NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1983, No. 43, $3.50 Making ... - Wood Tools

Scribe strip fits bumpy walls
In a new house, kitchen cabinets may be
ready to hang as soon as they're finished.
But in an older home where extensive
renovation is contemplated, wall
framing, rough electrical and plumbing
work, and drywalling must be done first.
Some makers install the cabinets before
the walls are painted, but I prefer to
wait until afterward, so there's no chance
of paint spatters ruining the fmish.
If I can offer any cardinal rule of
cabinet installation, it's take your time
and get at least one other person to help
you. Even carefully crafted cabinets will
look awful if sloppily hung.
So I won't have to clamber over the
base units, possibly damaging them in
the process, I install the wall cabinets
first, beginning in the corners and working
out. They're screwed directly to the
wall studs with 3-in. No. 8 screws
passed through the nail rails.
Begin by marking out stud centers on
the walls. Measure and transfer these
marks to the cabinets so you can predrill
and countersink the screw holes.
Taping rwo levels to the carcase-one
vertically and one horizontally-will free
up your hands for scribing, as shown in
the drawing. Knock together a 2x4
T -brace to help support the load. The
scribe should be trimmed to fit the wall
as neatly as possible, but minute gaps,
56
Adding the scribe strip
" , Hanging the cabinets
��.
To scribe, set compass to widest
gap and scribe toward narrowest.
say, Ys in. or so, can be filled with a bead
of latex caulk and painted over.
A screw at each corner is plenty to hold
a small carease, but a larger one needs
fastening in the middle of the cabinet's
length. A shim berween the nail rail and
wall keeps the carease from bowing back.
Base and wall cabinets can be screwed
together by driving extra-long screws
through the hinge mounting plates.
Screw the base cabinets to a platform
made of 2x4s decked over with �-in.
plywood. The platform, which forms
the cabinet's toespace, is leveled independently
with shims before it's screwed
to the floor. Bolts passed through
brackets fabricated from angle iron and
into lead anchors will fasten the platform
to a concrete or masonry tile floor.
Once the platform is in place, the base
cabinets need be scribed only where their
back vertical edges contaa the wall.
Setting the countertop completes the
job. Plastic laminate is the most popular
counter material, although wood, tile,
marble, slate and granite are attractive,
if expensive, alternatives. After they're
scribed to the wall, the laminate, wood
and the plywood ground for tile counters
are anchored by screws driven up
through the base cabinet top frames.
Gravity and a bead of mastic will hold
stone counters in place. -B.P.
Allow for scribing where cabinets
meet walls, ceilings and soffits.
Front edge
of cabinel
rectangular proportions. Also, plywood
shelves tend to sag if asked to span more
than about 38 in. Carcases can be wider
and have three or more doors, but you'll
need to install partitions on which to
mount shelves and doors. Bigger carcases
are hard to keep square during assembly
and installation.
As you build a kitchen, you'll discover
that square cabinets won't fit into the
room as readily as a drawer might fit
into a carcase. This is because walls,
floors and ceilings, no matter how carefully
construaed, are rarely plumb, level
and square with each other. The sagging
foundation of an older home makes this
problem particularly troublesome, so
you need a way to fit the cabinets.
Adding a scribe-a small strip of
wood attached to the carcase to extend
its overall dimensions-is the simplest
way to do this. The scribe strip is first
marked with a compass, then trimmed
to match the contour of the wall or ceiling
(see box at left). Usually a %-in. by
I-in. scribe strip screwed to the carcase is
enough, but badly out-of-plumb walls
may need more. Before you calculate
precise carcase sizes, check the walls and
ceilings with a level, then decrease the
overall carcase sizes to fit the minimum
distances and allow for the scribe you
need (FWW #41, pp. 42-45). For base
cabinets, the 2x4 platform serves as a
leveling device. It can later be covered
by cabinet-grade plywood or by flooring
material (figure 2).
With scribe accounted for, you can
calculate the size of each carcase and the
parts needed to make it. In figuring the
size of each part, don't forget to allow
for the solid wood edge-banding when
you work up your cutting list. Plywood
components for base cabinets, for example,
can be rough-cut slightly narrower
than their finished sizes, since gluing on
the solid wood edge-banding will bring
them to the finished width. Wall cabinet
sides, which usually get edge-banded
on both their front and bottom
edges, can be sawn a bit undersize in
both width and length.
For an economical plywood cutting
list, keep two things in mind: first, figure
from large pieces to small, and second,
to ensure uniformity, CUt all similarly
sized pieces at one saw setting. For
most kitchens, expect to get six base
cabinet sides or twelve wall cabinet sides
from a 4x8 sheet of plywood.
I use %-in. lumber-core red birch plywood
made in japan. This material is