staples, glue and particle board

[Zahid Naqvi]

I'm having the counter tops replaced with granite in my kitchen. When the installers removed the old counters I got access to the guts of the cabinets. I was surprised/shocked to see the sloppy workmanship and the excessive used of staples, particle board and glue. It's obvious the assembly/manufacture got done in a factory like environment where the so called cabinet makers snapped together parts hastily to create a shell. They made the face frame (attached by pocket holes) and cabinet doors out of solid oak, all else is particle board. The first thought that came to my mind was "I can easily do this". On the flip side the cabinets are almost 18 yrs old and still holding tough, and we all know how much of a beating kitchen cabinets take.
I guess the point I am trying to make is there is room for all kind of workmanship in our lives, cheap lumber and sloppy technique can still produce beautiful and durable products if you know what you are doing.

[frank shic]

yup, and the next time you walk through home depot, check out some of the returned kraftmaid cabinets which are probably one of the more popular brands out there.

[Don Jarvie]

We have Kraftmaid and the insides and side panels are all particle board. The doors and face frames are solid wood but you can see some slop in the joints. This is how they can keep costs low and offer the cabinets at a reasonable price.

My BIL just got new cabinets and I didn't even offer to make them because I couldn't match the cost. I'd end up losing money because I would use Cabinet grade plywood and no particle board.

[Mike Henderson]

Kitchen cabinets have a fairly defined, short life. They're not heirloom furniture. And they have to be inexpensive because the market is competitive. I don't see anything wrong with staples, glue and particle board if it does the job. I assume your cabinets did their job since you didn't decide to change them.

I think the major differences in kitchen cabinets are in the hardware (like self closing drawers and knobs), in the extra features, such as pullouts instead of shelves, and in the facing (stained wood instead of painted).

Mike

[frank shic]

i am still struggling to match the finishes that the cabinet door manufacturers supply to kraftmaid and other popular lines.

[Zahid Naqvi]

Mike, exactly. The WWer in me woke up and said what sloppy craftsmanship, but then I thought the cabinets have survived over 18 yrs across three owners and are still in pretty good shape. All the visible areas are made visually pleasing with good material and nice tight joints. Sometimes us hobbyists make too much of craftsmanship, i.e. try to make everything of heirloom quality, and it doesn't necessarily have to be that way all the times. The cabinets look good and are durable, which essentially serves the first two requirements of kitchen cabinets.

[Harvey Melvin Richards]

The most difficult part of a kitchen cabinet's life is the shipping. The torsion involved in moving a cabinet is what really stresses the joints, especially materials like PB. Once installed, the majority of the stresses disappear.

[daniel lane]

Zahid,

I was pleased to read your post and follow-up reply. I'm one of those that gets caught up in trying to make heirloom quality stuff, but when I realize it, I step back, take a deep breath, and remember Sergey Gorshkov, who said, "Better is the enemy of good enough." I use that philosophy in much of what I do - including tool collecting (although I admit to a high standard for "good enough"). It's nice to be reminded of it occasionally by others, as well. :)


daniel

[Bill White]

Don't get me started. I've seen some stuff that I wouldn't put in a dog house.
Bill

[frank shic]

Don't get me started. I've seen some stuff that I wouldn't put in a dog house.
Bill

awooooooooooo ;)

[Peter Quinn]

I've seen some cabinets that really need the house for support. They bang them out fast and dirty in the factories, but as you noted they get the job done at a price people can afford. Not what I would make for myself because of what I am capable of, but no shame either. The cabs I've made at work start at $800/Lf for basic paint grade, unfinished, and are much closer to furniture grade in construction. In fact they are pretty much bullet proof. But most people of average income can't spend $40k on cabinets for a kitchen, or at least don't consider it money well spent. Those that can get what I think of as a high luxury approach to cabinetry, way more than is required. When I make cabs for my own home they fall some where between the industry minimum's and the full custom luxury approach. When my mother needed cabs for her new house, I sent her to Lowes because her whole kitchen was cheaper than what it cost me for plywood and hardware, and she loves her stapled particle board boxes!

[Alan Lightstone]

I enjoy making the heirloom quality stuff, though. Is it price effective - No. Is it time effective - heck no!! But it's enjoyable.

[Alan Schwabacher]

Some of the stuff that everyone can afford will serve its needed purpose as long as is needed. That frees me up to make things that are nicer, and that I want to make.

