Cabinet sides

[David Scigliano]

I am making a built in entertainment center and building my own cabinet carcass. I used The ez smart and it did a good job of making all the cabinet sides. Now I just need to even some to of the pieces, right and left. Some areas are off by 1/32 to 1/16th of an inch....I was thinking of clamping one piece on top of the other and using a square sander to even the parts... Is this the correct way to do this????? Thanks for the help.

[Jerry Olexa]

On a project of that scale , 1/32 inch shouldn't be an issue. Sand or plane but not a biggee IMHO

[frank shic]

david, i'd rather use the circular saw to trim the uneven piece. don't feel bad, i had the same thing happen to me when i built some built-in bedroom wardrobe cabinets. one way to minimize this from happening next time is to use a scrap piece of wood to refernce the edge of the guide consistently instead of relying on a tic mark. cut your wooden "ruler" to accomodate the offset from the blade.

[Steve Cox]

For me, the best way is to build a squaring jig and use a router. The router gives you a cleaner edge than a circular saw and is more precise than a sander. I have a 3/4" diameter by 2" long top bearing bit I use for this operation. I cut a piece of 1/2" MDF with a right angle and then attached another piece on one edge that will register against the piece being cut. Clamp it in place and run the router along the other edge and you're done.