Refacing Kitchen Cabinets

[cubicdissection]

One more quick question. I was thinking about drilling the hinge mount holes before I glue the panels up. Any reason not to do this?

 

[Travis Porter]

Personally, I haven't done it, but I don't see any reason you can't.

One thing though. Make a sample out of plywood and mount it to check to make sure your placement is correct. Too close or too far from the edge can be trouble.

 

[Steve W]

You reference off the outer edge anyway, so that sounds like a great way to avoid having to balance the doors on the drill press!:icon_thum
Wish I had thought of that last time I made cabinets.

:kermit: Steve

 

[Gofor]

One more quick question. I was thinking about drilling the hinge mount holes before I glue the panels up. Any reason not to do this?

Reasons not to:

1. If your center clamp pulls the rail in just a tad during glue up the hinges will be out of line (especially on a 3 hinge door).

2. If your clamp up results in an unsquare door, or the fit is too tight, your options to trim are limited.

I know this never happens to the real woodworkers on this forum, but I like to leave myself as much room for novice error as I can:gar-Bi

Go

 

[cubicdissection]

Yet another question!

I was checking out the drawer fronts and they are attached with square socket screws, two per drawer. Thing is they look like they were installed on site, and the spacing is not uniform. So, I can't predrill the drawer faces in my shop. What's the best way to screw these suckers on there when come install time? I'm thinking about using the same screws and pulling them out until the tip barely protrudes. Get the drawer front situated, tap it and use the indentations as a drill guide. I'm worried about perfect alignment using this method though.

I'm sure there's a better way; love to hear it if you know of one!

Yeah, I know I should make new drawers, but I think I'll wait until these start falling apart. Which they inevitably will since they look to be melamane butt jointed, glued and stapled...yuk.

Maple should be in Monday; can't wait to get started.

 

[Canuck]

Yet another question!

I was checking out the drawer fronts and they are attached with square socket screws, two per drawer. Thing is they look like they were installed on site, and the spacing is not uniform. So, I can't predrill the drawer faces in my shop. What's the best way to screw these suckers on there when come install time? I'm thinking about using the same screws and pulling them out until the tip barely protrudes. Get the drawer front situated, tap it and use the indentations as a drill guide. I'm worried about perfect alignment using this method though.

I'm sure there's a better way; love to hear it if you know of one!

Yeah, I know I should make new drawers, but I think I'll wait until these start falling apart. Which they inevitably will since they look to be melamane butt jointed, glued and stapled...yuk.

Maple should be in Monday; can't wait to get started.

One thing that has worked for me in the past with this type of drawer front is to put a piece of double sided carpet tape on the back of the drawer front and just stick it to the drawer box.:widea: The tape will allow for a little 'wiggle room' to get the front aligned. Then pull out your handy-dandy brad nailer and just pop about 2 brads through the drawer box into the drawer front. Now you should have it square and secure enough to drill four pilot holes and screw the box to the drawer front.

Worked ok for me in the past.

Wayne

 

[cubicdissection]

Hey great idea Wayne.

Don't have a brad nailer. Are those electric or do you need a compressor? My shop one is a tab large to haul to the house

 

[Canuck]

Hey great idea Wayne.

Don't have a brad nailer. Are those electric or do you need a compressor? My shop one is a tab large to haul to the house

I just have a little Porter Cable pancake that I use with my brad and pin nailers. It's one of those little noisy oiless units, but I find it very handy around the house.

Wayne

 

[Gofor]

I have "picked up" hole locations in situations like this by using the largest drill bit that will slide through the screw hole and running it about 1/32" into the clamped on face piece, (double sided tape sounds like it may be better for getting the initial placement, but I have also used clipped off small finish nails). You are only wanting to hit the face with the bit enough to get a centered hole. You can twist it by hand if necessary but a power spin gives a better divot for centering the drill press bit.
I have also used the "Tap the screw" method, but the screw usually will skew off a little resulting in an off-center mark that is also harder to center a bit in.

