Cabinetmaker questions

[myxpykalix]

Let me preface these questions with the fact that i've never made cabinets on my shopbot and only a handfull by hand, so i have questions.

Looking at this basic plan you can seee that my kitchen cabinets and bases will be minimal.
I do want to make them look custom with the shopbot for doors, ect.

What is the best material for bases, cabinets and doors? My thought was cabinet grade plywood for bases and cabinets, mdf for doors?

What should i expect to pay for material to fill out an average kitchen (if you can get a sense from the picture?
I'm trying to get a sense of cost for budgeting purposes. I'm willing to cut costs elsewhere to be able to do the creative stuff i want to do on this house but i need all my unpaid consultants (you guys!) to help me where i have no experience like in the cabinetmaking/pricing dept.
thanks

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[coach]

Steve, you know best means expensive.
I make commercial cabinets from pre-finished 1 side birch.
I make laminated (HPL) doors with MDF.
I also have been making MDF doors with a simulated raised panel look. I paint them with polyurethane exterior paint.
They look like RTF doors.
I pay $24.00 for 3/4" pre fin birch.
3/4" MDF runs $18.00 per 4x8 sheet.
I sometimes use "door board." it is MDF with white liner on one side.
about $1.00 sq. foot.
A nice v carving on the face of the doors would really customize a plain and inexpensive cabinet.

[magic]

Jack.

MDF doors have an advantage, if you paint, (which you will as there is no reason to stain them)

Over time wood panels expand and contract so any joints may "show through" over time.

The better doors have a frame out of wood with a floating panel of MDF (or whatever) in the center.

I would see if you can buy the doors wholesale using your wholesale lic. They would then become a "sample" of your work, in case someone would want to hire you to reface their kitchen.

The sides and rear of "less expensive" cabinets are MDF. Go to the box store and look at the construction. Better cabinets use 3'4 Birch plywood for the carcass. So you figure 29 dollars per sheet (it's a guess) of 5 to 7 ply, better quality plywood and figure out how many square feet you need.

Truthfully, many of the parts would be made faster on a table saw... and you need a decent pocketing jig.

Good luck

On the other hand... you could go with the cheap doors and after a few years, carve your own on the bot.

[coach]

I don't know about the table saw being faster.......I cut cabinet sides 34 1/2" tall x 24" deep with 1/4" dadoes and base panel in about 11 minutes.
Assembly is glue and 1 1/4" 18 gauge finish nails. The exposed end, if any, is stained or just clear coated.
Magic is right with the pocket holes, excellent joints but too time consuming for commercial application.
I'm sure Gary will chime in, he is (in my opinion) the resident expert.

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[ken_rychlik]

Jack, If you ask 100 different cabinet guys, you will get 100 different opinions. Mine are just opinions as well.

Prefinished plywood is nice. I will never go back to finishing the inside of a box.

Mdf is ok if you don't get it wet. The kitchen is full of things to make it wet. If it gets wet it will fail. I spend most of my time replacing mdf cabinets that have not faired well. One of them this year I did was on a house built in 2005.

You need to decide if you want to go with face frames or frameless. Then more help can be given.
I do Face frames and could help there, but don't have much to offer you with frameless advice. Maybe I should give them a try.

I would outsource the doors and suggest solid wood for at least the frames of the doors. Mdf is not to bad as a center panel material, but seal them well.

If you do face frames, you can make them a little wider and do flutes or carvings on them to dress them up.

I would spend around 3 grand on materials for that size kitchen with solid wood doors and face frames. I build my doors but most small shops outsource them. I know guys that would spend less than 1k on it using mdf. I'm sure we could find someone that would spend twice what I do in materials.

You can buy one dollar drawer slides or 25 dollar ones. Hinges are pretty much the same with the range being 50 cents to 10 bucks each.

I give pocket holes another vote. Fast, strong and easy.