[John A langley]

Zahid = It is refreshing to have a thread started that everybody is chiming in with logic rather than with emotion. What I like about the factory built cabinets I get to replace them once in awhile.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Remember, all most see of a cabinet is the face frame and doors. I'm pricing a redo of some cabinets for local "Y". They are located on the inside of a curve. When they drawers are pulled out, they hit each other. (Think of a piece of pie being drawn towards the center of the pan. The space gets smaller as the drawer is extended.) To add insult to injury, they are on 3/4 extension rollers. But the drawer is only made 3/4 depth, so they look like full extension. File drawers are mounted on 3/4 extension 75# rated slides. Care to guess how they held up? Last year the BOD went with another company to build a set of cubbies, because they were 33% cheaper than my price. I didn't even get a chance to discuss the difference in materials and methods of construction. In the adjorning hall were sets of cubbies that we built in 1998, and refinished two years ago. Other than an end panel that had come loose from kids running down the hall and grabbing it to make the door, and one piece of broken nosing, they were no other repairs required. Just a lot of cleaning, light sanding, and spraying. I have already had to work on new cubbies (not mine.) Installers didn't cut recepticals in back, nor did they securely fasten backs on. Only eight #4 nails per sheet of plywood. We glue and staple every 6" both ways. SKU tags on backs were left on facing out inside cubbies. Instead of 1/4" hardwood nosing, they used iron on edge banding, some of which is already coming off. To fix this, we will have to lay cabinets down, take a router and bridge to support it, and remove approx1/16" from fronts so we can glue and brad hardwood nosing on. I reminded building manager that quality is like buying oats. "If you want nice fresh clean oats they will cost you, but if you don't mind if they have already been through the horse, then they can be had cheaper."

[frank shic]

i assume the original "carpenters" are long gone?

[HANK METZ]

Respectful snip... Sometimes us hobbyists make too much of craftsmanship, i.e. try to make everything of heirloom quality, and it doesn't necessarily have to be that way all the times. The cabinets look good and are durable, which essentially serves the first two requirements of kitchen cabinets.

You've just stated the quintessential difference between an amateur and a professional woodworker. Good enough, satisfactory, sufficient, acceptable, suitable, reasonable, agreeable, adequate, all right- these words do not necessarily mean compromise in construction, just a point at which nothing further of substance will be gained by additional effort.

- Beachside Hank
The use of nails in fine furniture is to be abhorred- drywall screws are preferred.

[michael case]

Zahid,

I use pocket screws, but never particle board. With rare exception kitchen cabinets today employ pocket screw face frames and they hold up fine on cabinets affixed to walls where wracking is not a problem. Ethan Allen uses them on free standing furniture which is unforgivable considering the price point. I used pocket screwed face frames and pocket screw box construction on my own kitchen, but I never sell anything to my customers with pocket screwed face frames. So good enough is relative. Pocket screws are good enough for fixed cabinets in my house. And Ethan Allen thinks they are good enough for their customers, but they are not good enough for mine. If your doing fixed cabinets for yourself I'd say use pocket screw all round.

[Steve Meliza]

Fast, Good and Cheap, pick any two.

[Biff Johnson]

Zahid...don't take your drywall off, you will be sorely disappointed!!!:)

I used to work on motorhomes and anything that wasn't visible to the naked eye was half-a**. I understand production line, cost savings, etc, etc but couldn't the worker building the item at least hold his nailer in a straight line or wipe off the glue spillage?

[Michael Moscicki]

Zahid...don't take your drywall off, you will be sorely disappointed!!!:)

I used to work on motorhomes and anything that wasn't visible to the naked eye was half-a**. I understand production line, cost savings, etc, etc but couldn't the worker building the item at least hold his nailer in a straight line or wipe off the glue spillage?

He/she doesn't have enough time on the conveyor belt. Plus at mere pennies for his work, why would he/she care about the alignment of a staple. You get what you pay for.

[Matt Meiser]

I used to work on motorhomes and anything that wasn't visible to the naked eye was half-a**.

You must have worked on the really expensive ones if the stuff that showed wasn't!

[Todd Burch]

I make nice stuff and use quality (relative term) materials.

I did a built-in back in early 2002 for a neighbor - my first commission when I went pro. Birch ply, birch face frames and base, maple trim.

Their house flooded a few years back - plastic toilet bowl supply line fractured. They were on vacation. The only thing that survived downstairs - the ONLY thing, was my built-in. They didn't even so much as have to remove the plinth, which was under water. It dried out - it was fine.

I build to handle scenarios like that. Nothing disposable. But I'm not making 10,000 units, so I don't do things like use butt joints on drawers, cardboard drawer bottoms and hot melt glue and plastic fasteners to keep costs down.

