[Rockhounds] Ideal Mineral Cabinet

Wed Apr 16 06:58:05 PDT 2008

Kreigh was kind enough to invite his fellow club members to his house for a
"basement field trip" last year(?)  My husband and I went on this trip.
What a joy!  All the "trips" were excellent.

Kriegh's collection is to be in awe of; I especially, was delighted with his
beautiful cabinet!  I have a dream...  :o)

Brenda

On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 12:07 AM, Kreigh Tomaszewski <Kreigh at tomaszewski.net>
wrote:

> I hired an expert cabinetmaker to build a custom display case for our
> front hallway. It sits opposit the china cabinet. Hardwood, lighted,
> with mirrored backs in the cabinet. It has eight sections (4 up, 4 down)
> with glass doors and adjustable glass shelves. It houses my systematic
> collection of minerals. Roughly 6 tall x 9 wide x 1 ft deep. My wife
> insisted it be top quality, and it took a couple years of saving to pay
> for it. It is starting to run out of room.
>
> My very best specimens are in a small, wall mounted (at eye level),
> cabinet in the living room.
>
> Most of the rest of the collection is in the basement. I have a bunch of
> shelving mounted on walls, including 3 inch deep units mounted behind
> doors, and the front couple inches of bookcases. I have several larger
> cabinets. My micromounts are in flats stored in a large tupperware box,
> and my classroom traveling collection is in flats stored in several
> other tupperware boxes.
>
> Some of the larger specimens are yard rocks. The rest is in the garage
> in boxes and flats.
>
> I'm running out of room for the collection and hope to take over some of
> the kids bedrooms as they move out; my wife says I have way too many
> specimens.
>
> Kreigh
>
>
>
>
>
> Rock Currier wrote:
> >
> > Some thoughts about mineral specimen display cases.
> >
> > Armando,
> >
> > OK, Now I know where you are coming from. Sort of where I was a few
> years
> > back. Your collection is probably now worth more than your house and you
> > have everything from micros to large cabinet specimens. I can't tell you
> > what to do, but perhaps I can make a few comments and suggestions that
> you
> > may find helpful. You may want to build some wooden cabinets, perhaps
> with
> > drawers below and a small glass fronted display space on top. You
> probably
> > should not stint on the quality of the wood and the craftsmanship of the
> > cabinets. If you make them look like fine pieces of furniture, it will
> make
> > your collection look important and this will help preserve the
> collection
> > should ever fall into the hands of someone who doesn't know much about
> > specimens. In other words it will increase the half-life of your
> collection.
> >
> > Suggestions about materials & construction.
> >
> > If you want you can make them all from good quality hardwoods, although
> I
> > have found that using a good grade plywood with a nice hardwood veneer
> for
> > the sides, top, bottom and the same for the drawers is OK. I think that
> a
> > good grade of plywood may save you from some warping in the long run and
> I
> > think  it is as strong as solid hardwood. Don't let whoever makes them
> for
> > you use any particleboard or fiberboard for the backs of your cabinets
> or
> > bottoms of your drawers. Make sure that the guy making them understands
> that
> > the bottoms of the drawers should not be just tacked on. These will need
> to
> > carry some weight. After all you are going to be putting rocks in these
> > things. If you explain it to him in those terms, he will understand.
> However
> > make sure that the fronts of the drawers are all a good quality hard
> wood.
> > If you use fronts with a veneer, they will chip and peal over time. The
> > front edges of the top, sides and bottoms of the plywood frame should
> also
> > be covered with a half-inch thick strip of the same wood that the drawer
> > fronts are made from to prevent chipping and pealing.  I personally
> don't
> > like to use drawer pulls because in time one or more of them tend to get
> > knocked off. I prefer an undercut on the drawer bottoms that your finger
> > tips can use to tug open the drawers. Also drawer pulls collect dust.
> Use
> > good quality fully extensible roller bearings with stops so that you can
> > pull your drawers out all the way and have easy access to the specimens
> in
> > the back of your drawers. There is relatively new kind that will roll
> the
> > drawer closed after you have started it back and seat it firmly closed.
> Very
> > nice. After I get my cabinets in place, I cover the tops with a sheet of