Kenneth

[kartracer63]

Jack,

I'm not a cabinet maker, but I've made a few cabinets. I've used pocket holes with my kreg jig on every cabinet I've built, and would agree with Kenneth that the pocket holes are quite easy and fairly quick. When building a face frame with the pocket holes, I don't even use glue.

[myxpykalix]

A couple things to consider for me. Time is NOT of the essence so don't use that as a factor in your advice. I can take my time.

I want to do all of it myself. I don't want to farm it out.
I want to cut it all on the bot because as cluttered and small as the shop is i don't have room to push a piece of plywood thru my saw.

I think from all that NORM has taught me about making cabinets that a face frame is the way to go. I have a pockethole jig.

I like the prefinished plywood look that David M posted above. In that particular cabinet how much material did you use? I'm not crazy about the mitered joint look I might want to go with a rail and stile doorframe with a raised panel or flat panel.
Additionally if i was going to use the prefinished plywood I would think it might look better to make the door out of the same material.

It might not give me the same carving options for designs on the doors (due to plywood) but i can also see a potential for overdoing it and gawdyness too.
I like kens advice on making the faceframes a little wider and doing some carvings or flutes.
I'm taking notes and ideas are flowing...keep the advice coming.

[dlcw]

Hi Jack,

I'm jealous of the material pricing some of these guys are getting. It's expensive to live in the northwest.... :-(

I build cabinets with two levels of material. The lower priced alternative is $48/sheet prefinished (2 sides) American maple plywood with laminate core. This plywood has a thickness tolerance from .721 to .776. Needless to say with this much variance in thickness mortise and tenon joinery sometimes needs a little shimming here and little tenon shaving there but I do use eCabinets and SB Link to create the parts for me. The second option is prefinished (2 sides) American maple plywood with a combination wood laminate core and MDF layer right under the outside veneer. This plywood has a thickness tolorence from .740 to .760. A sheet of this runs about $68. Needless to say mortise and tenon joinery is a snap with this stuff. The reason I use two sides finished is that in a kitchen or bathroom environment there can be liquid spills and large fluctuations in humidity. The double sided finish is an insurance policy I talk the customer in to.

Wherever I have a cabinet side exposed I will use either a 1/4" plywood sheet (veneer skin) of the same material as the hardwood (hickory, alder, cherry, etc.) or the exposed side of the cabinet will have a side made from 3/4" plywood of the hardwood species. The 1/4" veneer sheet is a little less expensive then the 3/4" but requires a little more labor at installation time. You also need to build this "skin" into your cabinet design.

Like David says, using your CNC and a program like SB Link you can cut and have ready to assemble all the parts for a cabinet carcass in about 8 to 11 minutes depending on how many joinery and drilling operations have to be performed. The other really nice thing about cutting on the CNC is that for old folks like me, you don't have to be throwing around a sheet of plywood trying to guide it through the saw without wiggling. Don't get me wrong, I did it this way for 15 years prior to getting my CNC and I made a LOT of cabinets for very happy customers. The CNC just makes it a lot more accurate and you can be prepping stock for your faceframes and doors/drawers while the cabinets parts are being cut. Also, like David said, assembly is glue and either nails or screws. I tend to use #8 x 1.5" wood screws on joints that won't show.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is that using computer based nesting and the CNC, for the most part you can have better utilization % of the material. With tablesaw layouts there tends to be more waste.

For doors I offer framed raised panel or framed flat panel doors as well as MDF for painted. I haven't gotten much call from my customers for MDF doors. They all like a real wood either clear coated or stained and clear coated. For finish I use 4 coats pre-cat lacquer on all surfaces that aren't prefinished. This holds up vary well on cabinets. On occasion - depending on how nice the customer has been - I will include a 3D carving on one or two of the raised panel doors at no charge. I figure if someone is paying me big $$$'s for cabinetry I've got enough to have my CNC spend an hour or so doing something really special and unique for the customer. This has built a lot of good will and referral business. After all, once all the cabinet parts are cut out, and I'm now doing assembly and finishing work , the CNC is sitting there idle.

