grow box door predicament!

i know i've posted a few threads already explaining problems/questions i've had with growboxes/growing, and i'm sorry! but i can't find answers to my specific questions anywhere.

so i've taken the drawers out of a chest of drawers and dismantled them, with the plan of using the front faces of the drawers as the door to my grow cabinet. the original plan was to attach the fronts to a thin piece of wood, and then fit concealed hinges to it, but after getting the concealed hinges, i realised that i have no idea how to fit them as they have that big dip in them where it looks like a gaping hole needs to be bored out of the wood before screwing them in. no clue how to do that!

(concealed hinges: http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=9370630&fh_view_size=50&fh_start_index=50&fh_location=//catalog01/en_GB&fh_search=hinge&fh_eds=ß&fh_refview=search&ts=1249186315636&isSearch=true )

so i've been racking my brains trying to think of other ways to attach the door:
- maybe strong strip magnets? would have the advanatage of making the front section air and light tight?

- somehow making use of the rolling things on the sides of drawers to make a sliding door (horizontally sliding to cover up the cabinet). or putting the rolling things where they were before i dismantled it, and having the door roll back onto the cabinet in the same motion as drawers do.

i like the magnet idea most, but can't seem to find any strong strip magnets. whaty kind of shop would have them?
i live in england, by the way. so british shops that sell strip magnets?

any ideas would be great.

Go to a fabric store and buy velcro. I bought like 20 feet of 2inch wide velcro off a roll for like 10 bucks. Staple gun one side to the door and the otherr to the box and just rip it open and stick it closed. My 2 inch wide strips were very strong so u may wanna use 1inch wide. I bought them cuz they were the end of the roll so it was cheeper

Oh, use weather stripping and or a curtian from a garbage bag or black/white mylar to seal the light. It won't seal air but as long as u have sum kind of fan pulling air for ur exgausht, air won't leak out. it will suk the air from ur room into the box threw what ever leaks there are

ah, velcro, good idea! can't believe i didn't think of that ><
the wood is pretty heavy though; not sure if velcro will hold it up. although i can probably find some heavy duty velcro of some sort.

and, "curtain from a garbage bag"? curtain?
also, to clarify the whole ventilation aspect of a grow box... i thought the fragrant air gets sucked out of the box through a fan, and i was then planning to make and attach a carbon filter to the exterior side of the fan to get rid of the smell. will air from my room leak into the box through the tiny cracks to give the plant a healthy airflow, and therefore the CO2 it needs?

You know I had the same idea with one of my old chests, You can use velcro, Hard drive magnets, Those hinges, And I could do a live rig if I was there on about 5 billion other ways. Point is you can do it a lot of ways the question is how good are you with a blade? Me for example, I can use my pocketknife and do every bit of detail work for a box and it be light tight (Current one im building for example) So the hinges arent out just do a little knife work. Its one of those little details that makes it that much better to ya.

"the question is how good are you with a blade?"
lol sounds like something from an old rpg game.
but yeah, you're right. i'm not naturally terrible at building stuff; i can easily assemble furniture and was reasonably good at woodwork at school, but just when i get stuck and look online, there's just a mass of jargon that i don't understand. i don't know what a "jig" or a "chamfer" is! why can't people just explain things with normal words?
so with the concealed hinges, you can just hack out a square of wood the same size as those in the concealed hinges and whack them in i guess?

Ya curtain. Atatch a curtain over the open face of the box so no light peaks threw and then atatch the door. Other wise light will leak between the 2 strips when the r up against each other. The 2 inch that I got will hold a crazy amount of wheight if all four sides are lined with velcro. At the fab stores they have all kinds of sizes and strengths. Yes the air will go threw the cracks which would provide sum air circulaing c02 but not enuff. U would still need an intake vent to the box. But aslong as u have air being extracted out of the box, the air will always come in threw the cracks and not out

ah, okay, i see. do you think some kind of compressable material like foam or sponge would be okay to line the gaps with, so when the door is on, it squashes it down to prevent light from peeking through?
sorry for being stupid about the ventilation thing, but will i need two fans then? one for out take of odourous air (plus through a carbon filter), and one to draw in fresh air? i read somehwere that having fans set up like that creates a weird pressure thing, but it makes sense to have two fans.

Ya curtain. Atatch a curtain over the open face of the box so no light peaks threw and then atatch the door. Other wise light will leak between the 2 strips when the r up against each other. The 2 inch that I got will hold a crazy amount of wheight if all four sides are lined with velcro. At the fab stores they have all kinds of sizes and strengths. Yes the air will go threw the cracks which would provide sum air circulaing c02 but not enuff. U would still need an intake vent to the box. But aslong as u have air being extracted out of the box, the air will always come in threw the cracks and not out

Those look like simple euro hinges. I have the same ones on my custom cab.

To install them, you do need to bore a 35mm hole about 1/2 inch deep using a FORSTNER BIT. It is also necessary that the surface being drilled is at least 3/4'' thick. It should be no issue to find a tool like that in your country. Here in the States, I had to drill a metric hole using a standard bore. The one I used was 1 3/8 inches.

They look like this....
http://pacific.bund.com.au/ebay/forstner-1.jpg

I use foam to block other light leaks as well. http://images.bidorbuy.co.za/user_images/953/432953_090110151426_Foam_Sealing_Strip.jpg

thanks for the help, guys, by the way. i've been reading and learning alot, and this forum kinda helps fill in the gaps a bit, so it feels like it's all coming together a bit more now

with the forstner bit, would i not need a massive industrial type drill press to bore a hole with that kind of surface area? i have a hand-held drill, but i can't see how i'd manage to get a square-bottomed hole of that size without a bigger force from a drill press or something.
i'd like to use the concealed hinges, but i don't know i'd get a whacking great hole bored into the wood. i tried manually cutting out a hole in a piece of scrap wood earlier this evening, but failed miserably. my dad's got a whole garage full of tools, but i'm pretty sure he doesn't have a drill press.


