[NHCOLL-L:5347] RE: ento collections

[Furth, David]

I strongly advise against drilling into the cabinets. It will permanently compromise the integrity of the cabinets regarding pests, RH/temp, water, etc.  Marc and James Bryant had several good alternative suggestions.  I am guessing that your Safety Committee does not understand these aspects very well.  You could also contact Louise, Ken, Chris Fall at BioQuip to see if they have suggestions or have run into this issue with their cabinets previously.
******************************************************
David G. Furth, Ph.D.
Department of Entomology
MRC 165, P.O. Box 37012
National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, D. C. 20013-7012  USA
Phone: 202-633-0990
Fax: 202-786-2894
Email: furthd at si.edu<mailto:furthd at si.edu>
Website: www.entomology.si.edu<http://www.entomology.si.edu>

From: owner-nhcoll-l at lists.yale.edu [mailto:owner-nhcoll-l at lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Jean-Marc Gagnon
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2011 1:30 PM
To: KSENDALL at royalbcmuseum.bc.ca; NHCOLL-L at lists.yale.edu
Subject: [NHCOLL-L:5345] RE: ento collections

Kelly,

>From my experience with anchoring entomology cabinets, there are two areas of attachment to consider: at the base and at the top in between cabinets (if they are next to each other or one behind the other).

While not ideal to have to drill into existing cabinets, depending on their design, you may not have an option. But my preferred approach would be to see if metal brackets cannot be "wrapped" around the cabinets and anchored to the concrete floor (I assume you do not have compactor bases). Top brackets can hold cabinets together without having to drill attachments into the cabinets. Those "top plate" are then secured to vertical bars that are bolted to the concrete floor.

As James Bryant just suggested, it may also be appropriate to run metal bars from the top of the cabinets (attached to top brackets) to adjacent walls or ceiling to control swaying of the row in the event of an earthquake.

Whether the attachments are between brackets, from the brackets to the cabinets or from the brackets to the floor, it is important to keep easy, rapid access to these attachment points so that if you need to move one or few cabinets, you don't have to untie and/or move everything.

In the eventuality that you have no choice but to drill into your cabinets to secure then to brackets, there are a number of specialty nuts that can be used: for instance Well-nuts<http://www.spaenaur.com/pdf/sectionC/C147.pdf> and Jack-nuts<http://www.spaenaur.com/pdf/sectionC/C146.pdf>. Ideally, get the industrial sizes that are much sturdier. Which ever you select, you will most likely have to empty the content of the cabinets to prevent risks of damage to specimens. You will also want to add a gasket ring of some kind to avoid pest infiltration through the drilled holes if these are not fully blocked by the attachment.

If you have specific cabinet designs and arrangement on the floor, I may be able to provide more specific suggestions.


Jean-Marc


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nhcoll-l at lists.yale.edu [mailto:owner-nhcoll-l at lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sendall, Kelly RBCM:EX
Sent: 29 mars 2011 12:35
To: NHCOLL-L at lists.yale.edu
Subject: [NHCOLL-L:5343] ento collections

I am interested to know how other entomology collections have dealt with a rather topical concern of late. We have about a hundred or so standard BioQuip entomology cabinets holding our pinned ento collections that sit on the floor unanchored. These are the full height cabinets (~50x60x220cm). Our institution's Safety Committee has decided we need to anchor all the cabinets to the floor by drilling through each cabinet floor and bolting to the concrete floor. We are in an earthquake zone over here on the right side of the 'ring of fire' and concern for earthquake preparedness has moved up in the Committee's collective consciousness lately. Any advice or comments are appreciated.

Thanks,

Kelly
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Kelly Sendall      Manager, Natural History  |  Collections, Research and Access Services
[cid:image001.jpg at 01CBEE2E.D8F285B0]
675 Belleville Street, Victoria, BC Canada V8W 9W2
T 250 387-3544    |   F 250 387-0534
KSENDALL at royalbcmuseum.bc.ca<mailto:KSENDALL at royalbcmuseum.bc.ca>   |   www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca<http://www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca>   |   www.bcarchives.bc.ca<http://www.bcarchives.bc.ca>
P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/private/nhcoll-l/attachments/20110329/07fb3821/attachment.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 4705 bytes
Desc: image001.jpg
Url : http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/private/nhcoll-l/attachments/20110329/07fb3821/attachment.jpg