Rick Potter
10-21-2014, 2:19 PM
I thought when I retired, I would have time to do all those neat projects like jewelry boxes, turnings, and nice furniture. Well, it's been a few years now, and life keeps getting in the way. The closest I have come is the kitchen cabinets I am still working on. Instead of tuning up my skills, I have been busy helping the kids in their business ventures, like spending last week moving all the equipment out of a grand daughters failed small sandwich shop.
My latest 'fine' work was in my daughters new condo in the local mountains. It is an older place, showing it's age, and has cabinets made of the finest photo finish MDF and part board, with butcher block formica couter tops installed with the phony grain going the wrong way. Over the kitchen counter, there was an overhead cabinet 8' long which separated the kitchen from the entry hall. We removed it (at least 50 16G brad nails plus a couple screws holding it up), and she wanted an upright 23" wide cabinet to replace it. It was decided I should make the cabinet out of the old one, so they would match.
Lucky me. I took the cabinet home in pieces, and figured it would not quite make what they (wife and daughter design team) wanted, which was a 23" wide by 43" high upper cabinet, partitioned down the middle so that the kitchen side would hold plates and bowls, while the back side facing the entry hall would be 11" deep shelves to put purses, and games in.
I managed to cut down the old face frame, which was super quality 5/8" photo finish MDF, and make a face frame for the kitchen side, and used two of the original doors on it. Some of the torn up original back side was used for the side attached to the wall, and gave me enough photo finish to make the four exposed shelves on the hallway side. For the exposed side, I used 3/4" really heavy photo finished particle board I had just gotten when I took apart an old office desk from my son's business. ( I grabbed the desk because it has a formica top on it over an inch thick....future outfeed table.) This photo finish was pretty close to the other one.
Finally, I made an oak face frame for the open shelving side, and mixed up some stain to match as close as I could. By the time I was done it took a mule to carry this thing and put it in the car for the trip.
Hang in there, almost done. When we got back to the condo weeks later, it took two people to hold it up while we stacked stuff on the kitchen counter to hold it. I had made some nice braces of oak to hold screws to the ceiling, but we found the ceiling joists ran the other way, and most of those original staples were into only drywall. To further compound it, the joists were on 24" centers and there was NOTHING in the ceiling to screw the 23" cabinet to. Attaching it to the wall at the top plate did not work either, there was metal protecting it. I suspect the AC lines go through that wall to the upstairs condo as well as ours. That left two studs that the side of the cabinet is now screwed to with 4" screws and washers, because that cabinet side is just 5/8"MDF. That's all that is holding that piece of junk to the wall.
As of this moment, the other side of the cabinet is braced with a bottle jack sitting on the counter. The only thing I can come up with is to make a brace of finely crafted hardwood, with an adjustable elevator bolt to replace the jack.
How's that for 'fine woodworking'?
Rick Potter
PS: No pics, and there never will be
My latest 'fine' work was in my daughters new condo in the local mountains. It is an older place, showing it's age, and has cabinets made of the finest photo finish MDF and part board, with butcher block formica couter tops installed with the phony grain going the wrong way. Over the kitchen counter, there was an overhead cabinet 8' long which separated the kitchen from the entry hall. We removed it (at least 50 16G brad nails plus a couple screws holding it up), and she wanted an upright 23" wide cabinet to replace it. It was decided I should make the cabinet out of the old one, so they would match.
Lucky me. I took the cabinet home in pieces, and figured it would not quite make what they (wife and daughter design team) wanted, which was a 23" wide by 43" high upper cabinet, partitioned down the middle so that the kitchen side would hold plates and bowls, while the back side facing the entry hall would be 11" deep shelves to put purses, and games in.
I managed to cut down the old face frame, which was super quality 5/8" photo finish MDF, and make a face frame for the kitchen side, and used two of the original doors on it. Some of the torn up original back side was used for the side attached to the wall, and gave me enough photo finish to make the four exposed shelves on the hallway side. For the exposed side, I used 3/4" really heavy photo finished particle board I had just gotten when I took apart an old office desk from my son's business. ( I grabbed the desk because it has a formica top on it over an inch thick....future outfeed table.) This photo finish was pretty close to the other one.
Finally, I made an oak face frame for the open shelving side, and mixed up some stain to match as close as I could. By the time I was done it took a mule to carry this thing and put it in the car for the trip.
Hang in there, almost done. When we got back to the condo weeks later, it took two people to hold it up while we stacked stuff on the kitchen counter to hold it. I had made some nice braces of oak to hold screws to the ceiling, but we found the ceiling joists ran the other way, and most of those original staples were into only drywall. To further compound it, the joists were on 24" centers and there was NOTHING in the ceiling to screw the 23" cabinet to. Attaching it to the wall at the top plate did not work either, there was metal protecting it. I suspect the AC lines go through that wall to the upstairs condo as well as ours. That left two studs that the side of the cabinet is now screwed to with 4" screws and washers, because that cabinet side is just 5/8"MDF. That's all that is holding that piece of junk to the wall.
As of this moment, the other side of the cabinet is braced with a bottle jack sitting on the counter. The only thing I can come up with is to make a brace of finely crafted hardwood, with an adjustable elevator bolt to replace the jack.
How's that for 'fine woodworking'?
Rick Potter
PS: No pics, and there never will be