Replies

1. 
   Ron_Teti | May 04, 2001 06:21am | #1

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   Lyle are you planning on doing this professional or for your own house. Ill assume that your planning on installing one in your own house. the box store homers (HD) sells about all the stuff you need precut. If your getting into custom then you need to buy a specialized blade for cutting melamine. Tenryo makes a pretty good one. I get my hardware at specialty stores they seem to have better prices on quanities of items like slides and euro hinges.You cna by sheets of melamine from just about any hardwood or lumber yard. However if you want special colors and thicknesses then you will probably have to spec. order it. there are stores that specialize in plywood and they may have it in stock. You'll also get a break in price for quanitites. I hope this answered your questions good luck

1. 
   Lyle_Hageman | May 04, 2001 04:41pm | #2

   *My interest is that I have several storage and closet systems to put in our home plus a number of interested customers; therefore, I am interested in seeing if there is a market for this type of work. The professionals such as California Closets, etc., seem to be overwhelmed. My big problem is a hardware source. Home Depot has a stock of Melamine and very crude hardware, nothing like the hardware used by the professional closet and storage companies. I would like to think that it is just a matter of finding the right hardware source. Thankyou for your reply.

1. 
   Ron_Teti | May 11, 2001 06:52am | #3

   *you mention cal closets so ill assume that your here in so cal ,i buy my hardware from austins hardware & hardwood company in santa ana, there is also a place call lewis and company it has minimum orders of $250 to get in the door. Weber plywood and katella plywood has about all the special color melamine in various thicknesses.EB Bradley company on La Palma in Anaheim is a hardware retailer never been but heard good things about what they stock. i hope this can point you in the right direction and good luck

1. 
   Adrian_Wilson | May 28, 2001 12:10am | #4

   *Closets are big business. If you are going to do this as a business, you need professional suppliers for hardware (local distributors for quality hardware like Blum and Hettich, or larger distributors like Hafele that deal with this stuff), and melamine. The stuff sold in home centres won't do, and the folks that have the good stuff may not sell to you....it's pretty common to have to do an interview (what gear do you have, how many employees, etc) before you can get a wholesale price on good quality materials, and without it, you can't compete.It shouldn't be hard to track down the local distributors, and see what their guidelines are; here, they will sell to you if you make your living with wood....that's a very generous standard compared to many places. Then you have to know what to do with it if you can get it, and you have to have the gear to do it if everything else is in place, and that means bucks. These days, you should be looking at CNC machines, and edgebanders that can do 3mm edgebanding. Cal Closets are all over the place; they have a Canadian group too, and I've priced stuff against them. Doing things for your own home is one thing; setting up to do closets commercially, and make money at it, will require a very substantial investment, and a big learning curve. If you can do it depends on your resources and your level of knowledge.