New Cabinet?

[Debbit]

Has anyone used a ready made cabinet in their sunrader? I want to replace the base kitchen cabinet with something a bit narrower, and have no wood working skills. I probably wouldn't bother doing thus, but the original cabinet has some particle board type wood that is deteriorating and sort of buckling outwards.

I'm not feeling up to a big job, removing the cabinet with it's sink, water lines and stove and gas line sounds daunting enough. I'd just like to find a ready made cabinet. May reuse stove and oven, may replace with newer cooktop. Probably keep sink, but open to other smaller sinks too.

Visiting my daughter and have access to an ikea, maybe one of their units......

[snail powered]

Has anyone used a ready made cabinet in their sunrader? I want to replace the base kitchen cabinet with something a bit narrower, and have no wood working skills. I probably wouldn't bother doing thus, but the original cabinet has some particle board type wood that is deteriorating and sort of buckling outwards.

I'm not feeling up to a big job, removing the cabinet with it's sink, water lines and stove and gas line sounds daunting enough. I'd just like to find a ready made cabinet. May reuse stove and oven, may replace with newer cooktop. Probably keep sink, but open to other smaller sinks too.

Visiting my daughter and have access to an ikea, maybe one of their units......

Unfortunately stock cabinets are probably not going to fit the space. The depth of them is the wrong size to fit under the counter top. Often the height is also wrong. Plus Ikea cabinets are made from veneered particle board and are very heavy. So even if you buy one you are not getting away from the particle board, in fact there will be more of it in them than in your original cabinet.

As to wood working skills needed its not all that much. They don't have to be built like standard cabinets used in kitchens. They are a basic stick frame that can be glued to a piece of plywood. No cabinet maker joints are needed. You can do the whole job with one power tool, a jig saw. Re-use your doors so they match the other cabinets. Take all the measurements for the new cabinet from the old one.

To make accurate straight cuts with a jig saw you need to provide a guide for the base of it to run against. For cross cutting the 1 x 2 lumber for the stick framing nice and square use a carpenter's "speed square" with the jig saw. The square cost under $15.00 at any hardware store. Or use a miter "box" with a hand saw, this handy tool will let you create perfect cuts on the 1 x 2 framing pieces every time. The miter saw I put all my beginning woodworkers on, even at the age of 8 years old, is this one http://www.amazon.com/Jorgensen-64005-Plastic-Precision-Miter/dp/B00012FQHO

For making nice straight cuts on plywood with a jig saw clamp a straight board onto the plywood so that when you place the jigsaw against it your saw blade is guided along the line you want to cut. You will also want a jig saw in case you need to make a curved cut.

I know you can do this job yourself and get good results, it really is a good beginners wood working project. Once you have your tools and lumber you can build the cabinet in an afternoon. It does not require a high level of skill or a lot of tools. When you look at your original cabinet you will see it is basically sticks glued to the back of the plywood. While a professional cabinet maker won't be using that method it is perfectly acceptable for RV cabinetry which needs to be light weight but strong.

The first basic skill for making any project with a hand saw is learning to get the cut started. This video gives you all the tips you need to become an expert at using a hand saw. Plus its fun to watch.

http://video.pbs.org/video/1772025726/

[linda s]

Is it the cheap panel they have over the frame or the frame itself that is degrading. If just the paneling I think you could strip it off and reface the frame without too much trouble. If you need all new framing it's harder than it seems like it should be. Karin is a master woodworker and I'm sure it seems easy to her. For the rest of us framing a cabinet strong enough to stand up to the vibration of the road, not so easy. My Nissan Sunrader had some sections that were completely rotted beneath the fridge and the storage cabinet. Just replacing that section was a battle. It took a lot of try's. Building something strong enough to support the stove and the sink, way harder.

I know your a great do it yourselfer but this might be the time to hire someone.

Linda S

[snail powered]

Is it the cheap panel they have over the frame or the frame itself that is degrading. If just the paneling I think you could strip it off and reface the frame without too much trouble. If you need all new framing it's harder than it seems like it should be. Karin is a master woodworker and I'm sure it seems easy to her. For the rest of us framing a cabinet strong enough to stand up to the vibration of the road, not so easy. My Nissan Sunrader had some sections that were completely rotted beneath the fridge and the storage cabinet. Just replacing that section was a battle. It took a lot of try's. Building something strong enough to support the stove and the sink, way harder.

I know your a great do it yourselfer but this might be the time to hire someone.

Linda S

This type of cabinetry is perfectly suitable for a beginning woodworker. But then again my beginning woodworking student actually want to learn how to make things like cabinets and like figuring out designs for things. So if you don't want to be doing the job you might indeed find it too much for you due to your resistance to learning how to do it.

There are no complex joints in these cabinets, it is all done with basic butt joints, and you can get all the measurements you need from the original cabinet. Zach who just made cabinets for his Chinook says he had very little experience with woodworking. He did a very credible job with very few tools using very basic construction methods.

This blog has photos of just how basic the cabinet framing for an RV can be. http://makingmemoriesrv.blogspot.com/2012/09/rv-remodel-16.html He does have a long kitchen cabinet with a lot of heavy, particle board counter top weight so he used 2 x 2 framing for it. Sensible choice to use a bit more heft to the framing for that area to carry the load. But it is still just done with basic butt joints. Toyhomes don't have that much counter top area that is not cut out for sinks and stoves, therefore the framing can be put together with lighter wood if you wish to do so. Also some of the Toyhome cabinets have a plywood overlay on the cabinet fronts versus just stick framing under the finish wood face framing which helps with sharing the loads. That was the case with my Sunrader.

