Builder starting small extension, will I regret it

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Cheers Alan, I would have gladly accepted your offer too :)

I have a friend who has cut some joints for his family but he messed the last one up so is reluctant to do another just in case its a trend!
 
Oldman":wl4p9r85 said:
That run is around 2.5mtrs and so is the other side over the sink area, so my idea was to fit the sink side worktop in place, cut the female joint on that in the corner where the drills are laying, then cut the male on a full length of worktop so I get to have several tries if I get it wrong (corner not square) and once Im happy with the joint I will cut off the other end and refit the tall unit.
How far out of whack is the corner? And is it acute or obtuse?

When I fitted one in my first house we decided between us (me and my worktop cutting mate) that the path of least resistance was to join the worktop square (to fit into an acute corner), mark the wall where the top of the worktop hit it and chisel out some of the plaster to bring the top into alignment along the carcase lengths (hope that makes sense).

This way the corners were bang on and the plaster line was covered by the tiling anyway.

Worth a thought...
 
Thanks for the link Paul, looks easy there.

Trim the corner is acute, looks like about 10-15mm runout in 2.5mtrs.

I have read that you can cut the male side of the mitre at up to 1.5 deg out of square and still have it mate up nicely, I am going to give this a try as with all the trouble I had getting plaster on the walls I really dont want to have to go chopping it off again :wink:

I saw a video recently by some guy trying to sell 3 plastic pegs for £30 that allowed you to cut out of square mitres, so I fired up the lathe and made some.
Seems the method is to cut the female as usual, then lay the male length under it with all up against the walls, put 3 scribe marks into the laminate with a craft knife, route back to the line in those 3 places so you have 3 half circles, turn the worktop face down, lay the jig over, insert the pegs you made into the router slots you cut , clamp down and run a pass or two, jig saw half the waste off to save the router bit wear with having to cut it all off then route till finished.
This should give the correct angle and mate exactly.
The pegs made should be 2 diameters, 31mm same as the jig slot and 12.7mm same as the router bit.

Thought it worth a try :)
 
I have a couple of Homebase kitchen bits left over... :oops:

I put them to one side when opening packets during the build and now for the life of me cant think where they should go.
They are not mentioned that I can see on any of my paperwork and the suppliers dont know what they are either.

They are 20mm wide and 50mm long with 2 c/sunk screw holes.

Not door to false drawer fixings as I have big steel straps for that.

Ideas?

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Hi Oldman,

I would guess they may be used with those straps, fitted to the back of a door with false front, (or to link two doors together on some larder units) to give a uniform spacing before the straps are used to stiffen everything up.
Can't say that's 100% correct, but it would seem an obvious solution.

hope this helps,

Andy
 
Oldman":3kj4rdga said:
Thanks for the link Paul, looks easy there.

Trim the corner is acute, looks like about 10-15mm runout in 2.5mtrs.

I have read that you can cut the male side of the mitre at up to 1.5 deg out of square and still have it mate up nicely, I am going to give this a try as with all the trouble I had getting plaster on the walls I really dont want to have to go chopping it off again
Mine was out more than that. I thought about compensating by varying the mitre angle but it did my head in trying to work out how much to compensate to get the right fit. In the end I didn't bother and just cut it at 90 degrees then scribed the worktop for an even overhang at the front.
 
Hi Andy yes I do have a tall double oven unit that came with an extra small door type panel that you cut to fill in the gap between top of oven and normal sized top door, I would think that maybe these are used to attach the small panel to the bottom of the top door.

Cheers for that ;)

Studders, as I have a fair amount of spare worktop on the side the male cut is going to be I will give the pegs I turned a go first and scribe if all else fails :wink:
 
Got a bit more done on this project.
The 900mm hood has a 150mm extract outlet and my biggest core drill is 127mm, so not wishing to buy a new core drill for 1 hole I elected to suffer a bit of arm ache by cutting the inner hole with a pad saw :oops:
Its plaster and soft block so not too hard to do, just took a while to get round the circle. Doing it that way also meant I could have the vac hose up against the hole to stop the dust going everywhere.
The outer hole was done with my core drill then stitch drilled to size.