> > plate glass. This makes it easy to keep the top clean and keeps the tops
> of
> > the cabinets from being scratched by specimens that always seem to end
> up on
> > top of them.
> >
> > Notes on the size of the cabinets and drawers.
> >
> > For those of us who collect different size specimens, there has always
> been
> > the problem of how to accommodate different size specimens in the same
> > drawers. To do this you need different size boxes for your specimens and
> > usually drawers of different heights, with the deep drawers usually
> reserved
> > for the larger specimens. You will have to find and select the kinds of
> > boxes that you want to store your specimens in. Ward's boxes were
> designed
> > to efficiently hold different kinds of specimens with two of the next
> > smaller size fitting exactly the space of the next larger size.
> >
> > The drawers will need to be of various depths to generally accommodate
> your
> > different size specimens. Usually making them all deep enough for your
> > largest specimens will involve a lot of wasted space and I don't know of
> > anyone who has ever gone that rout. If you want to make cabinets for
> > miniatures and micromounts you can make the drawers quite shallow and
> that
> > will cover your needs. If you collect micros you should probably make
> the
> > drawers not all that big and make them so that they can easily be
> removed
> > and taken to a microscope for study. All my micro drawers can
> accommodate
> > TNs and micros. To accommodate TN, I just lift out the wooden micro
> insert
> > (tray) in the bottom of the drawer and this allows a little extra depth
> for
> > the slightly taller TN boxes. The micro insert has little wooden strips,
> > left to right on it that act as little separators for the micro boxes so
> you
> > can pick them up easily. When you lift out the micro insert tray you see
> the
> > little wooden strips that run side to side on the bottom of the drawer,
> to
> > act as little separators for rows of TN boxes.
> >
> > For larger specimens I would recommend that you make the drawers no
> > shallower than 3.25 inches. As for the side to side and front to back
> > measurements I would recommend the drawer be not less than about 24
> inches
> > side to side and no less than 18 inches front to back. These would be
> inside
> > measurements. The reason for this is that those measurements will
> > accommodate placing two standard size flats side by side inside the
> drawer.
> > You don't have to place your specimens in flats and those flats in the
> > drawers, but I have found this feature quite handy by experience.  I
> would
> > recommend that some of the drawers be a little deeper, say 4 or 4.5
> inches
> > and one at the bottom to be at least six inched deep. You may wish to
> have a
> > locking mechanism built into your cabinet. There are a number of options
> > here and you cabinetmaker can probably give you a range of suggestions
> about
> > these. You may wish to have doors on the front of your cabinet that you
> can
> > swing shut and lock if you want. You may want to have a small glass
> fronted
> > display shelf built into the top of your sets of drawers where you can
> > display some of your larger or better specimens or just your most recent
> > additions. I did this and had the back and sides of this little display
> > section backed and sided with mirrors. This helps with the lighting. You
> can
> > also put built in lighting in this section of your display case if you
> wish.
> > You may wish to make your specimen drawers modular and stackable. I have
> > done this with my micro cabinets and it has worked out quite well. The
> > modular concept usually has a base unit that gets the drawers up off the
> > ground by four or five inches and allows for a little kick space at the
> > front floor of the cabinet. It also has a cap unit that covers up the
> top of
> > the cabinets. This cabinet cap is usually no more than two or three
> inches
> > high. The modular concept is also handy when it comes time to move the
> > cabinets. If each unit is no more than 16 to 20 inches high, they are a
> lot
> > easier to move than one large cabinet. Also you could have some modules
> with
> > thin drawers for micros and TNs, some with 3.25 inch drawers and others
> with
> > 4.5 or six inch drawers. You can then stack those units in columns of
> > various or the same height Usually the construction of modular units
> > requires a higher degree of precision for their manufacture than regular
> > cabinets.
> >
> > I hope the above may be of some use to you.
> >
> > Rock
> >
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