How to tell if kitchen cabinets are real wood or veneer?

Question

Just bought a home. Will definitely be refinishing the kitchen cabinets, but don't know if they are made of real wood or are partical board with laminate glued on. They look real...? The house was built in 1996.

Answer 1

Look at all four edges.Try to imagine the grain of the wood as it would look if you cut it yourself.In other words,if you look at the end of a door in which the grain is running upwards,it should look as though it has been cut across its grain.If the door and its edges are laminated inevitably,the laminate edgeing has a long grain feature around all four sides.

Answer 2

Kitchen Cabinet Laminate Veneer

Answer 3

1

Answer 4

its sort of hard question to answer without actually looking at your cabinets, I would just say to closely inspect all the edges of everything and knock on them solid wood sounds different than particle board with laminate. I would think that if its veneer you would see some clue of the fact that its a laminate after 10 years somewhere on at least one of the cabinets. I would ask some friends that work with wood to take a look for you. If you really don't have any home improvement companies all give free estimates and the person that would show up would be a bias source trying to sell you something but they would be able to look and tell you what you have, plus give you a price on what they would want to do the job which could make you all the prouder in your work once you do it yourself, lol that is if you are good and saying no to salesmen and dealing with them acting mad cause in their mind you wasted their time.

Answer 5

I am a cabinet installer for custom and prefabricated cabinets. It is very difficult to tell solid wood from veneer. Most prefab cabs are solid face frames, particle board sides, and veneered doors. You can tell if the cabs are prefab by looking inside to see if the finish is a picture in vinyl. If you see a consistant looking picture and very smooth surface they are prefab and probably veneered. If you see a stained finish the cabs are custom built and probably solid wood doors. Either way it is very difficult to refinish cabs. Sometimes you are better off to order new doors and refinish the frames.

Answer 6

E-1, E-2 and so on through E-9. Then you have WO-1, WO-2 and WO-3. After that, you have O-1, O-2 and so on through O-10. Now, if you want to know what those means, it would depend on the branch of service you are talking about. In the Air Force, you have Airman Basic, Airman, Airman First Class, Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, Technical Sergeant, Master Sergeant, Senior Master Sergeant, and finally Chief Master Sergeant. Then the WO's or warrant officers, but there aren't any in the Air Force, used to be, but not any longer. The for officers, you have Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Lieutenant Colonel, Colonel, Brigadier General, Major General, Lieutenant General, and finally General. Each branch of the military has their own names for each paygrade, but the paygrades are all the same.

Answer 7

Remove (unscrew) one of the hinges and look in the holes
left by the screws.

Is it solid wood or do the screws go into particle board.
If you still can't tell drill a hole that th hinge will cover and check it out
once you know put the screws back in,no harm done