Some more 'Fine woodworking' finished

[Rick Potter]

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

[Mark Bolton]

The frustrations of field work :-) When I have fears of no attachment on uppers I just wind up cutting a slot out of the drywall and installing 2x6 horizontal blocking. Its a pain but often the only solution.

Sounds like life in general, especially my day to day. Its a bummer to be off your plan but I guess the bonus is some great kids.

Do you mind me asking what happened with the sandwich shop? I am a foodie and love to go out to eat. Im in an area where there just isnt anything really great so to speak and I, and others, are constantly commenting that it cant be that hard to make a good sandwich. But then I come back to my long standing belief that when something seems like it is or should be easy, its likely the hardest thing you'll ever try. I have always felt there must be some serious hurdles that get in everyones way in the food world.

I know a few owners and they often talk about the necessary margins and they do seem tough. Then you add in that even if your making the margins you have to be moving a lot of product to cover the monthly overhead.

Sorry to hijack your post but Im always interested in the subject.

[Steve Peterson]

It sounds like you are doing more "fine" woodworking than I am. My wife wanted to move closer to the city. We made an offer on a house in May. I spent May and June tearing down my shop. The only woodworking I have done is building a few plywood shelves for storage. The garage doesn't have 220V yet, so my only tools are a miter saw and a drill press that run on 110V. I figure it will be around a year or so before I have my shop back to the same state that it was previously. I am not retired yet so things move slowly in my shop.

As far as your cabinet issue, can you add a 2x4 cross brace to hang the cabinet from? Attic access is best, but may not be available in a condo. The 2nd option is to cut a hole in the sheetrock big enough to stick in a cross brace. It would need to be toenailed (or screwed) into the joists. Hopefully, most of the sheetrock repairs can be hidden inside the cabinet where they are less visible.

Steve

[Justin Ludwig]

PS: No pics, and there never will be

Then it never happened!

[Rick Potter]

Mark,

The sandwich shop was a franchise called 'Pita Pit'. It is like a Subway store, with pita bread. Lots of combo's including gyros. The grand daughter and her husband got it from the company after the previous owner failed. They made a better go of it, with six colleges in town, but the location was bad, and they never made any money, just managed to keep the employees paid. When the lease ran out the building owner had someone else he wanted to rent it to, and raised the rent beyond consideration. Long hours, with lots of stress, wondering if it would ever turn the corner. A big relief when it closed.


On subject, the daughter does not want me to cut the ceiling up. It will probably be fine, but I am gonna brace it anyway....make it look like a flower holder or something.

[Mark Bolton]

Mark,

The sandwich shop was a franchise called 'Pita Pit'. It is like a Subway store, with pita bread. Lots of combo's including gyros. The grand daughter and her husband got it from the company after the previous owner failed. They made a better go of it, with six colleges in town, but the location was bad, and they never made any money, just managed to keep the employees paid. When the lease ran out the building owner had someone else he wanted to rent it to, and raised the rent beyond consideration. Long hours, with lots of stress, wondering if it would ever turn the corner. A big relief when it closed.


On subject, the daughter does not want me to cut the ceiling up. It will probably be fine, but I am gonna brace it anyway....make it look like a flower holder or something.

Ahh.. we have one of those here as well that is struggling. Sadly the food is pretty good and I don't like chains.. having the word "pit" in the name doesn't help ;-)

Sorry to hear but glad for the relief.

For your cabinet issue, I've never done it personally but I have heard more times than I can coun't on commercial work of guys hanging cabs in places with no structure to land on with those zip anchor deals. The cast pot metal cone shshaped screw anchors you run into the drywall with a Phillips driver. They put several of them in. In a narrow upper it may be tough But I suppose if you got 4 or so in there you'd have 150+ lbs of support at 40# each.

[Chris Padilla]

Then it never happened!

PLUS ONE!!! hehehe....

[Steve Peterson]

Another thought on hanging the cabinet. If it is 23" wide and the beam is 24" out, can you run a long screw diagonally from the inside so it will run into the beam? It may require a piece of molding to hide part of the screw. You could also trim the top edge with small crown molding that hide some brackets holding up the cabinet.

Steve