Kitchen Cabinets - New Door Stiles & Rails

Bill Satko

Member
Messages
3,207
Location
Methow Valley
Preamble

Our home has been steadily "improved" since we bought it new about 10 years ago. What remains though are the terrible melamine kitchen cabinets with their embarrassedly inadequate drawer slides. The doors and drawer fronts are great, it is just the boxes that are cheaply made. We are planning to sell our house next year and are going to resurface the counters (with granite or such). The problem is that the diagonal corner wall cabinet started sliding down the wall, pulling the cabinets to either side down with them. No problem I told the boss (better known as the wife), I will pull them off the wall; take them into the shop; fix the problem cab and have them back by the end of labor day weekend.

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The problem?

I just could not make the necessary fix and put them back on the wall. I got to looking at how poorly the cabs were assembled and convinced myself that since the doors and drawer fronts were fine, all I needed to do was to make new boxes and eventually new drawers (out of prefinished birch or maple), but use the existing doors and drawer fronts. Easy!

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The dumb part? That's me coming up with this idea with all that I have going right now. The dumber part? That's the "boss" thinking that it was a great idea. Of course the dumbest part was not deciding this course of action before I took the cabinets off the wall. The smart thing would have been to build the new boxes first and then empty the old ones. Now we have the following situation (that is only the portion of what was in the cabs!).

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My plan is to come up with construction details so that I can work up a cutlist before Saturday when I plan to go to Seattle and buy enough prefinished ply to complete these first 4 cabs. I will be having a few questions in the next day or two that I hope the more experienced kitchen cabinets makers can help me with. So in advance thanks for any input.
 
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I've got one better for you. LOML and I bought our first house in 1982. The kitchen cabinets were painted a dull yellow color with horrible ceramic tile for counter tops. We moved in July 4th weekend. I took the following week off for vacation. I convinced Glenna that I could build new cabinets with my Craftsman RAS. :eek: Wouldn't take long at all. So I demolished the kitchen down to the studs. Did the drywall and started back with the cabinets, moving the fridge 14" away from the outside wall, and making that a pantry. We got the counter tops on the Wed. of Thanksgiving. Her parents were to be here for Thanksgiving meal!!!!! It all worked out, even though it was a few more years before we decided on a door design that I was comfortable building. :eek:
So you aren't the only one that rips before building. At least you don't have to eat out as much as we did those 4 1/2 months!! On the bright side, Glenna learned how to cook a meal in the microwave rather than just heat food up in it.:wave::rofl: Jim.
 
Hi Bill :wave:,
Hopefully Chris and Todd to name a few will see your thread. "Jim O" is not far off from center. Too often we see the problem, realize the solution, and set about to fix it. In a perfect world you would be done by now:thumb::rolleyes:. You will do well. The cabinets you took out fit, use them if you can for the overall dimensions. Do the uppers before you decide to disrupt the lowers in my humble opinion.
Shaz :)
 
Bill wish I could say, "been there done that", but I can only say, "been there STILL THERE!!!!!!!!!!". Yep pretty understanding wife and living with plywood cabinet shell that actually is the prototype!
 
hey bill,

well let me add a "smarter" to the equation. at least you have the nerve to try and tackle a project like this and improve the quality of your cabinets. not everyone has the "know how" or the time to do such things.

i believe you will be suprised how easy it can be with a well laid out plan and execution. in my opinion doors are the hard part, and you already have some examples of the boxes to go off of.

ask any questions you need to, i am confident one of the fine folks here will be able to offer assistance.

good luck.
chris
 
Jim, Rennie and Jonathan

Thanks for the "been there, done that" confessions. Misery does like company. I actually had a good first plan, a quick fix and back they go. But I never felt comfortable about about these cabinets and once I pulled them from the wall, I knew I had to do the job right. It needed to match with everything we have done so far and what we planned. I should have realized my tendency in these things and planned from the start to replace the boxes. Then I would have built some boxes first (without tearing the kitchen apart) and then make a swap. Now I am under the gun to quickly replace what I have torn down to bring order to my wife's mind, which directly brings peace to my mind. Trust me on this. Once I get these replaced, I will slowly bit off portions of the eventually total replacement.

