Installing cabinet

Gaothead

Well-Known Member
How many more times will I have to lift the thing in and out of the cupboard before I manage to get the bolts in? Arm ache, maybe it's doing me some good.
 
Did you not put it in place mark the holes take it out drill the holes then put in associated parts in the wall then put it back in place and put bolts in and tighten it down?

You only need to take it out once really.
 
Sometimes it can be a real pain to get the wall anchor bolts to grip depending on how solid your brickwork is. I think the next time I install a cabinet I will use the dedicated epoxy and push in an appropriate length threaded bar into the predrilled holes, leave it set and tighten down the nuts on the inside of the cabinet. This method would make it more awkward to remove all fixings should you ever decide to completely remove the cabinet though.

I once installed a cabinet for my brother who has a very nice large Victorian house in Essex, I thought I had made a pretty good job of installinging it, fixing it securely with the proper anchor bolts to a very solid wall and then bolting it through solid oak floor boards. As its a Victorian house it has a nice sized kitchen pantry and so it was decided that this was ideal as the cabinet was well hidden from view.

One Burglary later and amongst a lot of other valuables the theiving scum who visited his house managed to rip the cabinet out, ripping huge chucks out of the wall and splitting the floorboards to get the cabinet out, the cabinet weighed about seventy pounds without his shotguns and associated equipment in there so this was no one man job.

It turns out his house was perfect for a daytime burglary, secluded and surrounded by large trees which shielded the scumbags from prying eyes as they smashed the front door in.

His security has been beefed up a lot since but it just goes to show that your average gun cabinet could be removed by determined thieves given enough time and the correct tools. I think that one of those huge safe type cabinets that Weigh in at several hundred pounds might be a different kettle of fish though.
 
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Expanding bolts are not meant to be used in anything other than solid poured concrete. They will expand upon tightening and just crack the brics or concrete blocks that they were set into.
The only way to properly secure a cabinet, or anything else of substance for that matter, into brick or concrete blocks, is to use a chemically fixed bolt. Hilti Hit resin is the best (I'd argue the only product) to use. Hilti make all sorts of mesh sleeves (to be used on walls with bricks with holes in them) and also many different types of resin depending on the type of substrate that you intend to fix into. You may need to buy one of their applicator guns which are not that cheap at about £80 if you can't find a hire company that holds them, but that's a small price to pay considering what you are securing.
if you position the cabinet in place, screw in the top two holes using normal screws and rawel plugs, so that its hanging on them , then Chen fix the bottom two holes, let it cure, then take out the top two screws and drill and chem fix the top two points, you will have a well fastened cabinet. Once you have done that the only way to remove the cabinet by force would entail ripping the bricks out of the wall. If you wish to move it you can just take the cabinet down and then cut the bolts off bellow the surface of the wall using an angle grinder and fill in the holes with a bit of poly filler.

Kind regards, Olaf
 
Wow thanks guys didn't expect so much input and I'll try something other than expanding bolts next time. After my post I still had to take it out one more time to make another tweak before everything lined up and fitted.

I cant see someone moving the cabinet by force because there is not enough space to swing a decent leaver, but both of mine are made from regular steel so could easily be cut open if I lost the keys...
 
Just for info - if you need to remove the bolts at some point, screw a nut an inch or two down the thread, then screw another nut down until it touches it. Using two spanners then tighten the lower one until it locks against the top one. You can then keep turning that nut (which is now locked in place) and the whole threaded bar will unscrew itself from the resin leaving an easily filled hole. Et voila. I also didn't know this until I'd hacksawed my way through three bolts on my last house move........
 
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