Continued from
http://www.renovateforum.com/f80/rea...g-hints-78260/

Assembly.


Chapter four of the Readikit Installation Guideline DVD shows how a base cabinet is assembled. You should view this chapter several times before attempting to assemble any cabinet. As I had no way of viewing the DVD where I was working, I found it necessary to make notes as I watched it.

The back panels of the base cabinets have 10mm diameter holes at the top for plastic benchtop fittings to be hammered in. Step 3 of DVD Chapter 4 tells you that the benchtop fittings install on the opposite side to the cam holes. Take care, the 10mm holes are drilled right through and it is easy to put the benchtop fittings on the wrong side of the back panel.


When it comes to a corner cabinet, you will find that it differs from a normal cabinet, as is shown being assembled in Chapter four of the DVD, in several important ways:


Instead of having a front rail at the top, the corner cabinet has a full top panel, with two cutout holes (these holes were much larger than I expected from seeing drawings of the corner cabinets). This means that the benchtop can be screwed through the top panel at both the back and the front of the cabinet, so there are no benchtop fixing fittings to be inserted into the back.


Of course, a corner cabinet actually has two back panels. Note that even for a symmetrical corner cabinet, say 900mm by 900mm, the two back panels are not identical, as the one overlaps the other in the corner.


The corner cabinet shelf is not adjustable, it is fixed in place by cams and screws in the same way as the top and bottom of the cabinet. This means that bottom, top and shelf must all be attached to the first side panel, before the two back panels are fitted. Make sure that the order that you are going to install the panels will work before you start tightening the cams.


I found that I had to be careful not to use too much force when tightening the cams, to avoid breaking pieces off of the cam screws. Despite my best efforts, several of them broke.


When putting in the 40mm screws that hold the cabinet panels together, I noticed that in the final stage of tightening, when the screw head was biting into the panel, some of the white board surface around the screw cracked off. This does not matter if the surface will not be exposed, but some screws, such as the 28mm ones used to attach end panels may be in positions where they will be visible. To minimize the cracking, I contersunk the holes before inserting the screws in places like that. I used snap-on covers on screws fixing the cabinets to the walls, where the screws were in visible locations.


The instructions on the DVD tell you that if, after assembling a cabinet, you find that the panels are slightly out of alignment to the front cabinet edge, you should tap them with wooden block and rubber mallet to align them. I found that it helped to try to get the alignment right while tightening the cams, and before putting in the 40mm screws.


The DVD also tells you that once you have assembled a cabinet, you should turn it onto its back and measure the diagonals for square. Unfortunately, the DVD does not offer any advice as to what you should do if you find that the measurements are out. I tried to coax a cabinet into shape in various ways and found that it steadfastly refused to cooperate.


In each side panel of the drawer cabinets, there are four pre-drilled 5mm diameter holes for each drawer rail. Most of the Hettich drawer packs I received had three screws for attaching the rails to the side panels, but one of my drawer packs had only two screws for each rail. Three screws may be sufficient, but I don't think two is good enough - fortunately I had some similar screws (left over from something from Ikea), and I ended up putting four screws in each rail. If you are looking for some of these screws, empybucketman tells me they are called Euro screws.


If you have to drill holes in the corner cabinet doors for the hinges, then this information, located by emptybucketman, may be useful:


http://www.hettich.com/blaetterkatal...rint/bk_76.pdf


Fortunately, all of the Laminex doors that I got, including corner cabinet doors, had the hinge holes drilled.


The document emptybucketman found also gives some information about the "Corna" catch provided for the corner cabinets. It gives the required distance of the keeper from the front edge of the side panel, but it does not say where the wheel goes on the door. The keeper is attached by one screw, and also requires a 5mm diameter hole for a locating peg. I found that the pre-drilled 5mm diameter holes for the hinge plates in the side panel were, by accident or design, the correct distance from the front edge of the side panel for the keeper locating peg, so I mounted the keeper in the hinge plate hole nearest to the top of the cabinet. After much careful measuring, I drilled holes in the door for the wheel screws so that they were 16mm from the inside face of the cabinet side panel with the door closed. This turned out to be a bit too far from the edge of the door, but fortunately the slotted mounting holes gave sufficient adjustment of the position of the wheel.


The drawer rails come in left and right types. If it is not obvious to you which is which, look for some markings on them - I found that they were stamped "CL" and "CR" respectively.


The drawers have metal side panels, while the back and bottom are the same 16mm particleboard as the cabinets. There are 5mm pre-drilled holes along the back edge of the bottom panels that I assumed were for 40mm screws to hold the bottom and back panels together.


There are also smaller pre-drilled holes in the back and bottom drawer panels for screws to attach the sides. Some of these pre-drilled holes in the bottom panel were in the wrong place, but this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. That is because the drawer packs contained 6G screws for attaching the sides, and I found that diameter of the pre-drilled holes was too large for these screws. Where the pre-drilled holes did align, I had to fill them with matchsticks to get the screws to bind, while where they did not align I could simply drill holes of a more suitable size. Alternatively, you could perhaps replace the screws - besides the size, pan head screws might be more appropriate than the countersunk ones provided.

Except for the case of corner cabinets, the height of the cabinet shelves is adjustable. There are pre-drilled holes in the cabinet sides for shelf supports. For each shelf there are also two gadgets that insert in the hole above the shelf, at the back, to hold the shelf in place.


If the cabinets are wide enough, then there is also a column of pre-drilled holes in the back panel for an extra shelf support. The hardware pack for such cabinets does not contain enough shelf supports to put one in the back panel so you will have to locate some elsewhere.


Note that for wall cabinets it is possible to accidentally assemble the cabinet with the back panel upside down, and in that case any shelf support holes in the back panel may be out of alignment with the shelf support holes in the side panels.


For the base cabinets, the cam holes are on the underside of the bottom panel, and on the the rear of the back panel. The front rail at the top of the cabinet could be installed with the cam holes facing either up or down, but it makes sense to install it the way shown on the DVD, with the cam holes upwards, as that makes the cams invisible after the benchtop goes on.


As the DVD provides no assembly instructions for the wall cabinets, you get no advice on placement of the cam holes. As for the base cabinets, the wall cabinets should be assembled with the back panel cam holes at the rear, but it was not so obvious to me which way round to install the top and bottom panels. In the end I decided to install them with the cam holes facing toward the inside of the cabinets. I did that so that visiting midgets cannot see the cams underneath the wall cabinets, and to keep the top of the cabinets as smooth as possible for cleaning. Of course, some of the cams are now visible when the cabinet is open. Your cam holes - your choice.


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