Chris & Robert

I do plan to use the existing cabinets to determine my sizes, as I will be using the existing doors and hardware. The existing cabs are built with some dowels, some screws , but mostly just nailed and all the joints are butt joints. So in addition to changing from particle board to plywood, I am going to strengthed the boxes by improving the construction method. That is the part I am trying to work out...my method of construction. And Yes, I plan on doing the uppers first before getting around to the lowers. I will be doing this in segments in order to minimize disruption and also because I only have so much space in the shop (not enough to have a complete kitchen stored there).

Tod,

Thanks for the link to Roo glue. I have heard others refer to this glue, but have not run across around here. My plan is to buy prefinished clear maple or birch plywood and build the boxes. The boxes are euro style and I will stay that way because of the existing door hardware (I prefer face frames because of the added strength). I will edge the ply with wood painted white (the cabinet exteriors are white), and I am leaning to glued and screwed rabbet and dado joints. Would you use the Roo Clear in this case?

Larry,

If hunting season was not coming up, I would be worried about you popping your head in the door checking on my progress. You do seem to get around. Besides, you know where I keep the Newcastle Ale! Don't worry about me not getting fed. You will notice that I kept a clear path to the barbecue and the fridge. I may be dumb, but not THAT dumb.
 
Change in Plans

It has been two weeks since my last post about building new kitchen cabinets and I have not cut one piece of wood for them!

I wanted to get that out of way. I have my reasons and no I am not trying to challenge Ned for the longest running project. :)

I have actually been very busy getting prepared to cut that piece of wood! I will attempt to explain what I have been doing. Normally it would all seem very reasonable and justifiable as to why it is taking me this long to just start this project. The problem is that Stu is over there in Japan tearing down entire apartment buildings, battling city hall, and the local fire department all in a few days. In the time it has taken me to write this out, he has probably rebuilt the aparto!

Well enough of that, time to get to my reasons (excuses). On Saturday (August 30) I went to pickup my sheet goods. I found out that my sources for pre-finished birch plywood dry-ed up in Bellingham and I had to travel down to Seattle. We survived the trip and returned with 5 sheets of 3/4 and 2 sheets of 1/4.

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Now I had all this material and I needed to figure out where to put it. This made me to do a hard assessment of what state my shop was in to pull this project off. I could work through the situation, but decided I did not want that kind of stress in my hobby, because then it would be more like my work. So we (the boss had to be consulted here) decided to get the shop ready so that this project could be pulled off as a pleasant experience.

First I hauled a full truck load of wood scraps that I have been saving for quite a while to the dump. Then a another truck load of "stuff" that had managed to sneak into the shop was hauled to a storage unit we have. Below are pictures of my cleaned up wood storage area. Further posts will highlight what else has been done to my shop space and some tool modifications that were needed.
 

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Moblie Woodworking Equipment

When I replaced my first table saw and jointer with the Jet tools seen in the photos attached in this thread, I really thought having everything mobile so that I could wheel it around, a great idea. Amazing what time and actually experience does to your opinions. My next shop and the machinery in it will not be on mobile bases. I have two reasons not to like them.

1. They move when you don't want them to. No matter how hard you crank down on the locks the table saw will move as you try to rip a sheet of ply. Boy is that a fun experience! Try chasing your table saw around with a sheet of 4 x 8 ply a third of the way through the cut.

2. Can you imagine what you are doing to the tolerances you have painstakingly worked at getting out of your machine. I cringe every time I move my jointer and tablesaw. The other thing is that my garage (shop) floor slopes and because of the mobile base, so does my table saw.

So what does this have to do with getting my shop ready to make kitchen cabinets? I have had a thought about fixing my tablesaw in location and yet still be mobile if I really needed to move it. I installed some drop in concrete anchors with my favorite tool the Bosch vibro hammer (use to be my Milwaukee sawsall). These drop in anchors sit below the surface of the concrete floor. You then install some all thread rod and use that to anchor anything down to the floor. The all thread can be unscrewed from the concrete sleeve at any time.

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I then drilled holes in my mobile base and installed the all thread rod. I then made some large wooden wedges and leveled my tablesaw into position in my shop. It is now perfectly level and will not move. I can still very easily remove the allthread and wedges and move the tablesaw if I want to. I should have done this a long time ago!

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Tomorrow I will continue with the improvements that I have made to get ready for building the kitchen cabinets.
 
