Starting kitchen cabinet project and have a few questions

[John Hemenway]

After looking at the poor workmanship and high prices of commercial cabinets, I'm going to make them for our new kitchen. We've (LOML and I) have found a style we like and now all I have to do is copy (uh, I mean use as my inspiration) them. The door frames are mitered and have a bead/reed detail. See the pic (if I can attach it :rolleyes: ).


I plan to make the cases out of prefinished Maple ply (3/4 in.), use Blum under-drawer slides and Blum legs for the bases. Has anyone used the Blum adjustable legs? Any suggestions as to how many to use for a cabinet? The only spec I’ve seen is 4 hold 850 lbs. Now if only I knew how much a fully loaded pantry/stove base/ oven cabinet/regular base weighted!

For the doors/drawer fronts I have found two sources of router bits I think will make the reeding. - http://mlcswoodworking.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/smarthtml/pages/bt_bead.html or http://www.boschtools.com/accessories/accessories-detail?H=179127&G=57173&T=0&D=True

Any other suggestions?

For the mitered door frames I’ve been somewhat at a loss as how to do a strong joint here. The two ways I’m considering are using a spline or floating tenon. I lean toward the floating tenon because it will be invisible. I’ve included (hopefully) a drawing of the joint. Do my dimensions look OK?

Any and all comments are welcome.

[Richard Wolf]

John, while the floating tenion is a very strong and usable joint in this situation. Not being sure of your ability and time, I think I would be leaning toward a FF biscuit. I think it will improve on the time element and not sacarfice to much strengh.

Richard

[Alden Miller]

John, I've tried the adjustable legs in the past and opted for a standard cabinet (sides go all the way to the floor) since then. You will need to have sides that go all the way to the floor on the visible ends of the cabinets anyway.

Another option if you are worried about leveling everything is to build a base out of 2" x 4"s, level that and set your cabinet boxes on top of them. Very easy to do and will support a truckload of cinderblocks.

Personally I would use a spline for the doors. It's a lot easier, I think it adds a nice touch and shows that they aren't commercial.

If it's the Blum Tandem slides you are using, they are top shelf! Excellent slides.

-Alden

[Dan Stuewe]

I think a spline would be a better choice. With a jig it will be very quick to do, and if the doors are inset (kinda looks like the one in the picture is), it won't be noticed. Of course, you'll know they are there, but you will also know why and it can be your mark of quality. Kind of a secret for the discerning eye to find.

[Larry Browning]

I agree with Dan. In fact, why not make the spline from a contrasting wood as as accent detail. I think that really looks classy. Kind of a sign of quality craftmanship.

[john elliott]

All my cabinets are on adjustable legs. I use the Franke type, but I suspect the Blum ones are similar. Adjustable legs are by far the easiest option.
For end cabinets, inset the legs at the side so that the plinth boards (kick boards) will be inset too, it gives a really classy look. You will need to ensure that there is a very strong joint side-to-base on end cabinets as the legs will be inset and not under the join itself as they will be on the other cabinets. I use pocket screws reinforced with polyurethane adhesive.
John

[Chris Padilla]

Let's see:

Plain old glueing in a form is probably the quickest and easiest but

Tossing a biscuit in there assuming you have a biscuit cutter adds little work and increases strength although a

Spline of contrasting wood could be interesting and probably isn't too much more work than a biscuit cutter if you have the TS all set-up for it but you need to make your own splines of course so it will be more work and while I love Leif's idea of the

Mitered half-lap joint, it will be the most work and take some practise to get right but it will provide the largest glue area of all the suggestions above. I've personally done this joint and it can be a bit fussy but when you nail it, it is a solid, solid joint. For some fun, you can peg this joint with a dowel if you wish.

Sounds like a great project, John! Blum Tandem is the schlitz of drawer glides. They are pricey, but they are worth it.

[Dev Emch]

John...
I hear this complaint all the time and its no wonder why so many cabinets make the trip to the land fill. I often think its a contest to see how cheap they can make the cabinet and how much they can sell them for.

I dont know what your after but i can give you some tips on how I make cabinets. Hope this helps.

First of all, I try to use 7/8 inch stock for the frames and doors. Most applications use 3/4 inch stock which works quite well but does not hold up to upset wives and cranky kids as well.

Second. Try to avoid the use of cutter head profiles commonly used in modern kitchen cabinets. If you dont, it will look like something you bought at the local home depot and you will defeat one of your objectives. That is, the appearance of a high end, custom made, one off cabinet. I specailize in the stickly and shaker styles so this has not been difficult.

The doors should have mortise and tenon joints. Because your using a mitre as a design element, your going to have to adapt the mortise and tenon joint a bit. The best ways are to use either biscuits joints or floating tenon joints. Personally, I would build a router jig to cut the floating mortise joints. You may also be able to use a hollow chisel mortiser. This is the difficult part because I have mortisers that can make short work of this job. In your case, your best off building a router jig to do this.

