Economy Uppers

[Mark J Bachler]

I have an set of "economy cabinets" to build. Has anyone out there ever used biscuits & butt jointed the bottoms of the upper cabinets in?? Just wondering from a strength angle. Lots of weight with dishes. These will be Euro style (frameless) cabinets.

[John Anderson]

Hmmmmmm.............believe I'd go with a dado........unless you've got disposable dishes .

[Mike Sheppard]

Mark
I have never done that and don't think I would. At the very lest I would use screws and glue, pocket screws would work also, you could them in from under the bottom and fill them with dowl if needed.
Mike

[Paul B. Cresti]

Mark,
Check the Haefele catalog they may have some kind of mechanical type joining system that might work. I would not rely on biscuits on anything other than aligning/gluing top together.

[Jim Becker]

My cabinetmaker neighbor uses glued butt joints reinforced with screws for virtually all his high-end cabinet work. Visible ends of cabinets get an overlay panel.

[John Miliunas]

Mark, dado's or hidden pocket holes w/glue would be my way.

[Mark J Bachler]

Normally I would put a shouldered tongue on the ends of the bottom, then stop groove the sides & edge band the bottom edges of the sides. Guess I'll stick with that.

[Steve Clardy]

I either dado or use a supporting strap under the bottom board, attached to the side of cab carcass

[Chris Fite]

I use biscuits with the glued butt joints with 2 screws on uppers, 3 screws on lowers. End overlay panels.

[Dave Falkenstein]

Home Depot sells a line of do-it-yourself kitchen cabinets made by Mills Pride. All of those wall (upper) cabinets use 3/4 inch melamine and butt joints with a cam lock screw mechanism - no glue. I have had them in my utility room and garage shop for 12 years with no failures. If I were making economy cabinets with butt joints, I would use confirmat screws, assuming the carcasses are melamine or MDF. Personally, I would dado the carcasses, but I believe you can get a satisfactory butt joint with 3/4 inch material and confirmat screws.

[Bill Fields]

Dado/Glue/a well-placed screw or two--

Bill

[JayStPeter]

I have made a utility wall cabinet purely with butt/biscuit. I had it packed with cans of paint and all was good. The cabinet was made with borg birch ply. More recently I combine pocket screws and biscuits for my quick/easy cabinets. You can get the small Kreg pocket screw kit for about $20 at Lowes. I used it for years before getting the full system. It has the added advantage of not requiring clamps for assembly. I've found if I put the pocket screws within an inch or so of the edge of a biscuit, it keeps the pocket screws from trying to pull the part out of alignment when being driven in.

Jay

[Anthony Anderson]

Set up your router with a ply bit of the thickness of your plywood (or whatever material you are using). Use a clamp guide for the router to ride against. Maybe even make an offset guide to be able to quickly set the clamping straight edge (Nothing fancy, think simple). Then cut Dadoes in your pieces, make sure to allow for extra length on the horizontal members that will fit into the dado. Cut all of the Dadoes at one operation; IOW don't go back and forth between various operations in the project. This will really not take that much longer once you get the hang of it. I am building built-ins for our living room and am using the method that Jim B described, and it will work fine, as all of the screws will be hidden and I don't have to try to hide/cover them. Good Luck, Bill

[Ed Kowaski]

Three biscuits or three screws and a butt joint are more then strong enough for a 12" upper. It's my opinion that dados don't add much except more work in this situation. I think the offset tongue is not all that great in this situation either. With screws it's ok, without screws the net effect is like putting a thinner bottom in the cabinet.

Sheet goods are a stressed skin construction, like a torsion box. I like to avoid continuious cuts throught the skin if possible. Best advice is build one and load it, if your comfortable proceed.

Joining 5/8 melamine at right angles, many ways of doing this, none are really "strong", most are strong enough.

Ed

[Steve Cox]

Biscuits and butt joints are what I use on ALL my cabinets. I use screws (pocket or otherwise) only to speed up the clamping problem. The biscuit system was designed for this very application. It is way more than strong enough.