ALSO:
found out that all the lightbulbs in our house are 15 watt CFLs, so when i go to the shop to buy some i know what i'm looking for (but with a higher wattage). but how exactly do i mount the lights inside the box? explain everything to me like i'm four.

A square hole? Not really possible without another tool. But for euro hinges I used a hand held drill and forstner bit to bore the hole, placed the cup of the euro hinge in the hole and fastened it with the screws they included. I also constructed a little wood alignment tool first to make sure the holes I bored were smack on. This is essential! (see pictures).

And here is what I do to hang 23 watt floros, although you can do 5 billion other ways. I like my method because it is super easy to reposition the lights precisely as the plants grow and get moved around...

Buy some cup hooks like these... http://www.toolstation.com/images/library/stock/webbig/90559.jpg (size may differ, make sure they are big enough to cup a regular cord, mine are 3/4'', ie 2cm or so)

And these... http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xr5/R-100664145/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053 I remove the clamp from these but use the reflector. They do not include a light bulb but will accept a cfl (or any other bulb with an E26 base).

I stick a few cup hooks in the ceiling after approximating where I want the light to hang. One is right above the plant, the others are on a line towards the power source. The whole key is to keep a little tension in the cord so it doesn't slide and let the light fall on your plant. But that is easy and I have never even had a close call.

Hope this helps. Good luck

thanks for the detailed explanation and pictures, man. much appreciated
i perused the garage for a drill today, and found what felt like every other black and decker power tool - soldering iron, two sanders, power saw thing - but no drill! i found a 26mm flat drill bit aswell, which also would've done the job, but couldn't find any drill so had to abandon that idea.
however, as i assembled the chest of drawers (from ikea) not long ago, i've just fit one of the drawer's sides back on and fitted the rolling things so the whole fake drawer front will hopefully just roll in. waiting for the glue to dry though.

like the hanging lights. i've been looking for cheap clamp lights that i could clamp to wooden rods which would be pushed through holes in the sides near the top of the box.

if anyone's still reading this thread, i have a few other questions...

1) with exhaust fans, i thought they needed to be fitted into the wall so they can actually draw air out of, or in to, the box? just that i saw a picture where it looked like someone just had the fans stuck on the wall. my box is 3.8 cubic feet in volume; anyone know what kinda of cfm would be adequate for the exhaust and for the intake?

2) if i buy two of exactly the same kind of fan, one for intake and one for exhaust, will i be able to fit them in, but different ways around, so one draws air in and one sucks it out?

3) can you plug fans into regular wall sockets or will i have to do some wiring?

blazingwalrus said:

if anyone's still reading this thread, i have a few other questions...

1) with exhaust fans, i thought they needed to be fitted into the wall so they can actually draw air out of, or in to, the box? just that i saw a picture where it looked like someone just had the fans stuck on the wall. my box is 3.8 cubic feet in volume; anyone know what kinda of cfm would be adequate for the exhaust and for the intake?

2) if i buy two of exactly the same kind of fan, one for intake and one for exhaust, will i be able to fit them in, but different ways around, so one draws air in and one sucks it out?

3) can you plug fans into regular wall sockets or will i have to do some wiring?

Click to expand...

I'll answer all 3...

If you have 3.8 cubic feet, that is tiny. Itty bitty. Absolutely too small. But if you want to somehow squeeze a small LST AF in there, you will only need two computer fans for ventilation. One for intake, one for exhaust. Intake will be down low (that is where the cool air is) and the exhaust will be up high (that is hwere the hot air is). Put them on opposite sides of the box and as far apart as possible, so air will go through the entire box. You will have to wire them, but that part is super easy. Just use a 9v or 12v DC adapter. You can find a million threads about that on this site. Hopefully, you have more than 3.8 cubic feet, that is only 1' x 1' x 3.8', but it is doable. What are your dimensions? What do you want to achieve with your grow? These are questions that will help ansswer your questions better.

Good luck

yeah, i know that, but i'm asking if i buy two identical fans, when i fit them into the walls of the box, can i fit one facing inwards and one outwards, creating two different directions of air flow, the exhaust and intake. will that work?

and i know my box is super cramped! D: it's about two and a half feet tall, same in depth and a foot and a half wide ish. worked out the volume again and it's 4.45 cubic feet. i only want one or two plants so i have my own supply, as i don't smoke that much anyway.

blazingwalrus said:

yeah, i know that, but i'm asking if i buy two identical fans, when i fit them into the walls of the box, can i fit one facing inwards and one outwards, creating two different directions of air flow, the exhaust and intake. will that work?

Click to expand...

Of course that'll work, just pay attention to the direction of the airflow and install accordingly. Any CPU fan I have ever bought has been installable either way.

great, thanks
lol i thought so, but it kind of seemed to simple for it to work. where do people in the uk buy thier fans?! i can't find any anywhere! checked b & q, maplins, amazon, ablectrics and no luck! this is so annoying ><

yes! praise the lord! thank god for PC world :3!

Here in the states I have found a couple places to buy cheap CPU fans. I asked the IT guy at work where to buy them and he told me about a store right down the road. I found out a few months later that the gizmo shop across the street sells them for cheaper, and with more variety. Just look for computer supply stores, and if they don't have them, ask them who would. Can't go wrong.