if you want "cheap", find a small, local sheet metal fabrication shop with stainless welding capabilities and bring them plywood doors and have them bend 5 sided S.S. wraps. you then bond those to the wood core.

just ask for a sample of the corner welds and rebrushing they can provide. and be sure to specify a tolerance as the bend accuracy can make a difference in how all your doors will butt up to eachother.

OR Ikea has a pretty decent S.S. door but no custom sizes.

i want them to butt up close to each other--so would 1/16" tolerance be good?
in bonding, do i use an epoxy? does it spread over the entire surface? or is this something they can do inhouse, and finish the doors off?

you'll want to use a laminate type of adhesive so you can spread it thin and even. NOT a caulk gun of PL500. a sheet metal shop most likely will not want to touch anything other than the metal.

1/16" tolernace should be fine if they stick well within that but that could = 1/8" at two pieces if both are off by 1/16" in opposite directions. you may want "ask for" 1/32" tolerance. good luck. they may not have a CAM doing the work, it may be a guy at a hand operated break so double check before you accept finished work.

to save a few bucks, since the doors have solid backing, you can specify a lighter gauge S.S. like 18 or 20. of course you know to make sure they can get a hold of #4 brushed finish S.S.

is this actually cheap?

If you're near an Ikea store, Look at their line of SS cabinet doors. Their sizes are limited, but if you can make it work for your situation, then it's surely an inexpensive alternative and they actually look really good.

I know a contractor that bonded SS the way that form64 is describing and it was actually quite reasonable, although we did not wrap the door edges with the material and only applied the metal to the face of the door. It still looked quite nice for the price. We we painted the door edges white.........it was a super low budget job........

i like the sound of that rather than wrapping the ss. it'll be cheaper, get crisper edges, and nice play with the ss and the painted edges.

thanks all-

i looked at ikea's website and could not find ss doors or kitchens for that matter. maybe they are not on the website?

anyone have a link?

if i put ss just on the face of the door, wouldn't the edges look kind of raw? do they get polished?
can i buy the glue at home depot? what is it called?

if you want a nice look, try bonding sheets right to baltic birch. the exposed edging looks tight and yes as some mentioned, this will be WAY inexpensive and have a cool look. painting the edges will be harder to make a perfect cut-in compared to a nice teak oil rub. you do need to ease the metal edges after bonding or there will be lots of sliced fingers on raw cut steel.

these guys can provide real nice cut sheets right to your door. they have been dead on everytime i get cut materials from them.

http://www.onlinemetals.com/