Attaching Toe Kicks

Thoughts on toe-kick clips and other forms of attachment. April 20, 2008

Question
We use plastic leg levelers under all basecabs, and fix the toekick to the legs with screw-on clips. We're considering trying the peel-n-stick type of clip, and wonder how well the "stick" will hold to the prefinished G2S plywood we use for toekick. Does anyone have experience with peel-n-stick clips?

Forum Responses
(Cabinetmaking Forum)
From contributor J:
In my experience using the clips (and G2S plywood), the weak point is the clips staying clipped on the legs if they're bumped, not the bond between the clip adhesive and plywood. Add a few dabs of construction adhesive to the back of the toepiece where it will contact the legs. I realize this wipes out the option of a removable toekick, but I haven't had the need to take a toekick off.

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From contributor W:
The only experience I have had with these clips is that they come loose and I have to make a service call. We gave up on them a long time ago.

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From the original questioner:
What is the cause of the clips coming off the legs? We have put on many sections of toekick with the screw-on two-piece plastic two-finger clip from Hardware Concepts and it takes a real pop with a puller device (and you have to pull straight out) to dislodge them.

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From contributor J:
I use the Camar clips which may be the difference.

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From contributor H:
I slip the toekick in place and screw it from inside the deck of the cabinet. Most of my cabinets are drawer units and the screws cannot be seen. In the case of a sink cabinet I use the fastcap countersink designed for the sticky fastcap plugs and the screw disappears.

We started using the shorter fastcap screws for attaching the upper cabinets together and then cover with a matching fastcap to hide. The same goes with the longer screws that hold the cabinet to the wall. Customers love the clean look. For returns on end cabinets, we use CA glue on site to add a 3" strip at a right angle to the return and again screw it through the deck of the base cabinet.

Make sure to cut these to fit between the front and back Camar legs for ease of installation. We have several homemade jigs in our installation box to mark the screw location in relation to the front of the cabinet. This way we always are dead-on in the center of the toekick and do not have any screws do any damage to the face.