Some questions about cabinets

[Stephen Cherry]

Mom already has a vision. There are much better ways of holding shelves up than those time bomb shelf pins which notify you when to upgrade by breaking some dishes. There is no right way to implement bad engineering .

The unused holes are pretty ugly also, but they are convenient. Don't you think that in solid ply sides they would hold up OK?

[Peter Quinn]

Mom already has a vision. There are much better ways of holding shelves up than those time bomb shelf pins which notify you when to upgrade by breaking some dishes. There is no right way to implement bad engineering .

That bomb must have a slow fuse, we've never had a call back on shelf pins, I've worked on doors on cabs that were 50 years old which had shelf pins, no failures. They make grommets if you want a really fussy but slightly stronger and not quite as unatractive visual. I hate the Euro cab "line of holes" look, particularly on glass doors or open shelves. I prefer to limit the range of adjustability and tus the number of holes to a logical minimum. There are surely better systems, but not quicker. And for shelves of average kitchen cab length, pins IME work fine if the holes are accurately milled. Hardest part is usually getting them back out, not having them fall out.

[Mel Fulks]

I've seen a lot of them collapse ,I have heard people mention it as one of the reasons for the ritual upgrade.Sometimes it's caused by a pin being placed where there is a void in the plywood. Sometimes it's grandma's best china that was given to the victims as a wedding present that falls. We had a job a where the people told us at the beginning that they would not accept the pin system because they had trouble with them before We used a system where dadoes 3/8 x 1 and 1/8 were cut into the cabinet, the shelves were solid wood with tenons to fit into the dados, strips of wood with a bead on each edge fit into the dados and support the shelves. There is an early 19 th century precedent. But there are good commercial systems too. The old kv metal strip system is no uglier than those holes and it never breaks anything.Oh, on that old system we, of course, had to get them to tell us how to initially space the shelves and provide them with some lineal footage for possible future changes. THEY LOVE THEM. I have the highest respect for engineers and I know that if you were designing cabinets to hold vials of anthrax for the government you would not use the pin system. One more thing about cabinets .I have heard that in Europe many use movable furniture type cabinets ,haven't seen any used here in many years. It should at least be offered as an option by a photograph on the wall. I think the cabinet designs here are too trend driven and formulaic.

[Jeff Duncan]

I'll throw my 2 cents into the mix as well. First off I agree that designing on the fly is NOT a good idea. Sure if you've years of experience you can re-invent things. Having never built cabinets before stick with the standards to keep yourself out of trouble. For instance appliances are standard dimensions designed to work within our system of building cabinetry in 3" increments. That doesn't mean you can't build custom sized cabinets, only that you have to be aware of how they are going to integrate with appliance heights and widths.

As far as shelf supports the pin system really is the standard. I don't doubt that someone somewhere had a problem, (probably using crap Chinese ply and shoddy construction technique), but regardless I'm guessing it's pretty rare. I actually have never seen or heard of a failure before reading this. I've built plenty of boxes over the years and can't imagine the type of weight it would take to cause a shelf to fail in a well built cabinet.....no amount of weight a normal kitchen would see anyway Pins offer the combination of ease of fabrication and ease of shelf adjustment. I agree that the look isn't all that great, but whose spending a lot of time looking inside of kitchen cabinets anyway?

Lastly as far as cabinet height goes yes the standard is 34-1/2" with a 1-1/2" top. I have seen those tops w/ the built up edge and guys just add 3/4" spacers where they meet the cabinet sides. Granite is usually supplied in 1-1/2" thickness. Regardless the important thing to keep in mind is to have 34-1/2" clear to the bottom of the top, especially if your going to have a dishwasher, the 36" height aligns with the top of the range. Another height to keep in mind is the distance between the counter and upper cabinets. Local code will often dictate minimums so you'll want to check first. I've seen as low as 16", but personally I wouldn't go less than 18", it just gets too tight for counter appliances. Also be aware if your using a hood or over the range m/w to account for their minimum heights as you want to account for that ahead of time.

hope this helps,
JeffD

[Mel Fulks]

When I was a kid there were cabinets of different qualities available .Knotty pine to rosewood or whatever. How did everything get to be "high end" when in most cases it is just another set? All cabinets sold around here are high end and pretty ordinary.Have not seen a lipped or inset door in decades. Any cabinets that are really high end need something better than the machine gun system. How often do you see something of quality that didn't take longer to do than something of low quality? As for you not seeing any of the shelves collapse ,there is a good reason for that...THE YANKEES GET ALL THE GOOD PLYWOOD.

[Carl Beckett]

I have the highest respect for engineers and I know that if you were designing cabinets to hold vials of anthrax for the government you would not use the pin system.

I now work in the pharma industry. We handle and store a lot of drugs, some of which are potentially hazardous. Many of our drugs sit inside of cabinets on shelves supported by pins. I have never heard of a failure in this environment (yes, they are high quality laboratory cabinets - and shelf pins)

At the same time, I have personally purchased crappy laminated pressboard type bookshelves with plastic shelf pins that I overloaded with canned goods, and have experienced some failure.

Devil is in the details.

I still use shelf pins. I prefer either metal ones, or the plastic ones that have a small fillet molded in to help the structural integrity.

[Jeff Duncan]

THE YANKEES GET ALL THE GOOD PLYWOOD.

Yup

Hey, everything I do is high end, even the occasional melamine closet system! You go and try to sell a customer on low end or mediocre cabinets and your probably not going to get too far

As for having a better system of adjustable shelves....I haven't seen one yet? In this business you have the give your clients something at least as good as the competition. Fixed shelves are not going to cut it in the majority of kitchens. If someone has a better way of doing adjustable shelves I'd be open to it....until then "drill baby drill"

JeffD