I have a fairly heavy duty power strip that I use in our family room. We recently finished a renovation, so this was low priority, but I’m now tasked with getting the cord off the floor and hidden. 3 weeks ago I put 4 Dcotch Command Velcro strips on it, and mounted it on the underside of the console. Last week, the adhesive failed where the Velcro meets the wood of the console.
I don’t want to screw anything into the console - the bottom side is just 1/4” clapboard, and I worry that the pulling and pushing of plugs into the strip will strip out screw holes.
I think that the Velcro is a possible solution, if I can come up with a resurfacing treatment to apply to the wood underneath. I’d be fine with liquid nailing a piece of acrylic to the wood, and applying the Velcro to that. I don’t want to liquid nail the strip to the console though.
Does it have to be on the bottom as opposed to the back? Often there is meatier material in the uprights & shelves that you could screw into from the rear. Avoiding the need to add an adaptor layer.
If I was to attach something to the bottom, I would choose another wood, not acrylic. IME acrylic doesn’t take screws that well. You’d also need something pretty thick. 3/4" 1x2 wood is pennies the yard. 3/4" acrylic is kinda spendy and hard to buy in small amounts. OTOH, if you have some scraps laying around from some other project …
I know this sounds like I’m ignoring what you’ve said about screws, but screws are so much a better solution than any kind of adhesive that I want to explore it a bit. Can you put a piece of reinforcing scrap wood inside the cabinet, above the clapboard bottom, so that you could screw from below, through the clapboard and into the scrap wood? That would give the screw something to bite into so it couldn’t be pulled out. Most power strips have mounting holes that are designed to slip over a screw head.
Nope. There’s a drawer directly above it, and it slides on another 1/4” cleat, so there’s only 1/4” of clearance to either put another thin piece of plywood in, or secure a screw with a tiny nut. The mounting holes on the power strip are (I think) 5/8”, and I don’t trust how sturdy the clapboard would be.
The console itself is big massive piece that is sturdy and heavy as hell. I was really surprised when I saw that the bottom was such a thin piece of wood.
You can get a screw with a shallow head–or even a countersunk one–and come from the top down. On the bottom side, the screws can be offset relative to the power strip (as long as they go through the scrap that the power strip is attached to).
Something like this:
Plenty of diameter for load-spreading, and only 2.8 mm (about 1/8") of clearance required
It’s possible the adhesive failed because of the finish on the material you were trying to mount to. You might try some 3M auto trim adhesive tape. Very strong and made for holding trim to automobile bodies.
Personally I’d try RivitNuts, but it takes a special tool to install and not cost effective for one job.
Oooh - this might work. The issue is still the rough wood surface of the clapboard, but maybe the adhesive on this stuff is better. The Command Velcro is very much like this - the Velcro is definitely not the weak link.
Assuming the underside of the cabinet floor is reasonably smooth, could you simply sand a suitable patch a bit smoother and paint over it to obtain a surface smooth enough to get good adhesion with your Command strips?
OTOH, the rougher that surface is the better some sort of goopy adhesive, like your Liquid Nails idea, will adhere. Although how well that will grab to a nice smooth piece of acrylic is TBD. If you do go the adhesive route, you’ll want to apply clamping pressure somehow for the full curing time. ALmost no matter how light your adaptor is, having it hanging by gravity below a layer of slowly curing adhesive above is a recipe for a failed joint.
No, that has the same problem as mounting it to the back of the console - there’s too much clearance to account for with the plugs and it pulls the console too far from the wall.
Thanks for all the suggestions everyone - I do appreciate the feedback.
I’m not quite understanding this. If there’s room to mount the strip under the bottom of the cabinet, then couldn’t the strip be mounted to the wall low enough to fit into that same space under the cabinet? Or are you saying that the back wall of the cabinet extends all the way to the floor?