And, that's my litmus test when shopping for furniture. If I see hardware I can buy at HD, or plastic, or hot melt glue or cardboard on furniture - I keep moving.

I have been snooty at times, and eaten my humble pie. When I got married, we bought our dining room set. Butcher block maple table with white base, and bow back chairs with maple seat bottoms and painted posts and rungs. That was 1988.

When we were shopping for new chairs @ Ethan Allen, I looked over the black windsors, and they had screws holding the tenonned legs into their mortises in the seat bottoms. Nicely done, but screws nonetheless. I turned my nose up at these ~$150/each chairs, knowing that to buy a handmade windsor, it could run upwards of $700/each.

So, we went without chairs for a few years. We went back - same deal. Then, I looked at our original maple chairs, that have served us flawlessly for 20+ years. They too have the same screws holding the tenonned legs into the mortised seat bottoms.

We went that afternoon and bought the EA chairs. They are working great.

[Biff Johnson]

That's true but price wasn't always a predictor of good craftmanship. Usually better materials, though!


You must have worked on the really expensive ones if the stuff that showed wasn't!

[Don Jarvie]

Home Depot can order the exact stain used by Kraftmaid, its made by Mohawk. I bought the toffee stain for a built in I made to match our kitchen cabs and it was right on the money.

[Bruce Wrenn]

i assume the original "carpenters" are long gone?

Gone as in out of business.

[Biff Johnson]

You've just stated the quintessential difference between an amateur and a professional woodworker. Good enough, satisfactory, sufficient, acceptable, suitable, reasonable, agreeable, adequate, all right- these words do not necessarily mean compromise in construction, just a point at which nothing further of substance will be gained by additional effort.

- Beachside Hank
The use of nails in fine furniture is to be abhorred- drywall screws are preferred.

I respectfully disagree. The difference between amateur and professional is the matter of payment.
See Websters definition: a: participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs <a professional golfer> b: having a particular profession as a permanent career <a professional soldier> c: engaged in by persons receiving financial return <professional football>

[HANK METZ]

I respectfully disagree. The difference between amateur and professional is the matter of payment.
See Websters definition: a: participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs <a professional golfer> b: having a particular profession as a permanent career <a professional soldier> c: engaged in by persons receiving financial return <professional football>

Understandable, and well put Biff, and also an acceptable P.O.V. but for the context used: quin·tes·sen·tial -adjective, ”of or pertaining to the most perfect embodiment of something”.


Zahid’s rumination went thus: …Sometimes us hobbyists make too much of craftsmanship, i.e. try to make everything of heirloom quality, and it doesn't necessarily have to be that way all the times. The cabinets look good and are durable, which essentially serves the first two requirements of kitchen cabinets.

My response was meant to point out that time being money, the pro would hit the wall at some point and move on to other, more productive things instead of investing his resources in a path of diminishing returns, i.e. overbuilding. At least that was my rationale when I was active in the trades, but being retired now, I can take the time to overdo simply for it’s own sake if it pleases me to do so. I have to wonder though, and it’s simply an opinion of mine, if many of the projects our fellow woodworkers construct as heirlooms actually make it beyond one generation- I suspect the vast majority in fact, do not.


- Beachside Hank
Do not use remaining fingers as push sticks.

[Biff Johnson]

Point taken! I personally try to fumble along somewhere in the middle. All my jobs start out as perfection, sometimes at the end of the job, not so much! I blame it on my scratched up safety glasses.:)

[frank shic]

Understandable, and well put Biff, and also an acceptable P.O.V. but for the context used: quin·tes·sen·tial -adjective, ”of or pertaining to the most perfect embodiment of something”.


Zahid’s rumination went thus: …Sometimes us hobbyists make too much of craftsmanship, i.e. try to make everything of heirloom quality, and it doesn't necessarily have to be that way all the times. The cabinets look good and are durable, which essentially serves the first two requirements of kitchen cabinets.

My response was meant to point out that time being money, the pro would hit the wall at some point and move on to other, more productive things instead of investing his resources in a path of diminishing returns, i.e. overbuilding. At least that was my rationale when I was active in the trades, but being retired now, I can take the time to overdo simply for it’s own sake if it pleases me to do so. I have to wonder though, and it’s simply an opinion of mine, if many of the projects our fellow woodworkers construct as heirlooms actually make it beyond one generation- I suspect the vast majority in fact, do not.


- Beachside Hank
Do not use remaining fingers as push sticks.

man, i sure hope not. i cringe when i look at some of the earlier pieces i made!