On Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:11:30 -0700, CMiller
wrote:

On last year's New Yankee Workshop, Norm built cabinets with what looked
like about an inch of scribe material on the sides (that is, the side
edges went beyond the 1/2" back by about an inch). The 1/2" backs were
to be screwed directly to the wall.

I'm not well versed on scribing techniques, but is the idea here to
remove most of the scribe material so the sides meet the wall tightly,
while the back is as close to the wall as possible?

I would think that a space between the back and the wall would cause a
screw to deform the back (think of a screw pulling the back toward the
wall as the screw is drilled into the cabinet back). I imagine the
ideal spacing between the wall and the back where the screw goes would
be zero.

-Does one need to consider such a gap when cutting the scribe material?
-How much "gap" is ok for screwing through the back to the wall?
-Does one have to shim the gap between the back surface and the wall
where the screw goes? (I can't imagine that would be easy to do.)

Thanks for any input,
Chuck

Hi Chuck,
While I'm not sure what Norm did in this case as I'm not familiar with
this particular episode, I can say that 1/2 scribe allowed in this way
would not be excessive. It's not uncommon for slight irregularities in
the wall on a long run of cabinets to approach that amount. As for
being able to shim behind the cabinets, if your placing your screws
near the top and bottom of the cabinet then it would be very easy to
place the shims where needed (provided the cabinet didn't go right to
the ceiling) simply reaching over the top to place the shims where
needed along the top edge. The underside would be even easier to get
to.

HTH
Lenny