Experimenting With (Minor) Carpentry Works

[edenstrauss 3]

Hi folks,

I've finally found some time during this rush hour to launch these photos which had been long overdue becox they were taken 4 months ago.

We had a row of swing door cabinets sitting on a common cabinet base and because of space constraints in view of our flat layout, my hubby had decided to separate these 3 cabinets. Meaning that they could be used a stand-alones instead of being co-joined as a 3-in-1 cabinet.

It did occur to us that we should be getting a carpenter to do the job. However, after checking through the costs of assigning such jobs to a carpenter, it seemed to be pretty expensive. And because we didn't know of any reliable carpenters, my hubby whose the usual HERO in the photos of my threads on renotalk.com, decided to take matters into his own hands. i.e. to fabricate individual base for ALL 3 cabinets.

Initially, I was very worried with stability issues pertaining to the cabinets. Afterall, I didn't believe that a layman like himself could accomplish such a job of creating a cabinet base. My hubby was badly harassed by my incessant questioning of his "prowess" to accomplish the assignment.

And as usual, he emerged the winner when I gave in to his demands to DIY those 3 sets of cabinet base. He promised me that if he failed to create those cabinet "leggings", he would then let me call in a professional carpenter to do the job.

Outcome: He succeeded in creating those 3 sets of cabinet base. Much to my surprise...

[edenstrauss 3]

How we started off...

We went down to LIAN KIM YONG CONSTRUCTION PTE LTD @ 37 Defu Lane 10 #01-75 (TEL: 62877467) to purchase nyatoh wood beadings.

All the wood beadings in the shop are extremely long. Unless we had our own long vehicle to transport them back home, it was impossible to even bring it up into the car due to its length.

As such, we had tried to persuade the lady & guy at Lian Kim Yong Construction to saw them up into the require sizing for fabricating our cabinet base. However, both of then told us that they do not provide such services to their customers.

The lady told us that she could provide us with a huge saw & 2 plastic stools so that we could cut up the nyatoh beadings on our own. My hubby sweat it out over 15 minutes and the nyatoh beadings were finally cut down to the required lengths. There were quite a number of workers from neighbouring workshops who stared on as they walked past LIAN KIM YONG while my hubby slogged through the arduous process.

The lady (sorry cannot recall her name) was kind enough to pass me tissue papers, which I used to dab the sweat off my hubby's face. She also assured us that we could pay her according to the number of nyatoh beadings my hubby had cut down with her saw.

After we paid the bill, she stacked the shortened nyatoh beadings & wrapped them in plastic films which had been commonly used for packaging purposes or protecting furnitures during transportation.

By the time we boarded the bus with the mini stack of nyatoh beadings, I mux make this mushy comment that my hubby had been proclaimed a real HERO to saw them up to precision & so neatly without much jagged egdes.

Postscript: I wished that I had taken some photographs of the process of sawing up those nyatoh beadings. However, the purchase of those beadings were impromptu. As such, I didn't bring along my camera so no photographs could be taken of my hubby going through that process of trimming down those huge lengths of nyatoh beadings.

Edited October 23, 2011 by edenstrauss

[edenstrauss 3]

Putting things together...

A power drill & assortment of tools are required.

A longer length of nyatoh beading was placed against 2 other shorter lengths of nyatoh beadings; and held against the kitchen wall prior to drilling as shown in the photograph below:

[edenstrauss 3]

My hubby did some measurement with a ruler and using a pencil, he marked a line onto the longer length of nyatoh beading so that he could use that as a basis for drilling.

Holes were then created by the power driller as shown in the photograph below:

Nails were then driven into the newly created holes to hold the nyatoh beadings together:

If u guys were to ask me if the fabrication process was a breeze, the answer is an absolute NO.

My hubby had detected that one of the shorter nyatoh beading was significantly shorter than its counterparts. He improvised this shortfall in length by using electrical trunking left over by our electrician during relocation of power points.

And this was how it looked like after he had trimmed off a strip of the electrical trunking, inserted it in place before he did the necessary to hold the beadings & that little strip of trunking in place:

I thought that he was very creative & smart in improvising the nyatoh cabinet base using electrical trunking!

Edited October 23, 2011 by edenstrauss

[edenstrauss 3]

After the completion of each cabinet base, my hubby took measurements along different sections of the finished product.

He told me that this was his idea of quality control to ensure that there wasn't any irregularity in terms of sizing across each individual cabinet base. Otherwise, there would be stability issues when each cabinet sat wobbly onto its base.

This photograph shows how the cabinet base would look like after the different lengths of nyatoh beadings had been placed together:

Edited October 23, 2011 by edenstrauss

[edenstrauss 3]

"Dressing up" the nyatoh cabinet base...

After the nyatoh cabinet base has been fabricated as shown in the photograph below, formica would be pasted along the sides facing out.

