Kitchen Cabinets Construction

[That Dave Guy]

Hello Everyone,

Last weeks update just showed 45 cut pieces of melamine sitting on my work bench. This week I started putting the cabinet boxes together.

Here is my version of box building 101 for those who might be interested,

All box parts are 5/8" melamine, the boxes will have full face frames and the ends of all boxes will have panels applied. This allowed me to face screw the carcass parts together in almost every case. There was only one place I didn't face screw and I will show that later.

I cannot stand filled nail holes in face frames, plus nails just don't hold too well in melamine. The first operation is to make pocket holes along the outside front edge of the top, bottom and side panels in order to attach the face frame later. This time I borrowed a benchtop Kreg Foreman pocket hole machine from our demo inventory at work. If you don't happen to work at a tool store, you use the $29 version to make the pocket holes for the face frame like I did on my parents kitchen, it just takes longer.

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/cbuild1.jpg

There are no pocket holes in the bottoms of the uppers (does that make sense?). The bottom edge of the face frames will be attached with biscuits on the uppers.

Since I am working alone, I use a couple of home made right angle blocks and a quick grip to hold one side of the cabinet up off the concrete workbench,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/cbuild2.jpg

Now I use another of right angle block to hold the two parts together while I mark a 5/16" line in from the edge of the sides,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/cbuild3.jpg

The little Incra measuring/marking gauge shown in the photo has been one of the best things I ever bought. At the time I though $30 was a lot for a piece of plastic, but adjustable in 1/32" increments that hold, worth every penny and used in almost every project I make.

Yawn, move the right angle block and screw the side to the top,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/cbuild4.jpg

Ayup, you guessed it, move the RA blocks to hold the other side in place, mark 5/16" in, drill with countersink and run in 1.75", #8 screws.

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/cbuild5.jpg

[That Dave Guy]

Better shot of the helpers,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/cbuild6.jpg

Bored yet? Lay the back on, mark 5/16" in and screw the back on,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/cbuild7.jpg

I had been using a Lee Valley tapered bit and four flute countersink, but I found it clogged up. I switched to a Dimar (Canadian brand, similar to Amana I think) two flute carbide countersink with tapered bit and it is light years better.

Here is the one place where I did not face screw. Where the side of one cabinet is exposed in the height transition to over the stove, I didn't want to put a raised panel, I didn't think it would look right. The face frames, doors/drawers and side panels are being painted white, so I don't think the only plain melamine showing it will stand out (it is really a very small area, 12"12" or so). The bottom two shelves of this cabinet are fixed with two #10 biscuits each. Looks a lot more complicated that it is,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/cbuild8.jpg

Notice the home made RA blocks once again.

In all the places where shelves were screwed in, I cut helper boards that I clamped in place to ensure the same height from side to side and from cabinet to cabinet,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/cbuild9.jpg

With the above cabinet, the left side will have three drawers, that is why I didn't worry about visible screws for the shelf on the right side.

I opted for fixed shelves. When I lived with my parents for 20 years in the same house, my Mom never moved one of her adjustable shelves. And where I am now, the shop foreman didn't even know our current kitchen had adjustable shelves. So, I did the easy thing, I measured where our shelves are now in the current yucky cabinets, and that is exactly where they will be in the spankin new cabinets.

Here are the 7 boxes done (one without a back on it at this point),

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/cbuilddone.jpg

Next, onto the face frames.

Thanks for looking,

David.

Every Neighbourhood Has One, In Mine I'm Him.

[Andrew in Ayr]

The coner clamps, or right angle blocks will hold the pieces in place though, freeing up your hands and keeping the joint tight and accurate. Its a great idea.

[That Dave Guy]

Evening all,

I have not had much time to work on my kitchen of late, we had a DeWALT day at work two weeks ago and of course, last weekend was the Woodstock woodshow. Those two events ate heavily into my ww'ing time.

I did sneak in a little time here or there to work on the face frames, and tonight I finished building them.

A shot of some dressed poplar just ripped and about to be crosscut to length,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/ffone.jpg

The rails and stiles are 1-3/8" wide, except for where there is an end panel covering a melamine side, there the stiles are 2-1/8". The stiles overhang the edge of each cabinet 1/8", this make installing much easier. Also, why strive for a "perfect" fit, when you can allow for an overhang that give a little fudge factor.

Next shot is just making the pocket holes in the ends of the rails,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/fftwo.jpg

As I said in a previous post, I was lucky enough to be able to borrow this electric Kreg Forman pocket hole machine, but even the basic $29 pocket rocket will get the job done.

My math was giving me some trouble, so I decided to dead reckon the rail measurements for one face frame, the Kreg right angle clamps came in handy,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/ffseven.jpg

I used the Kreg bench clamp to hold the joints together while I ran the screws in,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/ffthree.jpg

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/fffour.jpg

[That Dave Guy]

In a perfect world, this would be mortised into a large assembly table, but even with the way I was using it, life was much easier with it.

Once all the face frames were build I glued Kreg plugs into the holes,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/ffsix.jpg

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/fffive.jpg

Here is an overall shot of the seven cabinets and their face frames,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/ffdone.jpg

Maybe this weekend I will get the face frames sanded and start painting them.

