First, choice of location: it had to be near a plug-in, so that narrowed my choices to two places.
Then the actual installation: The front of my cabinets have an "overhang" at the bottom, so I had to use these spacers they send you with the can opener, which are designed to lower the can opener enough to clear the front edge of the cabinet. The spacer goes between the can opener and the cabinet, and is x-shaped with a hole in each corner to match the four holes in the top of the can opener.
You use a spacer to mark where you will drill the four holes for the screws to go through the bottom of the cabinet. The instructions said to mark and drill from the bottom, like in the illustration below.
Have you ever tried to duck your head enough to actually SEE the bottom of your cabinet? It's a neck and back killer! I quickly decided that marking holes and drilling from the bottom was going to be next to impossible for me to do properly.
So instead I decided to be risky and drill from the top. I removed all the dishes from the bottom and next shelf up, then removed the shelf, so that I would have room inside the cabinet for the drill. This allowed me to drill down through the inside of the cabinet through the bottom, which made both marking the holes and drilling MUCH easier.
I marked my holes and drilled, using a drill bit that was just slightly larger in diameter than the screw. Then I checked with a spacer at the bottom to be sure that all four holes were in the right place, putting screws through the holes from the top and into the spacer. So far, so good.
Then the actual installation using the spacers: and this is where it got really tricky: Unfortunately, I needed all four of the spacers that came in the package to lower the can opener enough to clear the cabinet's front edge sufficiently. (If you do this installation, I definitely recommend dropping the can opener just a tad below the front edge of the cabinet, in order to give the latch enough room to swing up off the can. Otherwise you won't have enough clearance to take the latch off for cleaning.) The spacers don't "lock" together, but they do have a slight edge so that they fit together. However, they would not stay together sufficiently for the installation, I could tell. The spacers are a somewhat flexible plastic, and they flip-flop around with only slight movement.
A cursory evaluation of the situation told me that trying to manually hold all four spacers in place along with the can opener while I inserted the bolts through the holes was going to be a very tiring and unrewarding experience that would involve the certainty of strong cursory remarks and extreme frustration, with very little chance of any success.
So instead, I aligned all four spacers together and taped them together at each end, functionally fusing them one big spacer. I then taped the fused spacer to the can opener at each end, making sure that all four holes lined up between the spacer and the can opener's screw holes. This functionally gave me only one object to try to attach to the cabinet instead of five.
Then I inserted the first screw down through the hole and the spacer and tightened it partiallyinto the can opener hole. Still holding the can opener with one hand, I inserted the opposing screw at the opposite end, again tightening partially. Now the can opener was secure enough that I could let go of it and work with two hands on the other screws. Finally I inserted the last two screws, again only partially tightening them. Then I removed the tape I had put on the spacers/can opener, before finally tightening the screws.
Also, by only tightening the screws partially during the mounting, it allowed for some "play" in the position of the can opener. This was important, as it ensured that I could get all of the screws in proper position in case my holes weren't exactly perfect. After getting all of the screws partially tightened, I went back and did the final tightening of the screws, put the shelf back in the cabinet, and reloaded the dishes in the cabinet.
Finally, I placed a small screw with a hook on the end at the back bottom of the cabinet to loop the cord through to keep it from dangling down onto the countertop.
Procedure completed!
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