Turned out really good size wise with only 5mm clearance around the tube to seal when finished.
I have in the past had trouble using the 127mm core drill on hard brick as the pilot drill bit chews the hole out before the core has cut far enough to keep centered. This time I cut a small block of timber, drilled a pilot size hole in it and screwed this to the brickwork over the existing pilot hole, this meant the core drill couldn't wander while getting a good bite into the brick. Shall use this trick in future as it worked well.

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Fitted the dishwasher and the cover door for it, thats the 2nd unit from the left. The sink door and dummy drawer I drilled and inserted stainless 8mm pins to hold the 2 together pretty much as they had done with the dishwasher door/drawer.

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The plinth is just offered up for checking atm, but I think I will need to space it away from its normal position some as the floor tile line differs from the wall so the grout line will make it look odd otherwise.
Cant make up my mind re the left end filler panel, not sure if to cut it back at the bottom to continue the plinth line or leave it as is?

I do have to cut the plinth lower to clear the dishwasher door when opened & I am thinking at buying some clear plinth to floor sealing strips. The bottom of the plinth does have a white plastic strip stuck on it but I guess any spillage may get past that easily?

The worktop in the pics is just some old spare bits, the finished one will be gloss black granite laminate.

We removed a radiator when knocking through to the new extension and just got around to refitting a rad, the original was long and low under the window. Only had a small 600mm wide space so this was the best solution without going to the expense of a designer rad. 500mm wide and 900mm tall double.

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I have a filler to make up for the corner where I altered the cabinet spacing to allow for drawers on both sides and the tall unit has to be removed, the outer end panels cut to size and I have some handles yet to fit, but its getting more like a Kitchen now.

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With the tall cabinet out of the way I can be more flexible when mitering the worktops, cut the female on the window wall, fit in place then cut the male on a full length and if its not correct go again knowing I have plenty spare. Once its right I can cut for length then refit the tall unit.

The electrics are now all finished, electric double oven waiting to go in, gas pipework installed & gassafe plumber lined up to connect both ends once the worktops in place for £75.

I still have the pelmet and cornice to cut and fit, I have a sliding mitre saw so I am hoping that wont turn into a drama, I need to order some mitre glue for that job.

The hot and cold supplies are run through to the sink base unit but until I have the sink fitted I cant cut through the wall for the waste as i'm not quite sure where all the wastes will end up from a bowl and a half, so not quite finished making a mess yet.

Any tips or hints on any of the above taken willingly :)
 
Well time for an update, I cut all the cornice and pelmet mitres with my sliding mitre saw, had to make a jig to join them using mitremate as that stuff goes off in 10 seconds or less and trying to do it freehand was just too tricky for me.
Anyway got them all done and mostly fitted, had to leave 1 joint for later as I needed to be able to remove the tall oven unit to aid the worktop fitting.

Today was worktop mitre cutting day...never done one before, got a friend round who had and between us we went to it.
First one was the under window length with a female joint, wall not square in the corner so scribed that end and attempted to cut it with my skill saw, that didnt end well with the top upmost chipping out. Still got plenty of spare on the length so plan B use the jig saw with an edge guide. Nope that was impossible to keep on a line and it scratched the worktop even with masking tape on the surface. The metal shoe on my Bosch jig saw picked up somehow and scratched the surface through the tape so I need to investigate fitting something to the base to make it smooth for next time.
So out with the router to trim the scribed edge again, 3rd time lucky and near 2hrs into the job and we havnt got half a joint cut yet!

Offered up the worktop and it seems ok so on with cutting the female joint, jig on, shiney side up and all clamped up. First pass at 8mm and 3 nasty sounds from under the router, finish the cut and look to find the bit has bounced and taken what looks like too much for even a finish pass (+1mm) in 3 places. How we have no idea but it did. Finished the passes and did the finish cut and sure enough its still got 3 nibbles showing. Now as this means this worktop length is now useless we elect to remove the pins and carefully reposition the jig 1mm further back on the worktop and run another finish pass over it to clean the nibbles. This worked and its now a nice clean finish, but we need to try and replicate the +1mm on the male later.
If it doesnt work we have lost nothing as this length is fit for nothing else anyway and the male worktop is 1mtr too long so we can always recut the male as needed many times without running out of spare :wink:

I am told it seems there has been a shortage of suitable material for making chipboard and old windowframes complete with bits of nail and solids like oak have been used. I can only assume that the router hit something like this causing the error, or maybe it was operator error!

