Hickory cabinet project

[steve siegrist]

My first "major" project as a hobbyist woodworker for my own home. Well, I've worked up to it and I'm ready to go forward. Complete kitchen and two bath project of Hickory face frames and raised panel cabinetry - including - matching wainscot and five piece drawer fronts. I've managed to acquire by sorting, about 185BF of Hickory from my supplier. I estimate I will need a minimum of 150BF more. So how should I approach this? Do I sort, cut and glue up panels first? I was thinking this might be a good approach as I could work much of the trimmed materials into styles and rails. Also, I acquired several 10-12" wide boards in this first batch. How best should I work these into my project? Raised panels? - use or avoid?
Thanks for your thoughts and consideration.

[Lee Schierer]

I wish you were closer I have 380 bdft of hickory in my barn that is looking for a new home...

[Don Buck]

My 2 cents worth - make complete cutting list showing actual cut-to-size for all pieces required and sort the cutting list by rails/stiles, face frame and panels (MS Excel works very well). Give each piece an ID number. Your panels will have an finished target size and will be made up with multiple strips that I would label A, B, C etc. Don't forget many pieces are duplicated in the rails and stiles. Start going through your lumber stock with a tape measure and a piece of chalk and mark out the pieces and give each "piece" a corresponding ID number from your check list (and be sure to "check off" the piece on your cutting list). My personal preference if stock is available to put the straight grained stock into the rails and stiles and some nice grain/figure/color into the panels (see attached photos). I would be more concerned about finding some nice grain in the wide boards and utilizing the rip in the panel more so than an entire wide board. A nice 4 - 6" rip centered in the panel flanked with some similar or contrasting pieces can really highlight a panel. You may have several boards that could be used in more than 1 application, if so set them aside and finish up your "rough in" with these boards. Once I would have made my final selection I would cut and label all boards with an ID number corresponding with the cut list. Order of assembly is your choice; I usually make the boxes first and add the face frames. Once the openings are confirmed and checked against the cut list I would proceed to making the doors. If shop and storage space is limited you may want to make the boxes last as they do take up a lot of space. Your time with the chalk selecting the best use of the wood character will differentiate your cabinets from mass produced cabinets. Good luck with your project.

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[Terry Beadle]

This is a large project with many parts repeating same dimensions and processes. I like to strike a happy balance between not setting up processes too many times versus making too many parts of the same dimensions and ending up with a stack of errors.

I would probably make a pair of doors to match a cabinet. That may not be as time efficient as blasting out parts in larger bundles but that approach kept me from getting bored out of my brain. It's nice to see some progress at the end of a couple days and not a couple of months.

Also by making small quantities of parts at a time, you will have more feed back to the layout process when selecting and marking components from rough stock.

Just some thoughts.

Hickory is a beautiful wood but very tough. Be prepared to have to sharpen more frequently than say oak or cherry.

[John TenEyck]

Some really good advise already. I like to use the wide boards for raised panels, and if I can find a board wide enough all by itself, so much the better. If I have to glue up multiple boards I might book match them if two will meet the width requirement. Sometimes, a couple of sequentially but boards will have enough similar grain that you can book match them and get all the panels you need for a run of cabinets. That gives a very unifying look to the finished cabinets. I typically like to plane, thickness sand, and cut to width all the stiles and rails at one time. That way the all end up identical in thickness and respective width. Then I cut them to length with a stop block on my radial arm saw. It a little tedious if you have a lot of cabinets to do, but I find it's better to set up only once if possible so that all common parts are identical. If you goof, however, it is major, so double check your set up and the first part you cut to verify it's correct. Keeping track of parts is critical, and the approach above is a good one. I label parts by their cabinet number, part name, and location. For example, 3SL = cabinet 3, stile, left, or 6Bk = cabinet 6, back. As long as every part has a unique identifier you will be fine. Good luck.

[steve siegrist]

Thank you gentlemen for your input. I've created an Excel cut list and re-drawn some of my layout so that I can better identify my cuts. Because box/carcass storage is not an issue I've started on and plan to finish those first.
Thanks for the tips on center panels and glue up strategy. The photo's helped! A unified look is my goal. However, I'm still uncomfortable with the wide board use. If a wide board isn't wide enough for a panel - how would you approach using it? Should I be concerned about "cupping" if I use it in a panel?