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says...

Does anyone have any experience installing kitchen countertops? I
found a company that sells "solid surface kits" via the web
but don't know if I should tackle this kind of a do it yourself
project myself. It seems like a doable DIY project plus I will save
close to 50% doing it my self. That's alot of money. I have been
quoted $5000 for the project from an installer but I can get
everything I need including shipping costs for almost half that
amount from this company.

thanks ahead of time
d

I have done two houses, both fairly complex with lots of intricate gluing
required. I used Corian. Dupont used to send out construction guides, check
with their web site and contact them to see if they still do.

Tools needed are ordinary carbide saw blades and router bits. There are lots of
perils involved. One miscut can ruin an epensive sheet. Gluing is especially
complex. You will be gluing the edges to double them up in most cases, since
the sheets are only 1/2" thick. The glue is very expensive and one $12 tube
only glues about 4-5 feet of glue line.

You have to mix the glue for 60 seconds, and it has a total working life of
about 3 minutes, much less in warm weather. It is extremely slippery until it
sets, so when you clamp the two pieces they just slide around. You have to make
a set of clamping guides to hold each piece precisely in place so it can't move
while you clamp it, but still be able to lift each one up to apply the glue. To
minimize cost, you want to glue as much as you can with each tube, so you are
often trying to glue 3 or 4 slippery pieces at once.

Gluing the main pieces of countertop to each other requires temporary pieces to
be glued on the top of each piece near the joint, so you will have a place to
put the clamps. When the joint is set you need to remove the temporary pieces
and sand and polish where they were removed. All this is covered in the
construction guides.

Like I said, I did it with no prior experience. If you are a very careful
worker, used to making fixtures both to cut each piece and hold it for gluing,
you should be OK.

Dennis