The strength and stability of our lightweight Toyhome cabinets comes from putting adhesive on the stick framing then overlaying it with plywood sheathing. What that creates is a structure than can take a lot of movement without falling apart. Plus it has good load bearing ability. The lighter weight framing members are not sagging because the plywood is continuously adhered to them which distributes the load and increase the resistance to deformation such as sagging.. Philosophically expressed as "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts".

Unless you understand some basic engineering as applied to motorhome construction you might be disconcerted by what you are looking at when you check out your original cabinet construction and your might think it is a very inadequate way to do things. Or you could ask yourself the ever valuable way to learn about new things....why did they do it that way and then try and find the answer to the question. The answer to why use particle board is primarily "cost savings". The answer to why such small framing pieces and lightweight plywood is much more complex.

In engineering the seemingly flimsy construction they used is officially called "stress skin framing". It is a method used to build strong but light weight structures that will also flex under the applied stress and loads without fracturing. Perfect for motorhomes and for airplanes which both need to be light weight and which both have a lot of movement and stress on the framing. Even modern stick framed houses are stress skin framing and use plywood or other continuous sheathing such as OSB over butt joined framing members to provide a lateral stability that can flex with the wind and with earthquakes. Compared to the weight placed onto it those relatively small 2 x 4 sticks with 5/8" thick sheathing is still carrying the many thousands of pounds of loads of a roof, floors, floor joist, sinks, toilets, bathtubs, cabinets, furniture and other contents and often even second and third stories. ( Houses are now framed with 2 x 6 timbers but that was done so they could use thicker insulation not because they needed bigger wood to carry the loads). Now downscale that 2 x 4 framing used on a 2 or 3 story house to the structural strength need to support the weight of a small RV propane stove and lightweight stainless sink on small cabinet, versus the size of a houses footprint and think about just how much smaller the plywood and framing members can be scale wise for carrying the relatively lightweight load of less than 100lbs. Doesn't it seem realistic to you that 1 x 2 butt joined stick framing adhered to 1/4" thick plywood is going to be strong enough for the job? No of course not because our instinct says it is inadequate as we are only used to seeing 2 x 4 lumber holding stuff up. But that is just our illogical brains not thinking it through and only accepting what is most familiar to us. We tend not to question it, to transfer that visual image of the familiar to other situations whether appropriate to do so or not. Then we will even defend that position as being the best solution.

Thick plywood is not required, neither are heavy framing members. It is binding with adhesive that makes a big difference in how these cabinets come together. Plus this method of stress skin panel construction also allows wood framed motorhomes to flex and the interior cabinets to flex without falling apart versus using heavier and more rigid materials. Another one of our illogical conclusions is that bigger must mean stronger but that does not work when circumstances need something to flex instead of fracturing. What happens when you have a heavy, stout cabinet that is ridged and tied to the floor as well as the outside wall and the outside wall of the motorhome is flexing while driving? The fasteners tying the two together will work themselves loose. The screw holes will become enlarged over time. Nails or staples will work loose. Adhesives might fail too. So you need more give/give and a bit less solid as a rock. Go with the flow! This is the answer to the question "Why did they do it that way? Why did the Sunrader designers have floating walls panels that are only attached at the bottom and held in compression by the windows and the force of the upper cabinets pushing outwards towards the skin?". It is because that way the cabinets movement is not significantly tied to the movement of the thin upright fiberglass walls of the shell. The fiberglass shell does not have to be overly thick that way. You basically then have an inner shell and an outer shell which don't put a lot of stress on each other. People gut these motorhomes because they think it is not properly engineered but the reality is they simply don't understand how it was engineered and why.

That being said particle board is still a substandard material for motorhomes as it falls apart if it gets wet and fasteners in it loose their grip over time as the particles of wood in the panels work loose from the movement against the metal of the harder fasteners. So remodeling motorhome cabinets made with particle board is probably inevitable at some point in time.

[Debbit]

Thank you so much for the great answers! I can see how just putting a ready made cabinet in there would not work at all.

I have done some basic woodworking, in some ways it is a lot like sewing, which I am pretty good at, and in some ways very much more difficult.

It is mainly the narrower section of particle board between the cabinet openings in the frames that is bowing out because of deterioration. Because of this, the countertop is sloped and the door sticks out. I'm sure glue and clamps with a sort of splint on the inside would fix things.

I keep envisioning a new countertop with the newer style stovetop, maybe a new, smaller sink, with slightly less depth, giving a bit more room between closet/bathroom wall.

We have the tools, maybe this would be a good winter project for DH and I.

Looked at the blog you mentioned, very inspiring and a bit intimidating. I worry about attaching wood to fiberglass.

[Derek up North]

Well, since you were thinking of scrapping your old cabinets anyway, what have you got to lose?

[chefdave]

Hi slightly off topic im NOT a carpenter by trade but have rebuilt over cab area and reframed and lined back wall. felt out of my depth but once started found it very easy. as long as you can measure and cut wood straight its a piece of cake. i understand quite few owners on here have carried out major repairs with no prior training.

[Debbit]

I love your ideas for rearranging things, looking forward to pictures. I think I'll try the mending job first, but if and when we decide to build a new cabinet, it is very helpful to know the floor supports the weight. And that it will be safe to drive short screws where existing screws were before.

Glad to know one does not have to be a cabinet maker to do it. I suppose reusing the doors helps too.