When building custom cabinets some people say you need to build the face frame first and then you need to build the custom cabinets. I usually build the custom cabinets and then build the face frame to fit the cabinet. Now I want to back up a second and say pretty much everything that I do is face frame cabinetry that’s because I’m a trim guy and I like to have a place to put trim. If you are not building face frame custom cabinets you don’t have as much places to put trim that’s just the way like to do it. But the first thing I’ve got to do is develop this sheet of plywood that’s the first step in making my boxes and I’m going to be doing things like putting dadoes in for my joints that connect my custom cabinets. I’m going to rebate the back for my plywood. Then I am going to use some pocket hole joinery to make places where I can attach the face frame and also to actually hold the box together for my custom cabinets. The first thing we want to take a look at is making the dados for our custom cabinets. They’re pretty much three different thing you can do to create a joint where you are putting this plywood box together. The traditional method for making custom cabinets would be to put a dado that went about halfway through the plywood and then you usually nail that together to hold the custom cabinets in one piece and that works pretty well. I don’t like to do that. When pocket hole joinery got really popular people started just doing a butt joint where they would have a strait on butt joint pocket hole joiner to hold it together. That’s really fast and it works well. It’s plenty strong enough for most boxes but then doesn’t quite give you as good a joint as I’d like to do. I will demonstrate the third way and the way I make custom cabinets in the next article.
"They had a impressive cabinet maker that came over to my house and presented himself in a professional manner. He really gave me what I wanted for my bathroom custom cabinets." Steve - Katy, TX
Tigerwood
"They had a impressive cabinet maker that came over to my house and presented himself in a professional manner. He really gave me what I wanted for my bathroom custom cabinets." Steve - Katy, TX
Tigerwood