As for useing feet. Well, I personally do not use these. These are more often used on european style cabinet boxes. They do make things a bit easier however if your not skilled at tramming out cabinet boxes. One item to consider is your counter top. If your using natual stone, for example, the counter plane has to be dead nuts level! This is not negotiable as you cannot bend a 2 cm or 3 cm slab of granite to fit an out of plane cabinet run. But most floors are far from being level enough so you need to know how bad out of level your floor is. Prefab feet allow you to fix this problem relatively quickly.

I use my own cabinet design which is a derivative of the donmar-wiesnig design. These have well behaved kicker spaces and take the load paths directly to the floor via the main sides. The drawback is that it takes both experience and patience to install these cabinets on a non-level floor. If your floor is rather level, no worries. If its not, your better off using the feet.

[Todd Burch]

John, make your life simple. A bisuit is a spline is a floating tenon. I would use biscuits and not look back. If you want, you can double-biscuit. The joint will be plenty strong.

[Jim Becker]

I would consider using a half-lap miter joint

That's what I was going to suggest, too.

[luc gendron]

Hello John,

I've built quite a few cabinets and cabinet doors. To be honest, find yourself a good quality door manufacturer and buy your doors. For mitered doors, door makers use almost invisible finger joints at the corners making the door extremely strong. When you consider time and material cost, you will be suprised to find that there is not much difference in price between making your own doors and buying your doors. As a bonus all your doors will be identical and you should be able to get a 5 years warranty on the doors.

For cabinet levelers, I,Ve used them and they are the best especially for uneven floors (most are!). Also, I've had to pull a base cabinet out of a cabinet run for a water leak, having adjustable legs made this otherwise difficult task quite easy and fast. (I just lowered the four adjustable levelers and pulled out the cabinet) For slides, Blum is unbeatable, nothing comes close. I buy all my hardware from www.hardwareattic.ca (http://www.hardwareattic.ca). They are very knowledgeable and prices are unbeatable.

[Mike Armstrong]

As to the suggestion to buy the doors, here is a place near the L. A. area that I know a number of people have used. It might pay to get some prices:

http://www.decore.com/

and another source for router bits:

http://www.woodline.com

Good prices and great service.

Mike

[Jesse Thornton]

How much of a concern is joint seperation with mitred cabinet doors? I mean, any wood movement across the face will open a mitre somewhat, will it not? I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I thought it might be a relevant consideration when designing your doors. I can't find a good link related specifically to door frames, but here's a good illustration of why mitred casings often open up:
http://www.garymkatz.com/TrimTechniques/OpenMiters.htm
Good joinery, acclimated wood, and consistent humidity levels will all minimize this, but are they enough? Hopefully someone with more experience than me can answer this.

[frank shic]

john, i would highly recommend the adjustable levelling legs because they offer many advantages that you can read about in the danny proulx book including: getting SIX case sides (30" high and 23 3/4" wide), having easy access underneath the cabinets if you ever need to run electrical, plumbing or hide family secrets, and easy adjustability. the blum leg levelers don't work nearly as well as the titus or camar brand since the blum leg levelers are one piece. the camar brand comes as two parts: a socket and a leg. you'll need a 15mm forstner bit to bore the hole on the decks to receive the sockets. once the sockets are in, you can slide the cabinet around the shop without worrying about dinging the doors, bottom drawer fronts or face frames. pop the legs in when you're ready to install and level the cabinets by turning the foot portion of the leg either by hand or by slipping a screwdriver through the foot. a great source is woodworkershardware.com - they also sell the blum tandem undermount drawer slides that you mentioned. the general rule of thumb for number of leveler legs is 4 for anything less than or equal to 30" wide. they will support an ENORMOUS amount of weight such as that generated by granite.

you may want to reconsider building those mitered doors yourself. they are the most DIFFICULT ones to construct (between cutting the joints and clamping) and maintain in the long-term (as jesse has mentioned) - unless you have one of those festool dominos!!! luc was right on when he recommended buying them from a cabinet door company. traditional raised panel or shaker style doors are a lot easier but keep one thing in mind: the door and drawer fronts will take you MUCH longer than the rest of the cabinet boxes and drawers to build and finish!!! i had my boxes and dovetailed drawers installed for approximately eight months before i finally managed to build and finish the doors and drawer fronts although they did look rather SMASHING once completed.

hardware installation on face frame cabinetry is much more frustrating than on european (frameless or full access are alternative names!!!) cabinetry especially in regards to those darn drawer slides. my first kitchen was face frame construction with pocket hole joinery but all my future projects are going to be frameless just because the installation of hardware is so much easier not to mention that building the face frames and finishing them take additional time. another alternative is to build the face frames FLUSH with the sides but make sure that your deck and top stretchers are of equal width.

one last piece of advice: consider using either prefinished plywood or melamine. it'll save another step in this long but fairly rewarding process! good luck!

