Cabinet / Face Frame Finishing Order

[Larry Fox]

I am at the point of making boxes for my kitchen cabinets and wanted to post a question. Are face frames typically finished before or after they are applied to the boxes? I have applied 4 of them to boxes already when SWMBO (a.k.a. the client) asked - "hey, why don't you finish those before you put them on, afterall isn't that the point of using pre-finished ply for the boxes"?

Only answer I could come up with at the time was "well ... um, er....b-cuz - that's why now stop asking so many questions and get out of my shop. :)". However, after thinking about it for a bit I started to wonder if I was making things harder on myself. My prmary reason for doing it was so that I could make any adjustments to the frames to ensure they lined up on adjacent cabinets. Now I am wondering.......

Thanks in advance for your time . . .

Larry

[Steve Clardy]

If you use pre finished ply or melamine, finish your face frames before attaching them.

I do not use pre finished ply, nor melamine, so I attach frames, sand, stain, and finished the completed cab box

[Chip Olson]

I built and finished my face frames first (water-base poly over BLO), then cut and finished the panels for the cabinets (Target USL), then assembled the cabinets. Finishing the frames in place when the cabinets are already finished sounds like a giant pain in the neck. Only hazard with finishing them first is you have to be careful not to scratch the finish during assembly.