As for remote air tool operation, I have four 50' sections of air hose that can get me from the garage (er.. shop) to most places in the house.

JMTCW

Go

 

[cubicdissection]

Hmm...my shop is about a mile away, so I don't think the hoses would work (although it would be humorous to try!).

I see that electric ones are available...are they any good? I'm gonna be doing some hardwod floors soon, not much, maybe 80SF, but I'm thinking this would be a pretty handy tool to have.

 

[Steve W]

Two-sided tape to hold into initial position, then gently pull out and clamp the front to the drawer box. Now you can drill your pilot holes and get it into position. Use pads so that you don't mark anything up.

:kermit: Steve

 

[Bas]

What's the best way to screw these suckers on there when come install time?

I've been struggling with this one too. Brads and tape work, but are not always an option. I came across a video on Wood Magazine (I need to become their spokesperson....) that showed a clever technique.

Basically, you drill the holes on the drawer front for the hardware. This only really works if you have a "handle" (two holes), not a "knob" (one hole). After you've drilled these holes, position the drawer front against the drawer, align it, then drive screws through the hardware holes into the drawer. Make sure the screws don't poke all the way through the drawer side though. So, if the front is 3/4" material and the drawer is 1/2" material, use 1" screws to be safe.

Now remove the drawer (with face attached), and drill two pilot holes (with countersink) through the drawer into the drawer face. Drive in the screws. Remove the two temporary screws, and install the hardware.

Video: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid979295690/bclid1339078484/bctid1213998904
Drawer front section starts ~6:30.

 

[cubicdissection]

Dang Bas, that's the heat right there!

Found out the hinges I have use the Blum template. The two screw holes on the inside of the face use 8mm dowels. Do I need to use those dowels if I'm screwing into hardwood? If so, anyone know where I can buy them locally?

 

[Bas]

No idea if you need to use dowels, but if you do, Klingspor sells dowels in a variety of sizes. 8mm is ~5/16 (7.94mm). That should fit.

 

[rhett]

I have to put in my .02 cents on this one.

Having only curly rails will look great. Too much of a good thing, is too much of a good thing. An entire kitchen of curly panels will be hard on the eyes at best. Most architects speck exactly the method you chose for this reason.

Space balls in plywood, while not necessary for expansion reasons, give an ample amount "wiggle" room during assembly. Nothing is more frustrating than finding a panel a little too big, after you have glue on the ends of your rails. The space balls allow you to cut panels a little undersize and the balls center them in the frame.

Get a brad nailer and some 5/8 nails. You can shoot through the stub tenon from the back and go on to assembling doors. Unless you have about a thousand clamps and a lot of room for glue up, this is the fastest way to assemble kitchen doors.

 

[cubicdissection]

Thanks for the advice Brett. As far as the brad nailer, I may go that route but I was going to use my tried and true shortcut to not having enough clamps - 2" wide painters tape. It's got just a bit of stretch to it so you can apply some pressure and leave it for a day and just pull it off. I know, not as secure as clamping, but I'm super anal about joinery so everything is usually a light pressfit anyway. Everything large I have made in the past (all three pieces) was done using this, well I dunno if you can call it a technique, and it's all holding up prety well so far

I picked up the wood today, got to pick through about 150 BF to find my 50. Some of it has VERY dramatic figure, boardering on fiddleback. There's some color variation in the boards though, throughout the whole batch they bought in fact. Some more pink and some more white. My plan is to use the most highly figured stuff at eye level and up, and put the less figured below.

Should be able to make individual frames from the same board since I got 8 foot lengths and bought about 50% extra, so the figure will match. I'll have to do my best with the color variation, but hopefully after a couple months exposure they will all darken up a bit and it will even out.

I'm pretty excited to get started on this after all this talk! My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has chimed in so far - ya'll probably saved me a ton of mistakes already

 

[cubicdissection]

Thanks Bas - the dowels I was talking about are plastic and very proprietary to the Blum system. After some reading I have found out they do it that way so they can simply press the hinge in. I should be fine just drilling holes and screwing.