Re: Kitchen cupboard door fittings

[raclyqm]

A metal "strap" across the back of both items.

[Stuart]

Yeah,you can get metal plates specifically intended for such jobs as a lot of units have dummy drawers which are attached to the lower door so both open together . It is basically a rect metal plate with a screwhole at each corner and you just screw them to the drawer/door .I suppose you could even use a piece of wood if you werent too fussy about how it looked as it is normally unseen . Stuart

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[bigbria]

Except....

There's a quarter inch gap built into the design between the top and the bottom sections (don't ask me why) so anything I fix to the back of the two sections will show through the gap. Its not a problem for

*me*, you understand, but....well....

Brian

[gandalf]

Do what the manufactures did. What you have described can be achieved using nails/brads of suitable size. Check what size the sheared ones are and get similiar. You want them to go about 3/4 of an inch or so into both the door and the dummy drawer and allow for the quarter inch cosmetic gap.

Get the nails. (Screwfix catalogue must have something suitable to give you an idea) whack a couple into the door. Use something to hold the door from underneath. (wood blocks, telephone directories or whatever) Then cut the heads off the nails at an angle. Get a piece of wood, or something suitable, that is a quarter inch thick. Put that between your now headless nails and then whack the dummy drawer onto them.

[gandalf]

It seemed obvious at the time, but it does need some clarification. Don't whack them all the way in. You want about an inch left standing so you have something to attach the dummy drawer to and allow for the gap.

[BigWallop]

Hi BigBrian,

Pick up a bit of 6 mm plywood, about the width of the door and about 100 mm wide itself. Some PVA waterproof wood glue, and 6 by 12 mm gauge 6 wood screws.

Undo the door off the side panel of the cupboard and lay it on the floor face down on something that will not scratch it. Lay the drawer front above as though they were fitted together. Leave a little gap between them like the other cupboards in the kitchen, and take a measure for your plywood. The ply should be about 30 mm in from each edge of the door / drawer to let it close properly into the cupboard. The ply should be able to go at least

50 mm over the door and drawer front.

Put some glue along the edges that are going together, get them the right way right round, and spread the glue out until it covers the area that the ply will cover. Allow the glue to go a bit tacky.

Starting with the drawer front. Lay the ply along the edge evenly so it sticks over enough to allow you to fit it to the door. Put a screw in the middle of the bit that's on the drawer front and screw it in.

Now get the door. Slide it under the ply and line it up with drawer front, remember to leave the little gap, press it down onto the glue and get a screw through it in the middle like the drawer front. This lets you move them about a bit to make sure the gap even along its length.

Once your happy with it being lined up, put the rest of your screws in either end of ply through to the door and drawer front.

When this is done, leave to dry over night and in the morning you won't know they'd ever been apart. No massive gaps between them. Nothing visible from the front, apart from the drawer and door, and once fixed back into place on the cupboard. Jobs done. :-))

It's a lot easier than trying to find metal plates and it's a whole lot cheaper.

Good Luck with it.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Fishplates on the back.

[usenet]

It's the ultimate triumph of form over function to my mind this mindless requirement to maintain the 'drawer line'. Even more stupid is where they fit non-functional knobs to the dummy drawer and as a result it gets pulled off!

A couple of plates screwed on from the back?

[jerrybuilt]

'kinell. What sort of material is the door made from? If it's natural timber, that might split it. If it's chipboard, it might distort the surface. If you can't get the originals out and replace them, you could drill out in a suitable place adjacent to the original pins, and fit more there. If your drilling isn't exactly accurate, make one side should be a tight fit on the pins, the other oversize (diameter) - press the pins into the "tight" side, put gap filling adhesive such as car body filler into the over- size holes, put the thing back together (on a flat surface) PDQ and peel off excess filler at the "rubbery" stage.

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[PM]

But it must have shown before?

Pete

[bigbria]

Sure, the gap was showing before (its intended to, since the two parts were deliberately spaced using plastic washers on the metal pins to keep the parts apart), but there was nothing behind it before. If I fix something to the back of the door to hold the two pieces together, it will show through the gap.

Brian

[Michael McNeil]

I take it that the doors are not returnable? And you have looked at the dowels holding them and they are irreplacable?

One more thing is paint a black line to overlap both doors so that the closed door will appear to have a shadow between them. I think you will have a job glueing melamine with pva. If it fails, scrape it off and try some superglue.

If that fails.....

[Roger Mills]

Why not replace the original metal pins with something a bit more substantial - such as 5mm steel rods. [You could use a filing tray separator, sawn in half]. They needn't be in exactly the same place if you can't get the sheared bits out.

Simply drill a couple of 5mm holes (or whatever size the rods are) downwards into the top edge of the door - and a corresponding pair upwards into the bottom edge of the dummy drawer. If you have still got the original plastic spacer washers, drill them out to 5mm too, then re-assemble the whole thing, with the ends of the steel rods araldited into the holes.

Roger

P.S. If necessary, ask Sasha Klamp to hold it all together while the glue sets .

[PM]

How about dowel screws?

[bigbria]

fitting a couple of metal plates to the back of the door

Brian