Thanks for looking,

David.

Every Neighbourhood has one, in Mine I'm Him.

[That Dave Guy]

Nice work Dave...thanks for the pics...it looks like everything is comming along just right...Have you thought what kind of hinge you will be using?

I picked out and bought all the hardware before I started building the cabinets.

The hinges are Blum 110 degree face frame mounted 35mm cup hinges.


Take care,

David.

[That Dave Guy]

Hello everyone,

When we last saw David's kitchen the boxes were done and the face frames were built,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/ffdone.jpg

Since then I have painted and installed the face frames. The face frames are made of poplar (pocket screwed) and were painted with one coat of Zinser shellac based primer and two coats of oil based white melamine paint.

Next task for the cabinets, drawers.

I bought one sheet each of 5'x5' 5/8" and 3/8" Baltic birch plywood for the drawers and applied three coats of water based poly to each side. Finishing the sheets is much easier then finishing the assembled drawers.

I started by ripping the 5/8" sheet into widths for the various drawer sides. There are only 5 drawers and three heights, so it didn't take long. Here are the ripped strips with little tags as to what's what,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/rippedplywood.jpg

There was lots of machining to do to turn 20 pieces of ply into the drawer sides. Here is a shot of me rounding (breaking the edges really) on the top edge of each piece,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/roundingoverplywood.jpg

A shot of all the parts after all machining,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/plydrawerpartsmachined.jpg

All the parts for one drawer ready for glueup,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/plydrawerreadyforglueup.jpg

You can see the groove for on three sides for the ply bottom to slide into, the 1/4"x1/4" dado on the front of each side to accept the 1/4"x1/4" tongue from the drawer front for the lock rabbet joint and the 5/8" dado at the rear of the sides for the back.

The five drawers in clamps,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/plydrawersinclamps.jpg

Here I am screwing in the 3/8" ply bottom with 1" self tapping Kreg screws,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/screwplybottom.jpg

Next it was time to install the drawers onto the drawer slides. I am using 100lb side mount, full extension mounts from Lee Valley. Since I am using face frames, I also bought the face frame mounting kits for the slides rather than shimming out the sides of the boxes flush with the face frames under the slides like I did on my folks kitchen (there was no such kit for their slides). Since I never seem to use the same slide twice and don't have a lot of experience with any (and with no instructions), placing a thin piece of plywood under the drawer and pulling the drawer side up to secure it to the drawer seemed like the best idea,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/screwingdrawerslide.jpg

Worked pretty well actually...

Here is a fuzzy picture of the five drawers installed,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/plydrawersinstalled.jpg

And an overall shot of the seven cabinets that will make up my new kitchen,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/overalldrawersinstalled.jpg

Now all I have to do is make and paint 22 raised panels...

More to come, thanks for looking,

David.

Every Neighbourhood has one, in Mine I'm Him.

[That Dave Guy]

Hello everyone,

I spent about 4 hours tonight turning a bunch of rough boards into rail & stile material for my kitchen doors, drawers and end panels.

Here is the rough stock,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/poplarrough.jpg

It all had to be face jointed,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/poplarjointing.jpg

Then planed,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/poplarplaning.jpg

And finally ripped into the four different widths I would need for the 22 raised panels required for the kitchen,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/poplarripping.jpg

Regular doors have a 2-7/16" width rail and stile, the rails of upper drawers are 1-7/16, side panels stiles next to face frames are 1-11/16 and side panels that need to be scribed to the walls start out at a really fat 2-15/16 to account for the grossest possible walls. I know that a 1/2" for scribing is overkill, but better safe than sorry.

The pile looks quite different once it has gone from the rough to finished width,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/poplarripped.jpg

I setup a Delta branded CMT fingernail profile stick bit in my JessEm router table,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/poplarsticksetup.jpg

The bearing is inline with both fence faces, no rocking of the straight edge, but the bearing still rolls when I slide the combination square blade back and fourth.

I then powerfed all the stock through,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/poplarrunningstick.jpg

Here is what I finished with tonight,

http://www.federatedtool.com/david/img/poplarstickdone.jpg

Next up, cut all the stock to length, cope the ends and raise some panels out of 1/2" MDF.

Thanks for looking,

David.

Every Neighbourhood has one, in Mine I'm Him.

[jeffseaman]

Hi Dave, I had always been told to cut stock to length, run the cutter on the ends first, then run the length. That way you do not get as much damage from tear-out.
Different strokes.
Cheers,
Jeff

[George P]

If you use a backer board on a sled, you won't have tear out on the end copes.

[That Dave Guy]

Hi Dave, I had always been told to cut stock to length, run the cutter on the ends first, then run the length. That way you do not get as much damage from tear-out.
Different strokes.
Cheers,
Jeff

I have never done it that way. I have too many doors to make to try to select the stock before hand and keep track of it. I prefer to make a large run and then cut to length as required, working around imperfections. I use backer boards to prevent tear out and I have never had a problem. Look for my post on the doors when I make them, I will be sure to show pics of how I do it.

Thanks,

David.