[Mike Goetzke]

John - some of these guys have a lot of experience and have given great advice. I have been a hobbyist woodworker for 20+ years and probable have the skill level you sound to have. I have built around 30 raised panel door - mostly in the last 4 years (finally built a tool collection to handle them). Almost all have been typical rail/stile non-mitered doors.

I did make a couple of mitered corner doors and thought they would be easier to make than the cope/stick cuts for rail/stile doors because you don't have to make the stick cut - you could just router the cope cut/profile in all the stock.

I was wrong. First I found I had to construct a 45 deg miter sled to make tight corners (this was a good thing because I use it all the time). I used biscuits which is a little difficult since your are working on a mitered surface. But, the most difficult thing of all was trying to clamp the thing together. I even used the steel Merlin band clamps (Oh, I also found out the hard way that you shouldn't router a profile around the outside of the door until after it's assembled or it has a tendency to cup (since the load of the clamp is off-center).

In the end the doors looked great but I couldn't see making a kitchen set of them w/o buying more specialty tools to help assembly.

Mike

[Keith Starosta]

I wonder if John is still working on getting these cabinets done, some 17 months after posting the original thread... ;) :D

- Keith

[Dave Falkenstein]

Another source for custom-made doors that I have used successfully is here:

http://www.caldoor.com/home.htm

CalDoor offers mitered doors in a bunch of profiles and materials. I have purchased from them on several occasions, and had nothing but superb doors, ready to finish.


Hello John,

I've built quite a few cabinets and cabinet doors. To be honest, find yourself a good quality door manufacturer and buy your doors. For mitered doors, door makers use almost invisible finger joints at the corners making the door extremely strong. When you consider time and material cost, you will be suprised to find that there is not much difference in price between making your own doors and buying your doors. As a bonus all your doors will be identical and you should be able to get a 5 years warranty on the doors...

[John Hemenway]

I wonder if John is still working on getting these cabinets done, some 17 months after posting the original thread... ;) :D

- Keith

Luc, thanks for reviving this thread. I'd forgotten about it.

Oh, Keith, of course I'm still working on the cabinets! It really hasn't been 17 months though. We were in the planning stages when I first started this thread. Construction actually started May '06.

House remodel/addition is done, kitchen is almost done. This weekend and next I'll be completing the island case work and installing. The rest of the cabinets are installed. I haven't done the doors/drawer fronts yet, but pieces are cut. I've been dragging my feet about the doors/drawer fronts because I would rather a more Shaker flat frame look. SWMBO is not in agreement. :(

Thanks to all of you for your suggestions. I ended up using Blum legs. Love them. Really easy to install. The ones I have are two parts. This is great because it allows you to have short bottom protectors for the cabinets until they are installed. I'm also using Blum Tandum w/Blumotion drawer slides. Pricy but are very easy to install and work great. In fact it's one of the highlights on the 'see our remodel' tour. Tour guide opens drawer and slams it shut - drawer slowly and silently closes the last 2 inches. Tourists are amazed and thrilled! :)

I've made a sample door using loose tenons. It seems to be quite strong. LOML took it with her while shopping for floor, granite, paint etc. Well, somewhere she dropped it several feet onto concrete floor. Landed on a corner. The wood (Lyptus) was dinged a little, finish scratched some but the joints are still tight!!

I understand you all want picutures. I'll try to attach some...
Not very good shot of the kitchen a week before we hosted an office holiday party!

[frank shic]

john, didn't notice when you posted the original message! i was thinking to myself, "wow, he sure did get a lot of work done in ONE night!!!" it looks good so far - wasn't that corner lazy susan FUN to install?

:p

[John Hemenway]

john, didn't notice when you posted the original message! i was thinking to myself, "wow, he sure did get a lot of work done in ONE night!!!" it looks good so far - wasn't that corner lazy susan FUN to install?

:p

Frank, I'm just a really fast worker! - NOT...

There is a corner LS on both the top and bottom cabinets. The bottom was a PIA because the wall to the left has a big bow in it and the sizing was critical to ge the sink UNDER the window. The upper wasn't as hard but my first steps onto the new, very $$ granite counter top was 'exciting' :o. I'm not exactly light on my feet.

I'm in the process if designing and building the island now. If anyone has pictures of theirs and would like to share, I'd really appreciate seeing them.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi, I would make the doors with mortise and tennon construction, simple, and very strong.

A mitred joint with re-inforcement will not be as strong, and will be more difficult to make.

I've used adjustable legs for the past 10 years, and find them far superior to other methods. I use a leg every 30 to 26 inches, or wherever a gable can transfer load to the base. The legs are easilly adjusted, and will support as much weight as you are likely to place on them.

If you're worried about the capacity of the legs, use more of them.

Regards, Rod.