Suck ups / cam connectors anyone used this type?

[Paul Girouard]

I'm doing more Jatoba cabinet tops , one will be a inside 90 deg. angle / connection.

I've used a connector like this in the past,



http://www.mcfeelys.com/images/items/DBZ-1434.jpg


They are a PITA but do have pletty of suck up / suck together power.

This one looks easier / more user friendly,

http://www.mcfeelys.com/images/items/FSC-0020.jpg


From Fast cap up in Bellingham , Wa. Iv'e used a few of their products with good success, anyone used this connector? Does it get the job done ?

Soild wood top , 90 deg. angle . BTW I will be leaving generous scribe areas as very few 90 deg. angles are really 90 deg. and walls are rarely straight.

I just want to know IF that cam type suck up works.

TIA

Paul

[merlinron]

never used 'em paul.....don't know if i'd trust 'em. i like to be able to feel the joint get tight and stay there. with the cam types, the joint gets good and snug as the cam goes over the corner and then loosens a bit as the lever settles on it's flat spot. keeping alignment might be a never ending battle. one might say there's always the nut on the other side to tighten up the joint, but why not just use the good 'ole dog-bones then.

i would think those connectors are designed for " knock-down" style case work, that comes apart all the time for storage or something like that, in which case you can adjust the tension with a turn or two of the nut to offset wear and crushing in the mortise.
i can see cheap particle board case work with them installed and all the ears of the mortices broken off as the cabinet parts sit in the dumpster.

[Paul Girouard]

Merlin I should have added I'll be cutting in a groove for a spline and , gluing the center section only so it can slide if it needs to ,as well , so I'm just looking for some "suck up" that other wise I'll have no way of getting.

BTW visited my cabinet shop buddies today and they had one exactly like the cam lock one , they loveum , so thats what I'll be using , they also sell a surface mount bracket that goes along with them , which a I also may use is the main part of the top will be 4/4 Jatoba , I'll apply / glue on a thickened self edge piece to give it a thick , matching that island top I made a couple of months ago, look .

Thanks for your interest / input.

[MiddleAgesMan]

I would be concerned about what happens in this joint when it gets in the humid environment on your boat. The quick-joint devices have plenty of power but the geometry of your miter will change as the wood expands.

Nelsonite Wood Stabilizer is the only product I know that stops the movement of wood due to changes in moisture content. Miter joints in the marine environment have little chance of long-term success without it, IMO.

[Jim Ledger]

These work well. Drawtites.


http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m193/searover1916/P1010065.jpg

[Paul Girouard]

[quote=MiddleAgesMan;1649084]

I would be concerned about what happens in this joint when it gets in the humid environment on your boat.

quote]

The countertops in a house kitchen , still a some what moist envir.

Thanks

[Paul Girouard]

I've used those Jim , they do work well , they come with a pin IIRC altought a nail set works again, IIRC.

I might look at Ace and Home Despot locally to see what they've got on the shelf. I'd rather not use the org. one I posted that takes a wrench. Those of you that have cramed yourselfs into a lower corner cabinet box to tighten them up will know why.

[MiddleAgesMan]

Sorry, I thought "Jatoba" was the name of a boat. ;)

I don't know how wide your top is but if it is the typical 25 inch kitchen top it could still be a problem, especially if you like to open the windows when heat and AC aren't needed--and the house is near the water. I ruined some very expensive doors on a high-end china cabinet doing just that.

If fabrication is complete but you haven't applied a finish you might want to apply Nelsonite. You can't fabricate after application (glue joints will fail) and it needs to be applied as the first step in the finishing process. The stuff is truly magical, reducing expansion and contraction to the point where it can't be measured without a micrometer. Nelsonite can be stained or painted. It actually improves the appearance of stained woods, reducing the splotchy effect some woods will display when stained with traditional oil based materials.

The product is not widely used--some very high-end cabinetmakers here in Savannah told me about it. A Google search will take you to some pool-cue manufacturers who use it to stabilize the shafts.

[merlinron]

hey paul,

good luck with them.... let us know how they do. i never had much a problem with the conventional type. most of the fight comes from not having the correct wrench. i took a 7/16 open end and ground the jaws down to a thinner profile so that it doesn't cam the draw tight out of it's motise as you tighten it. the 'ball and socket type works great, too. almost everything i've done uses those two "dog-bone" styles. i know they work well......

one thing to watch out for( although i doubt if your jatoba will warp this easily) with a surface mounted draw tight is that because of thier being away from the center of the joint's thickness, they sometimes have a tendancy to pull the last couple inches of a joint up and you end up with a peaked hump along the joint's length ( common in particle board tops when over tightened)
the closer the drawtight is to the center of the stock the better and more evenly they pull on the entire joint face.

