight edge, but that would really be a last resort for me
 
Last edited by a moderator:
nice idea on the parcel tape, that would do a good job of strengthening the plastic.
Also fascinating information about how they're made - I didn't know that was how they make them, some interesting videos online of the process e.g.
 
Interesting video. What I wrote was actually from memory from a visit to a door factory - I haven't seen one of these presses running for maybe 15 years, now. The door blanks are generally one-side melamine-faced MDF which is cut to size and routed (or just routed) to get the profiled front face before they are vinyl wrapped (the back already has a melamine facing so doesn't need wrapping). I recall being told that if they rout doors on a Friday afternoon they need to go through the press before closing time - if they were left on the pallet over the a rainy weekend they could pick-up moisture from the air and start to cup. Doors I've seen quite recently look like they are still being made the same way. The tip about parcel tape came from the guys who made the doors
 

DIYnot Local

Staff member

If you need to find a tradesperson to get your job done, please try our local search below, or if you are doing it yourself you can find suppliers local to you.

Select the supplier or trade you require, enter your location to begin your search.


Are you a trade or supplier? You can create your listing free at DIYnot Local

 
Sponsored Links
Back
Top