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Anybody teach themselves to make cabinets? (1 Viewer)

BigJohn

Footballguy
I'm looking to do a full wall unit in my bedroom. I've done plenty of woodworking in my life, but never ventured into cabinetry. Has anybody found really good resources for teaching themselves?

 
Many hours of watching Norm in the Yankee Workshop since I was in diapers. It's pretty simple. Easiest is to build ply boxes and attach panels for the finished sides and then your doors. Making the boxes as your finished sides is substantially more work. You have to decide on face frame versus Euro hinge. After all that it's all about the tools.

The info online is probably endless once you know what you're looking for. Fine homebuilding, this old house stuff, Yankee Workshop stuff, etc.

 
My buddy did this. He described it as basically making boxes and assembling them, like Battles said.

I do think he bought the doors though, as they are more tricky.

 
I've built countless built-ins of various kinds. Everything from simple shelves to entertainment centers. Whether it's painted or stained drives my material selection, but I usually use a veneered plywood for stained applications and a nice sanded plywood for painted applications. I've used hardwood once and I was a wreck the whole time because I didn't want to waste material. Once you decide on materials then it's just making the boxes and securing them together and covering the edges with hardwood.

 
Definitely going to be painted to match the walls in the rest of the room.

Thanks for the replies. Hoping to kill some winter time on this.

 
One other question. Are drawer kits really as expensive as I've found? Most stores have them at $30-40 a pop. A dozen drawers would be kinda hefty.

 
One other question. Are drawer kits really as expensive as I've found? Most stores have them at $30-40 a pop. A dozen drawers would be kinda hefty.
Are you asking about the hardware? The slides? Or are you asking about the whole thing (box, hardware, face, etc)? You can make your own drawers and the slides shouldn't be more than $10 each. I had a buddy use drawerslides.com for his last project. I've never gone to see what was out there though.

 
The Commish said:
BigJohn said:
One other question. Are drawer kits really as expensive as I've found? Most stores have them at $30-40 a pop. A dozen drawers would be kinda hefty.
Are you asking about the hardware? The slides? Or are you asking about the whole thing (box, hardware, face, etc)? You can make your own drawers and the slides shouldn't be more than $10 each. I had a buddy use drawerslides.com for his last project. I've never gone to see what was out there though.
Keep in mind, I have only begun to do research for this project, but this is what I was talking about. Full drawers, ready to assemble. I'm going to check that website out.

 
The Commish said:
BigJohn said:
One other question. Are drawer kits really as expensive as I've found? Most stores have them at $30-40 a pop. A dozen drawers would be kinda hefty.
Are you asking about the hardware? The slides? Or are you asking about the whole thing (box, hardware, face, etc)? You can make your own drawers and the slides shouldn't be more than $10 each. I had a buddy use drawerslides.com for his last project. I've never gone to see what was out there though.
Keep in mind, I have only begun to do research for this project, but this is what I was talking about. Full drawers, ready to assemble. I'm going to check that website out.
gotcha....you might want to consider making your own drawers and attaching hardware. But you can get nicer, hardwood drawers made for the $30 - $35 range.

 
When planning, I'd plan around the drawers and I'd make all the drawers the same size so you can just start cutting. If you don't want all the same size, I'd have at most two sizes just to make it easier on yourself with set up

 
I’m flipping a house right now and to save money I ordered Shaker style cabinets. My thinking was that these cabinets would be made out of poplar, which is much cheaper that most hardwoods, and then I would paint them myself.

I did save about 1k to 1.2k by painting them myself, but as of right now I’ve got about 28 hours into painting them with a brush and roller, and I still have to do the draw fronts, doors, and shelves. All surfaces need to have primer applied, then sanded, then two coats of semi-gloss paint. I’ll end up with at least 40 hrs into painting the cabinets. I doubt I go that route again considering what all I could be doing with those hours (tile work, framing, drywall, etc.)

Cabinet making is an art, if we’re talking about outfitting your entire kitchen complete with trim and crown molding. They take a lot of specialty tools, jigs, and templates.

