Toekick advisce needed

[abram godshall]

Thanks in advance for all info. My son and I are building some cabinets for his new house. How do you cut out for the base cabinet toekick? and what dimensions do you use?
Thanks again.

[Tony Joyce]

Bandsaw(before assembly) & 3" deep(front to back) X 3-1/2" to 4" Height

[Andy McCormick]

Depends on how big your feet are. :D

[Mitchell Andrus]

Match it to established sizes of other installations, like the dish washer, stove, etc. That way, it'll look like you knew what you were doing.

Nothing screams "Hack Job" like a straight line interrupted by an appliance that's 1/2" off. (Hint, the appliance is likely correct).
.

[Glen Butler]

toe kicks are best done as a unit that the cab. boxes sit on. you can easily shim and level all the TK's then just set boxes on top of them. I build my TK's 4.5" tall and 3" set back. this makes for a 30.5 inch box and ~1" for countertops.

[Darrell Bade]

I make mine 4 1/2 tall and 2 3/4 deep and use a board 1/2 to 5/8 thick for the toe kick board.

I cut mine with a jigsaw and a straightedge as soon as I cut the sides out. I trust by Bosch jigsaw to do this but would not trust some other saws that I have had.

[Jason Strauss]

Abram,

Height and depth seem to be personal preference, but slightly taller than deep. I cut mine directly into the side panels of each carcass using the table saw. The TS makes nice, smooth uniform cuts and once the cabites are installed and toe kick on, no one will ever see any overtravel (don't know if this is the correct term, but is defined by me as kerf in the corner of a square cut due to roundness of the saw blade). For set-up I bring the TS blade up as high as possible as this will reduce the amount of overtravel. If you're real picky, you could set up such that you do not have any overtravel, but have to finish each cut with your jigsaw or handsaw. IMO, this is unnecessary as no one will ever see it.

Cheers!

[John A langley]

Abram - What I usually do is cut my wall ends 29-3/4 and I cut my finish ends 30-1/2. This is, of course, is assuming you are building a 34-1/2 tall cabinet. This way I get 6 pieces out of a sheet instead of 4. We put our cabinets together and build our base 4-3/4 tall and attach it to the bottom. We also hold it in 3-3/4 in from the face of the cabinet and 1 inch from the back of the cabinet. The 1 inch from the back of the cabinet has three purposes. 1. If there is a flair at the base of the wall it doesn't interfere with the cabinet. 2. It provides a chase in case a water line to the refrigerator needs to be run. This is most helpful in remodel. 3. It gives me a place to hold on to the cabinet when I am holding them up and moving them around. The sub-base is usually built out of scrap and after the cabinets are set we apply a 3/4 prefinished board to the toekick. This gives me a toekick 3 inches deep and 4 inches high. If you have more questions, PM me your number and I'll try to answer them. Hope this helps.

[Jay Allen]

toe kicks are best done as a unit that the cab. boxes sit on. you can easily shim and level all the TK's then just set boxes on top of them. I build my TK's 4.5" tall and 3" set back. this makes for a 30.5 inch box and ~1" for countertops.


This is how we do it in the commercial shop where I work, though we genrally do 4" and 1.5" thick tops. The toe-kick them becomes a "raised platform" and your flat bottomed cabinets sit on it. They can be built on longer sections covering several cabinets at once....and it increases your yield. This way you can get 6 sides from a single sheet, since the actual cabinet side itself is only 30.5" tall.

[Steve Clardy]

Abram,

Height and depth seem to be personal preference, but slightly taller than deep. I cut mine directly into the side panels of each carcass using the table saw. The TS makes nice, smooth uniform cuts and once the cabites are installed and toe kick on, no one will ever see any overtravel (don't know if this is the correct term, but is defined by me as kerf in the corner of a square cut due to roundness of the saw blade). For set-up I bring the TS blade up as high as possible as this will reduce the amount of overtravel. If you're real picky, you could set up such that you do not have any overtravel, but have to finish each cut with your jigsaw or handsaw. IMO, this is unnecessary as no one will ever see it.

Cheers!


Ditto. I also use the table saw. Nice clean cuts.
My standard is 3" in, 4" up.

[Glen Butler]

This is how we do it in the commercial shop where I work, though we genrally do 4" and 1.5" thick tops. The toe-kick them becomes a "raised platform" and your flat bottomed cabinets sit on it. They can be built on longer sections covering several cabinets at once....and it increases your yield. This way you can get 6 sides from a single sheet, since the actual cabinet side itself is only 30.5" tall.

Yes, I should have specified that the toe kicks are built long and several cabinets would sit on them. It also makes lining up cabinets a breeze, instead of having to shim several individual cabinets, you just have to level four corners of the toe kick, which could easily encompass 3 or 4 boxes. I should probably start planning on 1.5" tops now that everything seems to be moving to 3cm granite instead of 2cm granite.

[Glen Gunderson]

I too use separate toekicks with flat bottomed boxes. Frankly, I can't imagine cutting matching notches out of every cabinet side. It just seems so much easier to me to build a flat, level platform and then place the cabinets on top of that. It looks no different, is quicker to do, and allows you to get 6 sides out of a sheet of plywood rather than 4.

[Scott Rollins]

Ok I hate to dig up old posts, but this one has been on my mind since I read it. If you sit the cabinets on a box, the end cabinet will have an ugly seam. How is this hidden? Just curious. Pics would be great.

[Jason Roehl]

Plan for a plywood skin...so you'd have one piece on which you have to cut a clean toekick notch.

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

If you sit the cabinets on a box, the end cabinet will have an ugly seam. How is this hidden?

You leave it short by the same amount as the front depth, so the kick runs around the side.

[Judd Owens]

The manufactured cabinets I used to install had a 2 3/4" deep by 4 1/4" tall toe kick. When I'm building the cabinets, i like the 3" deep 4" tall method. I like to make the platform for the bases, get it nice and level, then scribe the material that's going to be the toe kick to the floor. If you're going to use a quarter round or other molding, you really don't have to do that. Just depends on what you're going for I guess. Scribing to the floor is really handy if you're updating a kitchen in an older house where the floor is uneven. it seems to be a little less noticed than if the molding is wavy around where the toe kick and floor meet.

[Jay Allen]

If you sit the cabinets on a box, the end cabinet will have an ugly seam. How is this hidden? Just curious. Pics would be great.

We cut the toe kick platform about 1/4" short of the finished end. This is covered by the base moulding that goes around the rest of the room. It allows the moulding a place to fit with out sticking out. This way moulding can cover any gap left because of shimming.

This pic doesn't show a finished end but it does show the base moulding running under it