In article .com,
"Mr Fixit eh" wrote:

Thanks for the replies so far.

This is a renovation project. The substrates are varied. I have a
couple of cabinets with unfaced particleboard. I have several of the
new ones that are melamine-faced particleboad. I have some endpanels
that are plywood.

It is absolutely okay to use contact cement with 1/8" plywood.
The melamine must be scuffed to give the adhesive some 'tooth'.
80 grit is the absolute minimum, 36 grit even better. You can scratch
the snot out of it with a rasp, the 1/8" plywood will not telegraph
irregulaties like that.

I had picked up water-based contact cement. Am I reading correctly
that this is NOT a good product to use?

There are but a few applications where water-based contact is worth
bothering with. Yours isn't one of them.... certainly not anywhere near
melamine, scuffed or not.


[snippered]

and I was thinking the primer coat would make a more solid
glue bond.

....and I think you are right, but not too thick. Too thick is almost as
bad as too thin....almost.
That is more a function of the heat than the water in steam. A heat gun
works great to remove laminate after it has been stuck on and needs to
be removed for whatever reason DAMHIKT.

When you apply contact cement by brush, make the strokes on each surface
go at 90 degrees from each other... then let it dry till it barely
leaves a fingerprint.... quite dry-ish, really. Use some dowels or
strips of a non-shedding material (NOT particle board) to keep the panel
away from the surface to be bonded. Once aligned, slowly remove the
'spacers' one-by-one.