I just finished a 120 sheets of plywood and 600bf of hickory project of cabinets for a kitchen (and other rooms) in a house. I've had many comments from the owner, there builder and contractors saying these were some of the best constructed cabinets they had ever seen, plus very installation friendly.

I'm getting ready to do two more houses full of cabinets and got the jobs mainly because of the level of quality put into the materials and construction of the cabinets.

Plywood stack at start of job


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Cabinets everywhere (Over 650 parts and 50 cabinets total)


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All the parts were cut from the plywood in about 3 long days - about 4 sheets per hour - on the CNC. It takes longer to clean the table and make ready for the next sheet then it does to cut. It would have taken my wife and I about 10 to 12 days to do that much plywood ready to assemble using the tablesaw and router - if my back would have held out.

When I build my house, I plan to use my CNC to cut all my cabinets. After playing in the CNC sandbox I won't go back.

As far as cabinet hardware, get the best you can afford. It's easier to build quality hardware into the cabinet during construction then to try and change from cheap to quality in the future. I use mainly Blum Tandem drawer slides with Blumotion ($21 per set) and Blum cup hinges and faceframe plates ($2.25) with soft close pistons ($.35) for doors. Drawer and door pulls are one of those items that I put in a budget number for the customer and the final invoice reflects the actual cost of these items. The other thing to figure pricing on is things like waste basket holders, silverware organizers, cooking utensil organizers, spice rack organizers, etc. These can add up and take a toll on the budget if you aren't careful.

Hope this helps.

Don
www.diamondlakewoodworks.com (http://www.diamondlakewoodworks.com)

[navigator7]

Don wrote:
"Hi Jack,

I'm jealous of the material pricing some of these guys are getting. It's expensive to live in the northwest.... :-( "

No Kidding! I agree.
Wood prices here are incredibly high.
Home building has nearly stopped.
Diesel is $3.25 here. Highest I've seen in 800 miles of travel recently.

Don, do you ever have to flip a panel over to do mill work on the outside?

If so, what steps do you take to align the material to the program?

[dlcw]

Chuck,

When you ask about flipping a panel over to do mill work - yes, Shopbot Link supports what are called flip operations if a milling operation needs to be done on the reverse side of a panel. With SB Link, the panel is flipped along the X axis and positioned at the X-0, Y-0 position on the table. Then using a scanner to read a part label barcode, the software knows which part is going to get the flip operation done. This continues until all flip operations for the current sheet are completed.

If you are referring to doing something like 3D carving on a raised door panel, my normal MO is to make my x,y zero position the center of a solid wood blank. The 3D carving is done first, then the door panel is cut to size with the CNC. All this is set up in Partworks not SB Link.

Hope that answers your question.

Don

[Gary Campbell]

Jack...
Nothing can save you more $ than a good plan. Go to one of the big box stores, look at what they offer as far as styles. Show them your floorplan and have them draw up a kitchen plan.

Using their ideas and yours, develop your own final layout and plan. Research casework, faceframe and door materials, you may be able to buy local hardwoods (or get into your stash) and save some $.

Once you have your cabinet and material decisions in hand, you need to determine jointery methods and a construction order.

At this point you may want to sub out generation of cutting files to someone that has both experience and software for cabinet cutting. Since you want to cut these yourself, you will not be able to take advantage of any eCabinets generated files, but many other programs can do a good job.

Once your casework is in place you can work on the doors at your own pace, making them as ornate or simple as you wish.

Remember.... Plan the dive. Dive the plan! Good luck.
Gary

[myxpykalix]

Thats good advice, since i usually just dive in head first...no wonder i have so many knots on my head!
I had downloaded what i thought was the ecabs software and thought i understood that you could design your cabinets with this program but couldn't cut anything without the link. When i try to start it up it asks for a hasp key and won't start up. Do i have the wrong thing? What is the download link for the design part of this program?

