How to fill the laminate benchtop joint gap?

[benzz]

Hi, There

I recently have laminated benchtop installed, but the installer didn’t use the benchtop joiner and end up with unpleasant gap at joint. He used some sort of silicon to fill it but really it doesn’t work, it comes off very easily.

I did some researches and found people talk about polyurethane glue, wood saw dust mix with resin etc.,

it will be appreciated if anyone here can guide me what is the best product to use to fill the gap, prefer hard, rather than silicon as it is kitchen Benchtop using for food preparation, the bench-top is wood colored laminated. 

Cheers

Ben

[JacobZ]

Hi @benzz,

A warm welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community and thank you for your question.

Can you upload some photos of the benchtop? This will help our members offer their best advice based on your specific benchtop.

As the benchtop is laminate, then the timber colour of the face is usually a veneer applied to chipboard meaning gathering sawdust to create a filler might not be an option.

Epoxy fillers like this Utility Epoxy Adhesive could be an option if you can mix it with sawdust, but as I mentioned before, gathering sawdust could be out of the question.

Timbermate make a range of wood fillers in a variety of colours to match common timber species. This could be an option, but they are still relatively soft.

Applying some Timbermate Wood Filler so it sits just below the surface of the timber, allowing it to fully dry and then applying epoxy adhesive sounds like a good option.

Alternatively, you might like to consider installing some benchtop connectors to pull the gap together.

Let me know what you think.

Jacob

[benzz]

 Hi, Jacob

Thanks for the inputs

here are some photos of the gap. 

they are glued together by liquid nail I don’t think I will be able to make it closer by ultilizng joiner now.

cheers

ben

 

[JacobZ]

Hi @benzz,

As I mentioned above, timber-coloured filler with epoxy on top seems like a good option.

The epoxy will set harder than silicone will, but you have timber veneers so you can't mix sawdust with it to colour it. 

Allow me to tag @Noyade and @Dave-1 to see what they think.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Jacob

[Dave-1]

Good Morning @benzz 

It appears that the lamainate still has the smooth ends on the pieces of timber you are joining, It tends to make me think it will be hard to have a jointing product grab. (Not sure if it should have been square cut or not as I have not done a laminate benchtop yet) I would follow @JacobZ 's recomendations as he has a lot more experience and knowledge inthis area.

Dave