So onto the long length with a male joint, We jigged up to cut a standard male, cut and finished that then removed the pins from the jig and moved it over 1mm and recut so it just cut the front edge but not the main width. Fingers crossed and offer it up....yes it fits fine. Its now 5hrs since the start of this epic.

We then while its all butted up marked and cut the worktop to length, no dramas on this one.
Marked the underside of the joints for where we can get the toggle clamps to fit, hmmm can only get 2 in as its an 800 base with drawer and there is just no room to fit 3 toggles.

Last mini drama after cutting the toggle rebates is we noticed that the chip was not very dence at the very back of the male joint cut and that the laminate is curling up slightly by maybe .5mm in th last 30mm, not sure how I will deal with that when it comes time to colourfill the joint or if I ought to maybe try something like a hacksaw blade through that back corner a few mil below the laminate then fill the gap with a glue of some sort and clamp with a block to hopefully level the laminate?
7hrs now!

My next task is to try and cut out the hob and sink sections from the worktops. The gas hob shouldnt be too much of a problem as its in a 600 unit and I should be able to cut it in situ and fit the hob without moving the worktop much.

The sink may cause me some grief though as it bridges across from a 600 unit to over a dishwasher, so even if I remove the dishwasher I am going to have to be inventive to cut the lengthways slots as they pass over the end side of the 600 unit.
I have been warned not to try cutting the long slot out on workbenches as the very small amount of worktop left front and back of the cuts will cause the worktop to snap when moved back to its units.

As usual any comments or suggestions are more than welcome :)

A few pics of todays work, large oven unit removed for worktop fitting.

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Oldman":n5nndftp said:
The sink may cause me some grief though as it bridges across from a 600 unit to over a dishwasher, so even if I remove the dishwasher I am going to have to be inventive to cut the lengthways slots as they pass over the end side of the 600 unit.
I have been warned not to try cutting the long slot out on workbenches as the very small amount of worktop left front and back of the cuts will cause the worktop to snap when moved back to its units.

Looking good.

I always cut the sink/hob outside on the workbenches and move the worktop back inside. I've never had one snap on me yet - it's just a case of making sure the worktop is supported in the right place. But I can understand what you are saying. If you haven't already joined the worktops together then cutting the sink in-situ will be pretty easy - just mark it out and slide the worktop forwards or side to side in order to avoid running into the cabinets. It'd be a good idea to remove the door from the sink unit - don't want a jigsaw blade running into it!

Finally, depending on what sink you have, you will probably find that you will have to do quite a bit of cutting about with the rails and probably the back panel on the sink unit to allow the sink to fit.

HTH.

Cheers

Karl
 
Oldman":p2erduoe said:
I am told it seems there has been a shortage of suitable material for making chipboard and old windowframes complete with bits of nail and solids like oak have been used.
That's always been the case with chipboard. The main ingredient is old pallets that are shredded, complete with nails and any grit/dirt on them.
Chipboard... nasty stuff.

Oldman":p2erduoe said:
I have been warned not to try cutting the long slot out on workbenches as the very small amount of worktop left front and back of the cuts will cause the worktop to snap when moved back to its units.
I read that too but it didn't turn out to be that bad; just need to be a bit sensible when lifting after cutting out the hole.
 
Hi Karl, I will cut in situ after removing the doors and dragging the dishwasher out of the way as the drainer fits over that. The bowl and a half is pretty tight in a 600 base too, might need to get inventive on some of the clip positions.
I already removed the back rail and made the back panel fittable after the plumbing is done so the only part that will need cutting or removal completely is the front top rail.

xy, I started a thread in jigs forum re the damage caused by my jigsaw sole plate and after advice I'm going to put hardboard taped down in strips with masking tape under and a 1" gap for the jigsaw blade. If that doesnt stop it scratching then nothing will.

Studders, I only have 2 teen girls and a wife with one good arm here so its best I cut this in situ so nobody gets the blame if it got broken while moving from bench to base units :wink:

Thanks all for the advice.
 
A bit more done today.

Taped up the worktop and measured for the cutout, must have checked the measurements 10 times, just to be sure!

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We have all seen a sink :wink: but here it is anyway.