What i am trying to coordinate is while the framing work is being done i can start working on the interior elements like the cabinets and bases, door casings, fireplace mantels as this has 2 fireplaces.

Gary...all good advice i will follow up on.

[robtown]

I don't think e-cabs is available for download. You have to order it and they mail it to you.

You might want to consider Cabinet Parts Pro. It was developed by Ryan at shopbot. I use it for cabinet boxes and closet organizer systems.

[wberminio]

All good advice.
I've been building cabinets for 25+ years.
I'll never go back to a saw to build cabinets.

Prefinished is the way to go for interiors.
Frameless construction-(use iron on tape if you don't have an edgebander)
Painted doors-solid wood frame/mdf center panel

I outsource all doors/most drawers.
You can customize them on your Bot
Not worth the time or $$$ to buy materials and buy-set up cutters- even in this economy.

If you don't make cabinets for a living-
Go with Ryan's program-

Erminio

[navigator7]

@ Don,
Yes you answered my question. I wondered if you perhaps drill holes in the waste area of a panel that would only allow you to flip the piece the proper way like match plate in foundry work.
I suppose the creative mind uses what works?

Don also wrote: "The other really nice thing about cutting on the CNC is that for old folks like me, you don't have to be throwing around a sheet of plywood trying to guide it through the saw without wiggling. Don't get me wrong, I did it this way for 15 years prior to getting my CNC and I made a LOT of cabinets for very happy customers."

The Free Market is an unforgiving thing. I'd hate to be in the regular or phillips head screw making business these days.
I think the torx screw or at the very least...the torx head is the only way to go. And a screw gun. Portable. An impact screw gun is $100 give or take and a regular blade screw driver is what $10? I'm never going back to a regular screw driver unless it's for opening paint cans. (I understand paint cans may become obsolete in use once and throw away epoxy style air powered dispensers. Yes!)

Don, is the bar code scanner and printer part of a ShopBot or a stand alone?

Are dovetails simply better done with a stand alone tool as well?

Nav

[kevin]

http://www.kitchendraw.com/downloadcheck.asp
Thats what I use It will take 8 hr to get up and running
I'am using cabinet pro 2 kitchens under my belt its very good. I have it set up with through dado full backs makes assembley easy using crown staples and glue.
The speed is incredible
Ether birch plywood or melaime what the client whnts to spend

Later I will use e-cabinet with shopbot link when I have a little more time
www.kdunphy.com (http://www.kdunphy.com)

[dlcw]

Chuck,

The barcode scanner and label printer are stand alone.

I got the label printer off eBay. It is a Dymo Labelwriter 400 Turbo. I got the labels off eBay as well. Look up RJS Enterprises, Inc.

I got the barcode scanner from www.TotalBarcode.com (http://www.TotalBarcode.com). I purchased item # IDT44314UB

It works great for both flip operations and for reusing cut-off material. In the SB Link world they are called off-fall. Each piece of cut-off, over the dimensions you specify, gets a label printed for it. Then when you are ready to cut a new job (or recut parts because of problems) you can scan all the off-fall you have and SB Link will try and fit the parts to the off-fall instead of a whole new sheet of stock. Great way to use up all the cut-offs. One thing about a CNC, it can generate a lot of weird shaped cut-offs.

As far as dovetails for drawer boxes, I have not used this feature of eCabs or SB Link. When a customer wants dovetailing, I look into ordering premade drawers and size the cabinets accordingly. When building drawer boxes in house, I use blind mortise and tenon joinery with 5/8" baltic birch plywood sides and 1/2" plywood for drawer bottoms. All material is prefinished both sides. I edge band the baltic birch with prefinished maple edge banding and the drawers are strong, attractive and I have had no complaints from customers.