We managed to purchase formica of the same print from JENNINGS at Defu Lane (their block is directly opposite LIAN KIM YONG). But lugging huge roles of formica was challenging becox JENNINGS do not provide delivery & we were on our own after we paid up for the formica.

The staff simply rolled up the wide sheets of formica that we bought from them by tying raffia string. The formica were rolled up such that they had wide diameters. We requested that they repack it such that the formica was coiled up tightly into a slimmer roll. That would facilitate carrying it up any vehicle.

However, we were told that in doing so, the formica would crack & break off by the time we reach home.

Fortunately, a cab that ran into our path looked huge enough to accomodate both my hubby & myself, with that huge roll of formica being placed on our laps. In view of its weight, I earned myself 2 huge bruises, 1 on each fleshy lap!

Edited October 23, 2011 by edenstrauss

[edenstrauss 3]

Unwanted newspapers were then placed onto our floor tiles & after careful measurements, my hubby cut up strips of formica using a huge pen-knife & a metal ruler.

And becox we didn't have cutters used by the professionals in the carpentry industry, my hubby improvised the smoothening of rough or fraying edges of the formica by using a metal filer as shown in the photograph below:

Edited October 23, 2011 by edenstrauss

[edenstrauss 3]

Apart from the nytaoh wood beadings, I would also like to mention that we bought adhesive for pasting formica from LIAN KIM YONG.

Although Jennings recommended the Tiger brand adhesive glue, we only required a small tin of the product. As such, we bought the kangaroo brand adhesive which came in a smaller calibration.

The photograph below shows the tin of kangaroo brand adhesive from LIAN KIM YONG:

A thin layer of adhesive is applied onto the exterior surface of the newly constructed cabinet base and left to "cure" partially prior to mounting any formica on it.

In our case, we use an unwanted wooden spatula which came with our bodyshop products eons ago. A ice cream stick could be used as well or any other gadgets so long as u could butter up the area with a thin layer of adhesive.

While we waited for the thin adhesive film on the cabinet base to "cure", my hubby started applying thin layers of adhesive onto the reverse side of the newly cut formica strips as shown in the photograph below:

The photograph below shows strips of formica with adhesive applied to it and according to my hubby, he claimed that the adhesive works best after time to give for it to partially "cure" before attaching the formica to the nyatoh cabinet base.

U will also notice that the photograph shows one of the cabinet sitting on a larger existing cabinet base. We will be taking separating these 3 cabinets by taking them off the base & placing each on its own newly created base so that each could be placed in different bedrooms.

Edited October 23, 2011 by edenstrauss

[edenstrauss 3]

When the adhesived sides of the formica strips & the nyatoh cabinet base are almost "cured", the adhesived surface at sticky to touch like how a piece of scotchtape would feel when you touch the sticky side of it.

The formica strips are carefully mounted onto the adhesived sides of the nyatoh cabinet base as shown in the photograph below.

I had tried to illustrate how the formica is mounted by labelling the photograph with yellow arrows. One end of the formica strip with a numerical digit 1 on the yellow arrow is held on one end of the nyatoh cabinet base & pasted onto it at my hubby's extreme right hand side. Then, he would gradually bring the formica down to the nyatoh adhesived surface, working from the right hand side all the way to the left (see yellow arrow labelled numerical digit 2).

Once the formica is mounted onto the nyatoh surface in a satisfactory position, my hubby then secured it by rubbing his palms along the nyatoh cabinet base as shown in the photograph below:

[edenstrauss 3]

Under construction...

[photographs on finished product & having cabinets mounted on individually - pending]

[Synchron 0]

haha not bad not bad. next time can use something flat to press it against the laminate then file the remaining laminate.

[edenstrauss 3]

haha not bad not bad. next time can use something flat to press it against the laminate then file the remaining laminate.

Hi Synchron,

thanks for your compliments!

[edenstrauss 3]

Hi folks,

so sorry for the delay as everything DIY is on hold until probabbly after the CNY. We're crawling @ snail's speed in getting things done after resting for a couple of months.

Once we have relocated our swing door cabinets, photographs of the finished product with the cabinet standing on the newly created base would be uploaded on this thread.

Thank you for your kind patience & understanding!

[edenstrauss 3]

Hi all,

I have started a new blog website & most of my topics which are started on renotalk forum would be "migrated" over there in due course.

For those who are interested in reading on, kindly visit my newly created blogging website, The Treasure Cove of Barbette at:

http://barbettey.blogspot.com/

Thank You!

[edenstrauss 3]

Hi all,

I got this migrated successfully to my newly created blog & have placed this section under Home Sweet Home : The Peripherals of DIY (Part 1):

http://barbettey.blogspot.com/2012/05/home-sweet-home-peripherals-of-diy.html

And is ready for viewing!

Edited May 14, 2012 by edenstrauss