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Written by : Willy Beahan |
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so if you all done these closet rod pucks before we all know they're kind of a pain in the butt three screws for every single side of a closet rod so each closet rod is going to take six screws here's a real simple jig to make that easy you'll plot where you want all your rods to go then this piece right here will sit back up against the cleat up underneath the shelving then you have your screw pattern right here and you'll just take your hammer and you'll hit that one hit that one hit that one dimple the wood you'll take that out you put this up right here right where your dimples are and then you'll take your self-centering bit and finish piloting that screw and then just go ahead and install it to do this properly we have four jigs we have a left open side left full circle right full circle right open side the reason why we have so many jigs is because when you walk into the closet you want whatever is visible to the eye from the center of where you walk in to be the full-sided bugs and that way it looks full-sided to full-sided and then once you walk over here then you'll have the open-sided ones so from the perspective of walking through the door everything will look complete and no open pucks
Thanks for your comment Max Kiefer, have a nice day.
- Willy Beahan, Staff Member
here's the biggest mistake that i see people make when they're setting up a closet they use these things wooden closet rods it may seem bizarre but i actually have a really strong opinion on this i hate wooden closet rods they don't look good they don't age well and they don't even really function that well there's a far far better alternative out there today i'm going to show you what it is and even how to install it and that's coming up next on the honest carpenter show so the vastly better option for wooden closet rods is metal closet rods they're nearly identical products but they're made out of a far more suitable material metal closet rods tend to come in the same thicknesses one and a quarter inches to one and a half inches in the same lengths four feet to eight feet they usually have chrome white or black finishes and they mount in a fashion very similar to wooden rods but the similarities end right there because metal rods are just way more functional than wooden rods for one they're much stronger metal rods tend to be hollow tubes with a thick rigid wall the tube shape itself is naturally very strong it functions like an arch in architecture this means that an elongated tube has very little willingness to bend across a span when they reach their failure point they'll usually fold like a cardboard tube but this takes a good amount of weight they're more than capable of carrying 70 to 90 pounds across a six-foot span which is actually a pretty wide span wooden rods on the other hand are actually quite flimsy across the span wood needs more thickness to be rigid one and a half inches just doesn't cut it and while wooden rods typically won't break because wood is sort of elastic they'll actually start sagging very early on if they're under supported i can't count the number of times i've seen this in houses and strength issues aside the bigger issue really is functionality metal rods are like 10 times more functional than wooden rods just because of their finish clothes hangers just glide across metal whether the finish is chrome or a ceramic type paint metal rods are almost frictionless under plastic or metal clothes hangers so even when you're hauling a huge batch of clothes from side to side the hangers move with far less effort wooden rods have no real way of equaling this bare wood definitely doesn't do the trick and even if you paint them you can almost never get that textureless finish that comes standard on metal rods and when it comes down to it metal rods just aren't that much more expensive yes you may see them double or even triple the price of wooden rods but the total bill is still fairly cheap keep in mind they'll need no painting or maintenance ever once they're installed and for like 10 additional bucks you'll get a product that not only works much better but also looks infinitely better metal rods are just more attractive they stand out and they instantly make a project look more professional you can actually heighten the appearance of custom built-ins with metal rods while providing a superior product and as i said they're really not any harder to install so let me show you real quick how it's done nearly all of these rods install with a cup bracket system on the side walls the ends of the rods just sit in the lips of these little cups and these cups will typically be installed on trim plates on the side walls i took out a rusty old steel rod for this new install so i already had these to mount to but if you want to see a discussion of how to mount side trim cleats check out my video on closet built-ins you can use a very similar method to make closet rod mounting plates this is vastly superior to using plastic anchors and will last much longer but assuming you already have plates the first thing you need to do is measure your span from wall to wall you may need to bend the tape to do this you're looking for a surface to surface reading i go with a measurement about a sixteenth shy of the total opening in my case just under 51 inches now pull this measurement on your metal closet rod and make a mark use a rolled up strip of paper with a straight edge to transfer this mark around the circumference of the tube then brace or clamp your rod on a stable surface and cut through it with a hacksaw takes a little while but you can actually cut pretty cleanly by checking both sides as you saw when the scrap falls away sand the cut end of the rod down just to eliminate burrs from this point on all you need is a drill the little cups have three screw holes on the flange just position the closed bracket where you want the rod to sit far enough out that clothes won't rub against the back wall and far enough below a shelf that you can hook the hangers in easily mark and pre-drill the hole locations then screw the bracket cup to the wall then place the other bracket open side up on the opposite wall using measurements to position it identically but otherwise just insert one end of the rod into the closed cup and lower the free end into the open cup spans over five or six feet may require an intermediate support but these can usually be mounted to a trim plate on the back wall in a very similar fashion otherwise that's how it's done you've got a closet rod that not only looks better but works much better as well i'll link some rods brackets and other materials down below along with some tools seen in the video so feel free to shop those links or just look for rods in the shelving section of your local hardware store where you can sometimes find them even cheaper as always thanks for watching be sure to check back soon for more videos coming up and please consider subscribing and hitting that bell button to turn on notifications that way you'll know the moment we post something i'm ethan james with the honest carpenter i'll see you next time
Thanks Martin your participation is very much appreciated
- Willy Beahan
About the author
I've studied industrial sociology at University of Hartford in West Hartford and I am an expert in dermatopathology. I usually feel angry. My previous job was sales representative (printed advertising) I held this position for 3 years, I love talking about table tennis and fish keeping. Huge fan of Paris Hilton I practice cycling and collect numismatics.
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