Don
www.diamondlakewoodworks.com (http://www.diamondlakewoodworks.com)

[Gary Campbell]

Chuck...
Depending on your needs, you would have to decide what is a better method of the 3 for dovetail drawers. If you cut them a lot, then a standalone machine is always best. For an occasional drawer or 2 you can cut them on a ShopBot. See my column: http://www.shopbottools.com/garysmusings.htm#Dovetail

Most guys sub them out to a specialty shop that cranks them out all day long. Cost effective.
(diesel is $3.79 here)
Gary

[dray]

http://www.mdfworks.com

[myxpykalix]

dannny it's nice to see you're still kickin!

[coach]

Jack, MDF DOOR v carved with 140 degree bit.



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[myxpykalix]

The picture is a little decieving but it looks like a raised panel design (my eyes bad)?
Are just the doors mdf?
I wonder about the difference in the looks of material from prefinished plywood to the mdf.
Certainly the texture and look would be different.
Is that something that you cabinet makers deal with and does it matter if you have a plywood box and a mdf door?
I see some guys make the rails and stiles for the door out of wood and the center of the door from mdf.
How much work is it to try to get the wood and mdf to look the same?
Why a 140 degree bit for the vbit?
nice job david

[gene]

Jack,
I ts common for the boxes to be plywood and the doors mdf on paint grade cabinets. Naturally if you are going to stain the cabinets then it will have a wood face frame and wood doors. On european cabinets there are wood end panels and wood veneer or edgebanding covering the plywood edges of the boxes. There are several bits you can use for the simulated raised panel doors but if you use a wide bit like a 140 deg bit you can do it in one pass or i should say with one bit ( no changes) Commonly the mdf doorss get painted but i have seen wonderful results with stain or glazing on them. there have been photos posted and the doors looked great. I guess some of us are more talented than others.

[gene]

Jack , Here is a free door program that has tutorial directions and is a very good way to let you see how to do doors out of mdf. Hope this helps
Gene





http://home.centurytel.net/bwclark/

[myxpykalix]

Gene,
I had seen the link before but had not used that program so i need to go back and take a look because this would probably be a good place to start before i graduate to ecabs! (NOT!)

Clearly i'm not going to emulate the quality of cabinetry of James McGrew or Kenneth Rychlik or David Marcotte or any of the other talented cabinet makers who are giving me great advice on my first endeavor but i probably would not even consider this project without the help i'm getting here.

[coach]

emulate me? haha. you mean your bot can't emulate mine ?!?!
I am a welder by trade, I don't make cabinets my shopbot does.
The door goes like this Jack.....
28 x 19 outside dimension of this door. offset inward 2", offset that inwards 1.5" then v carve between the 2 vectors. There you have a simulated raised panel door. The 140* did it 2 passes at 3 IPS.
I used primer / sealer on the outside cut and the v cut. Light sand when dry (220) Then wipe with denatured alcohol. Paint or stain.

The wood stile and rails with MDF raised panel are more common than most homeowners realize.
I don't use them for commercial apartments due to labor cost.
If you are doing 1 set of cabinets just lay them out in PartWorks.

[navigator7]

David,
I looked up the word "stile" and its a stair to allow people but not animals to pass.

I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage? ;-)

I'm thinking it's a rail mounted on the wall to hang the cabinets???


Nice line: "I am a welder by trade, I don't make cabinets my shopbot does."

Can I borrow it?

I got a rusty tank to cut today, in the rain, with insulating material that may or may not be asbestos.

....and we turn this thing into a snow melter to give a hospital back parking spots after a snow storm.

I'm a dreamer by trade but somehow things happen.
;-)

[coach]

Chuck, what is snow???? actually I am from the Boston area. so I know too well.
stile and rail door.....it is a wood frame about 2" wide with a raised panel or a flat panel in the middle area. As in the photo I posted about 3 from the top of this topic. Those are mitered doors.
The horizontal piece is the "rail" the vertical piece is the "stile"
If it has mortise and tennon joinery it is also called cope and stick. but still has stile and rails.

[navigator7]

Gotcha!

Snow = Employment

Snow goes in the top and water comes out the bottom.
Kinda like our government....
Oh, never mind.
;-)