 
One other question. Are drawer kits really as expensive as I've found? Most stores have them at $30-40 a pop. A dozen drawers would be kinda hefty.
Are you asking about the hardware? The slides? Or are you asking about the whole thing (box, hardware, face, etc)? You can make your own drawers and the slides shouldn't be more than $10 each. I had a buddy use drawerslides.com for his last project. I've never gone to see what was out there though.
Keep in mind, I have only begun to do research for this project, but this is what I was talking about. Full drawers, ready to assemble. I'm going to check that website out.
:confused: I thought we were talking about making cabinets!

Blum hardware for hinges and slides is a good option. http://woodworking.rockler.com/nav/brand/blum/0?sli_sid=v9100&gclid=CIaw8Lejq7sCFYVZ7AodsV0AaA

If you really just want to buy pre-built drawers, Ikea kitchen drawers are nice and made by Blum. They could be used in a lot of applications. You'd just need to build a front to match the rest.

 
One other question. Are drawer kits really as expensive as I've found? Most stores have them at $30-40 a pop. A dozen drawers would be kinda hefty.
Are you asking about the hardware? The slides? Or are you asking about the whole thing (box, hardware, face, etc)? You can make your own drawers and the slides shouldn't be more than $10 each. I had a buddy use drawerslides.com for his last project. I've never gone to see what was out there though.
Keep in mind, I have only begun to do research for this project, but this is what I was talking about. Full drawers, ready to assemble. I'm going to check that website out.
:confused: I thought we were talking about making cabinets!

Blum hardware for hinges and slides is a good option. http://woodworking.rockler.com/nav/brand/blum/0?sli_sid=v9100&gclid=CIaw8Lejq7sCFYVZ7AodsV0AaA

If you really just want to buy pre-built drawers, Ikea kitchen drawers are nice and made by Blum. They could be used in a lot of applications. You'd just need to build a front to match the rest.
I'm building a wall unit in my bedroom. Cabinets and drawers. Something similar to this.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
BigJohn said:
Shop drawing to scale of what I'm going to do.

Ran through the numbers. Looks like I'm right around $850 to do this myself.
The other thing I should have talked about was tools. You have all the needed stuff right? Like the full Festool line and the full Jet line. slightly joking there. The cost of the tools needed to get to a competitive level keeps most from attempting it. Yeah, I could get by cutting on my Bosch contractor table saw, but the difference is noticeable with higher end equipment.

 
Built cabinets with bench seating and drawers under the bench for my breakfast nook.

Pretty simple, used 3/4" architectural grade birch plywood available at home depot and other places. Takes a stain very well, and easy to paint. Took an existing cabinet door to the paint store and tgey matched it and sold me a couple gallons of acrylic enamel. Took same door to cabinet shop and had them build to match 12 drawer fronts and two large cabinet doors.

The cabinets are just big rectangles. Trick is to predrill so dont split the wood when you assemble the box. Once the box is finished hopefully its squared up and then you drill into the wall studs. Optionally you can run a few mounting boards across the wall, drill that to the studs and then attach your cabinets to the boards.

 
Start with the facers. I usually use 2" stiles. If it's going to be painted I always use poplar for the facers, and white birch plywood for the ends. If it's stained, I use alder for the facers, and red birch for the ends. If the cabinet you're building is going between walls, and the only thing showing is the front of the cabinet, I use 5/8" birch plywood. If you're not setup to dado your ends for the floors, I would just square but everything.

If it were me, I would probably just order the doors. IIRC for the full euro hinges, the doors need to be 1 1/2" wider, and 1" taller than the facer opening. May want to double check though.

Post some pics when your finished, good luck.

 
BigJohn said:
Shop drawing to scale of what I'm going to do.

Ran through the numbers. Looks like I'm right around $850 to do this myself.
Looks like a bunch of boxes (which is a good thing). You shouldn't have much of a problem. Seems like a good project to learn on.
Exactly what I was going for. Looking at 5/8" sanded plywood for the sides, 1/4" for the backs. Havent decided what I'm going to face it with yet. I'll make my own doors and drawer fronts. Keep it extremely simple.

 

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