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Because its a bowl and a half its going to be hard up against this side to fit in a 600 unit and the front rail is going to have to go for now.

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Cut some strips of hardboard and masked them down, that works well as you can see.

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Thats after cutting the side and back.

Getting the cut out part out was a bit of a fiddle and I did need to get inventive to hold it in place while I did the last cuts to stop it snapping or dropping. A bolt with washers through the drilled corner holes worked well

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Cut out removed and sink tried in the hole, a bit too tight so had to take another 2mm off one side. Now it fits all tape and hardboard removed and 2 coats of ext pva applied. First was watered down some to get it to soak in.

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I will move on to the hob tomorrow, just hope the blades last, dug out a part nail from the cut edge on the sink cuts today and the sparks were letting me know there was more than just that one bit.

I need to face the ends of the lengths of worktop before I get carried away and fit the sink and hob.
I was going to use contact adhesive but it seems some manufacturers of worktop are saying use pva and an iron.
What do you use?
 
I'll bet you're glad to get that out of the way :) , Well done. In fitting kitchens with the inevitable cutting of worktops for about ten years I never came across a metal inclusion, hard luck.
Now the ends, I always used contact adhesive. Whatever you use it is important to get the surface flat. In hope that I'm not teaching anyone about sucking eggs :oops: . Cut the worktop to length, oversize by sufficient to allow a router trim, trim with a full depth cutter in the router. This is the only way to guarantee a square flat edge. Sand the edge to get rid of the picked bits, use a wooden block backing to the paper, which can be quite course. If you do not want a square front corner, they do tend to catch hips, take an angle off. Do not attempt a radius, you cannot blend the end trim to nothing. My own trick was to use the mason's mitre joint jig to give a 45 degree angle, make sure this is flat as above. If routing an angle to relieve the corner watch out for cutter rotation picking up the laminate at the front, preferably turn the board over if needed. If this is not possible, stop the cut short of the front edge laminate and finish by hand, planing or filing so that the laminate is pressured towards the core. Keep the surface flat.

HTH

xy
 
xy, the ends are already routered to size. But I will sand them down some as well.
Square ends are fine here as neither end is in a hip catching position.

So contact adhesive it is then ;-)

On to hob cutting tomorrow though first.

Cheers
 
Good stuff. Just to add the sanding bit is just to remove the very rough bits of the chipboard that stick out. Keep up the good work.:)

xy
 
Another update to the saga, I'm suprised anyone's still reading this :wink:

Had to recut the sink cutout, there was no supplied template and I had erred on the side of caution and made it 5mm too small for comfort so had to go at it again for my pain, the sink now sits in the hole nicely so it was re-pva'd ready for sink fitting once the wastes etc are sorted.

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Next was the hob cutout, that went ok. More metal bits and sparks while cutting, 3 blades later and its done. 2 coats of Ext PVA and lined with heat resist tape to keep within regs.

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Trimmed worktop end strips to fit, impact adhesive applied and fitted them, waited overnight before trimming to size, they look fine.

Off to B&Q with my 15% discount voucher and bought the waste parts needed. They do their own kit in the kitchen section in silver, looks manky and is £20. Go to the plumbing section and enough marley parts to do the job is £12. Looks much nicer too.
Wanted some more sink clamping clips as I only got 10 with mine, had to buy a pack with a seal in as well to get the clips grrrrr.

Fitted the waste and overflow, dishwasher waste is quite tight to the side panel but it will go, just.

img2959l.jpg


As you can see I tried to cut the worktop and the front rail in one go, whoops it snapped out. No matter once I cut the rail back to size it will hide the damage.

Next job is to fix down that section of worktop, fit the sink clips and seal it down, thinking of using plumbers mait for that to aid the foam seal they supply, core the waste hole out, then fit the tap and make the connections.

I then need to colourfill and clamp the 2 worktops together before I can fit the hob in place.

Good job we have a working kitchen as doing the odd 1-2hrs is really slowing the job down.
 
Kudos Oldman!!

I've just been reading through this thread. From what I read you've put up with a lot and put a lot of hours in where you can. I really appreciate these WIP threads.

I forsee something of a kitchen remodel in my future but we'll see how long I can put that off for while I make sawdust outside :)
 

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