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Building Base Cabinets For Kitchens

Building Base Cabinets For Kitchens - part three

Now that all the plywood pieces have been cut, (and labeled), it's time to start the processes needed to turn them into usable cabinet parts. Plywood has it good side and it's not so good side, (kinda like people). While cutting the sheets, we keep an eye out for extra nice pieces, which we will use on exposed areas. That generally is the end of a cabinet run, or a tall pantry cabinet. We keep track of these nice pieces, via the labels, to ensure they end up where we want them.

Using Furniture Grade Plywood

For all the cabinets that are not on exposed, we'll use the better side facing the interior of the cabinet. I will stack all the cabinet sides, tops, and bottoms, on a table next to the workbench. Then after checking the label, I will rabit the back edge of every piece. I use a D handled router, equipped with a 3/8" rabit bearing bit, and rabit the edge for the backs. This makes very quick work of it. I could use the table saw, equipped with a dado blade, but I find that the router is more accurate. This is due to any slight warping in the plywood, and the router, with a smaller base will follow the warp. The table saw with a hold down device, such as the new Featherbow system, will prevent the plywood from lifting off the table, but I find the router to be much quicker. Plus, the position on the table saw is not close to the bench where all the other processes are done.

After the rabits are finished, we edge band any exposed edges. The workpiece is held to the edge of the bench with the vacuum system, (see vacuum systems pg. 1), which quickens the process immensely, but any method of holding the piece in a position that permits easy access the edge works just fine. After applying the edge banding, we trim the excess of, and then, using a laminate trimmer, and a 1/16" radius bearing bit, we ease the edges. This prevents the edge banding to get snagged and torn off.

We do have a small edge banding machine, but the guys in the shop prefer to use an iron designed for edge banding, because it flows better with our setup. I've kept track of the time involved, and it is faster overall, considering the radius work is being done at the same time.

Written by: Lee A. Jesberger © 2006 - 2010
Inventor of: Ezee-Feed Systems ®

Building Kitchen Cabinets
Expert advice from start to finish When you build your own cabinets you’re not just saving money. You also can improve upon the materials and construction used in factory-made cabinets, and get ..

Building Kitchen Cabinets