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I just couldn’t bring myself to post this under “Solid Surface”, it would be too disrespectful to the industry that has given me so much. I may have sworn off SSV repairs previously, but since I’m living in the most economically depresed state, Michigan, all bets and previous statements are off.
This lady had 10-year-old SSV tops and had recieved $325.00 from the Wilsonart class action lawsuit. These repairs took about six hours and even though my bill was under $500.00, I still let her beat me up a bit. She has this house for sale, so she didn’t have much choice. http://www.servicemagic referred her to me exclusively for ten bucks after she searched the web for a repairperson.
The first picture is of a very small crack at the left front of the dishwasher. I dremelled it out with a pointy diamond bit, filled it with a base color match and cured it with my fancy new light kit from stonelux. I dremelled out some black and off-white specks over the base crack and light cured them. When sanded and finished, they disappeared and very quickly. Sorry, no after shot.
The second picture is the crack next to the stove. She admitted that her old man placed a hot pot on it, customer abuse even for SSV.
The third picture shows the bubble in the SSV over the dishwasher, the fourth is the crack through the bubble. The cracks have been highlighted in pencil for clairity.
I had to pop the dishwasher bubble, picture five, in order to run my router flat.
The sixth picture is of the stove crack having been fenced and routered. I custom fit her leftover sink cut-out.
The seventh picture is my ultra-sophisticated clamping system. I guessed at the adhesive color match and apparently I’m a pretty good guesser.
Picture eight is my level and two floorboards I found in the basement hot-melted to the deck and acting as a fence for my router. It sure gave me the heebie-jeebies smacking that hot melt off that SSV.
Pictures nine and ten are the finished stove repair and the dishwasher repair respectively.
Amazingly enough, the top above the dishwasher had the phenolic backer on the bottom of the deck substrate required by Wilsonart and it still failed! They must have been trying to save money on contact adhesive too, judging by the coverage on the sink cut out and the pieces I removed.
The original fabricator didn’t use 1/2″ material for his edges, he used SSV. In this picture of the island, you can see the failed and contaminated edge. Using my level as a fence, I routed off a 1/4″ and pieced in a repair.
Before and after:
Very nicely done, Joe. This stuff is some of the hardest to repair materials. Even making the decision to go traditional wedge type or skinning the surface as you have done here. Not for the squeamish.
Tom:
Thanks.
I forgot to add that I didn’t have any contact cement with me, so I just laid a few thin beads of silicone down between my adhesive seams and edges. I don’t think I would have used contact cement even if I would have had it with me.
Considering this was SSV, I made it quite clear to the customer that she was getting my “taillight” gaurantee. When she sees my taillights, that’s the end of the gaurantee on these repairs.
Joe
Nice, who makes that stuff and where did you get a replacment piece? Hey I have the same level
I call it “the Iguana Stick”Posted By David G. on 09/21/2008 12:12 PM
Nice, who makes that stuff and where did you get a replacment piece? Hey I have the same level I call it “the Iguana Stick”David:
About ten years or so ago, Wilsonart introduced Solid Surface Veneer. I had potential customers tell me that they “wanted the stuff that’s going to put Corian out of business.”
Wilsonart had a large display at the Expo and did their best to talk fabricators into joining the huge moneymaking opportunity. Only problem I could find was I couldn’t see how the extra work and lower prices made me more money. Then there was Wilsonart’s history with the infamous blue glue.
Wilsonart manufactured a blue contact cement that worked great for five years or so, then the laminate jumped off the substrate. The homeowners jumped on the phone to the fabricators and the fabricators called Wilsonart which generously offered .35 on the dollar to fabricators. But that’s a secret, so don’t tell anyone.
When the Wilsonart rep showed up at my shop to get me on the SSV bandwagon, I asked if anything was to go wrong would Wilsonart stand behind me or was it going to be blue glue revisited? I’ll never forget his reply, “Blue glue is a dead issue.”
Hey Einstien, I’ve got some news for you and your bosses that told you to say that. It’s a dead issue when I say it is, not when you do. Unbelievable arrogance.
The only SSV with my name on it is on the shower walls at Dowd Hall at the University of Toledo. The Wilsonart warranty rep issued replacement material before I collected on that job, what a nightmare. That’s where I paid ten thousand dollars for a shop brush. Anyway, I digress.
Wilsonart originally had fabricators gluing the SSV to substrate and gluing plastic laminate on the bottom. Apparently that was too complicated, so they only sold it as pre-bonded sheets with the phenolic backer. Either way it was blue glue revisited, only this time they got smacked with a class action lawsuit. Reputable fabricators still took a huge pounding. Our friend Lenny Elbon was an expert witness in this case.
To answer your question, fortunately for consumers and fabricators, no one makes this stuff anymore that I know of. It belongs in the Hall of Half-Baked Ideas like the 5HP router and the backsplash machine you saw at the show one time. Mercifully, the fabricator left the sink cut-out on this job so I had some repair material.
The lesson here is the value of time-tested products. Every year I see a half-baked idea at the show. Sometimes these ideas are brougt to you by multi-national corporations, sometimes by a guy working out of his garage. I tried to talk Kevin Cole into an article about this, but hey, Wilsonart still buys ads in SurfaceFabrication magazine and still rents space from Cygnus at the show. Kevin wasn’t too keen on this one.
Fabricators will always get the truth from me, no matter the personal cost, as they always have.
Joe
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q186/Trebruchet/P1010016-1.jpg
Hi Tom,
Yes WA did have a class action suit against them. They settled out of court in favor of the the plantiffs. Settlement in the millions. The plantiffs had some A hole as expert witness..OK that A hole was me.
I enjoyed that project, and had loads of fun. The Lawyers told me, when they dilivered my deposition (which looked like a phonebook) and stated my name….everyones mouths fell open. They (WA) adjourned for a bit and came back in with wallets open.Surfacing history,
Lenny
Evan a little more history. This was originally developed by Avonite and Formstone Lite. Avonite walked away from it but Aristech and WA went forward. Last I heard, several years ago, WA was still offering it to the European market. I did use it on one job about 4 years ago, we made toilet compartment panels from it. Worked well and still looks great, We used PVA glue and glued it to MDF, covered all edges etc. Aristech tried to makert Post Form Blanks using SSV for a year or so, 3 -4 years ago. It failed… duh. I think perhaps there was a market for those blanks in the builder market for vanties, but they wouldn’t listen to common sense on how to sell them, or who to sell them too.
Chicago was one area they did some test marketing of SSV about 15 years ago. When they came in I refused to sell the product, it just wasn’t a logical product to me. For once I did the right thing!
WilsonArt was purchasing 54 X 144 sheets for the European market. Due to smaller kitchen cabinet depths it works for make two post form decks. Which is also why Quartz is made in 55″ slabs.
I remember the glue problem WA had, interesting you saw very little about it in the trade publications, guess Advertising Dollars spoke louder than informing the industry. I never used WA contact so I lucked out there also.
As of next month Aristech will no longer mfg Gibraltar for WA.
i did several tops in W/A ssv wow what a mess we ended up replacing about 10 tops and repairing many more much were taken car of by the local distributer. the last one was a top on a boat. one had the sink completely fell off it was fabricated correctly the material just was not good.
Joe,
I like the straight edges to make the cutout. Perfect. Did you just use hot glue to hold them down. Joe Corlett or McGyver?
Posted By Andy on 10/09/2008 12:22 AM
Joe,I like the straight edges to make the cutout. Perfect. Did you just use hot glue to hold them down. Joe Corlett or McGyver?
Andy:
Uhhh…. yeah, McGyver. Yep. That was it.
Joe
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