[David G]

I've used the Fastcap cam action connectors several times. They don't have quite the oomph that the traditional styles do. Normally that's not a problem. As was mentioned, it's possible to over-tighten with the traditional style. One case of sloppy joinery required us to switch back to the trad. style to suck in a problem area.

BTW,

[David G]

Oops, hit the wrong button before I quit typing... BTW, wood countertops are always an iffy proposition. Have you done wood c'tops before? Are you doing the sink area in jatoba? What finish are you using?

[Paul Girouard]

#1: BTW, wood countertops are always an iffy proposition.

#2: Have you done wood c'tops before?

#3: Are you doing the sink area in jatoba?

#4: What finish are you using?



#1: Yes they are . Older couple , no kids at home. Grandkids visit once in awhile,

#2: Yes.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b299/PEG688/sept17007-4.jpg

Thats the kitchen , I made that island top a couple of months ago. The rest of the kitchen in the back ground will be the next tops.
I have done one other Jatoba top, about 7 years ago, I learned a few things on that one. Narrower glue ups , finish all sides , inclucing the bottom , etc.

#3: Yes but the sink will be a large Elkay S/S with dual drain boards , one on each end , 66" LOA , so water at the front and back where the basins are will be the concern, sealing , again , all edges/ surfaces will be a given.

#4: Yet to be determined, spar varnish has been mentioned by the client. We'll do some "for color" testing here in the future.

BTW they had Maple countertops at the old house back in Ohio, so they are in tune with what it takes to live with wood tops by a sink.

Should be a interesting project.

Thanks for your interest.

[David G]

Paul - nice kitchen. Very pretty island c'top. Does it have a hidden plywood sub-top, or some sort of cantilevered supports (not visible from that angle) I've done several, and found that educating the client was a key to success. Nice that yours come already trained. I turned down one, and almost lost the entire house worth of cabinets. They wanted an oil finish, and wanted to be able to use it as a chopping block anywhere at all - and seemed to think that it'd retain that pristine, newly-installed look forever. My impression was that, when there were problems down the road, they'd forget that they'd insisted over my strong recommendations. I ended up doing the top the way they wanted, but refused to do the sink island, and sans warranty on the rest.

Finishes have varied. Everything from oil to spar varnish over 3 applications (hotcoated) of West System epoxy. I even did waterbased lacquer (Sherwin Williams Kem Aqua) on one. That was not a success.

[boatbear]

Paul, a lovely kitchen. Very tastefully executed. Thanks for the pic, and all the above info.
Charlie

[Paul Girouard]

Thanks guys .

Dave no ply sub top I glued and screwed plywood cleats into those $hitty Oak cabinets , and screwed up into the bottom of the Jatabo top oblongating the screw holes so the top can move. The over hang is a cantilever seems to be working . I told them no stand on the top to change the can light bulbs.

Yes educating the client can be ah interesting, these two folks are both Professors , very nice folks , easy to educate in a lot of ways not as challenging as I thought it might be.

Thanks for the ideas on the finishs. I'd like to try a seafin water borne varnish I've been using but it put a golden like glow she didn't like into the Jatoba. The Island top has 8 to 10 coats of Maloofs poly / oil on the top and about 5 on the bottom side.

I hate the throught of a spar varnish that takes two days to dry , but that might be it. Depends on what it does to the color.

Thanks again.

[David G]

Paul - finishing is such a huge and arcane topic. Lots of superstition & anecdotal arguments. So many factors (substrate; weather; competence of finisher; dustiness; preparation; etc.) affect the outcome. I'm still learning. I'm thinking that a traditional spar varnish - like interlux 96 (phenolic resin, tung oil) would not be sufficiently abrasion resistant for a countertop. Maybe their urethane version - #95 - might work better.

I'm skeptical about the waterborne. Not in general, I use lots of waterborne. The one I keep coming back to is Sherwin Williams Ken Aqua. Haven't tried the SeaFin. But I'm skeptical for this application for a couple of reasons. First, the times I've had failure of waterborne finishes have mostly been with oily woods (like jatoba). BTW, these days I generally use shellac as a sanding sealer under the waterborne for those sorts of situations. Second, there's liable to be a fair amount of movement in a slab of wood 25" wide... even if you make all the staves vertical grained. Waterborne finishes tend toward the brittle. Not a good combo, perhaps?

Have you ever looked at the Woodweb forums? There's a finishing section where you could get advice from both other woodworkers, like myself, and from real experts.

http://www.woodweb.com/KnowledgeBase/KBIndex.html

"Where facts are few, experts are many" -- Donald R. Gannon

[Don Z.]

In all honesty, we built a teak countertop for our small kitchen. It was my first countertop, and if I had to do it over again, I'd do a couple of things differently... But I'd keep the same finish. We used Behlen's salad bowl finish. I probably have only four or five coats on it, but it has held up well for the last four years. It did get a little damp spot near the faucet, but that was more due to communication errors with others than anything else. The fact that it's teak helps.