When I replaced my first table saw and jointer with the Jet tools seen in the photos attached in this thread, I really thought having everything mobile so that I could wheel it around, a great idea. Amazing what time and actually experience does to your opinions. My next shop and the machinery in it will not be on mobile bases. I have two reasons not to like them.

1. They move when you don't want them to. No matter how hard you crank down on the locks the table saw will move as you try to rip a sheet of ply. Boy is that a fun experience! Try chasing your table saw around with a sheet of 4 x 8 ply a third of the way through the cut.

2. Can you imagine what you are doing to the tolerances you have painstakingly worked at getting out of your machine. I cringe every time I move my jointer and tablesaw. The other thing is that my garage (shop) floor slopes and because of the mobile base, so does my table saw.
Agreed!!:thumb:

I have my BS, jointer, and sanding station on wheels. The BS is really heavy and tends to stay put. The sanding station moves a little, but I can live with it. However, the jointer drives me crazy! :bonkers: No matter what I do it moves. Besides being a pain, it's dangerous. :eek: I must find a way to rearrange the shop so the jointer can stay put!
 
Agreed!!:thumb:

I have my BS, jointer, and sanding station on wheels. The BS is really heavy and tends to stay put. The sanding station moves a little, but I can live with it. However, the jointer drives me crazy! :bonkers: No matter what I do it moves. Besides being a pain, it's dangerous. :eek: I must find a way to rearrange the shop so the jointer can stay put!

I agree about the jointer, same problem as the table saw. I also do not have a problem with the bandsaw on wheels. Of course in an ideal workshop (Marty size) you would have a station for each machine and no worries...right?:)
 
Re-Calibrating the Table Saw

Now that I have leveled and secured the table saw, I need to check and adjust the alignment of the saw. Sure enough, it did not like being jacked in the air with wedges and secured to the floor. The blade was no longer in line with the miter slots or the fence.

First I checked the shaft run-out. Just curious since I had my dial indicator out and I forgot what the old readings were. I did not expect a change and there was none.

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Next I readjusted the blade to the miter slots. I have a contractor saw and some time ago I had installed the Contractor Saw Pals that makes it much easier to adjust the rear trunnion. Easier, but still a pain.

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Then I aligned the fence to the blade.

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Everything is now all calibrated, so time for a fresh sawblade (have to send the old one to Forrest for sharpening) and a new insert. About 5 years ago I cut out half a sheet (4'x4' of 1/2" MDF) worth of inserts and I have them stacked away. So it is very easy to pop in a new one when needed.

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I have never really liked my switch on the table saw as it was hard to turn off. Lately it has become more difficult. I went over to Grizzly and bought a replacement paddle style.

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Now for a fresh wax job and everything is good to go.

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Because I changed the alignment of the tablesaw, I need to recalibrate my cutoff sleds. I also need to build a bigger panel sled, but that is for the next post.
 
New Panel Sled

As I mentioned in the thread above, because I realigned the table saw blade to the miter slots, I have to re-calibrate the fence of any sled that uses those slots. I also decided that I will need a bigger panel sled to crosscut the panels for the kitchen cabinets. This post deals with building that new sled.

The new panel sled will be based on my old one. I liked the design, especially the easily recalibration of the fence. I believe that I got this design from Popular Woodworking. As you can see from the photo of old sled, it uses a wood fence that is screwed to aluminum angle. This aluminum angle is bolted down to the MDF with 1/4" Allen head screws (sometimes known as socket screws). You use plastic washers to give a better grip.

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As you can see on the bottom, the socket screws secure to 1/4" wing-nuts installed in the MDF. The holes in the MDF are larger than 1/4" allowing for some adjustment of the fence before securing into position.

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You will notice above that I used UHMW for the runners in the old sled. It worked pretty good, but I decided to use Kreg's fixture bar in the new sled. I have Kreg's miter gauge and really like how you can adjust the fit in the miter slot.

Below is a photo of the new miter sled from the bottom. I have tape on the runner to protect it from shellac. I like to shellac my fixtures. The new sled bottom is 20" x 32".

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Below is the new sled's fence. I used a 1-1/4" x 2-1/4" x 50" long piece of Fir VG. The saw end of the fence will get trimmed once it is mounted and run through the saw. I like this arrangement because if the fence ever becomes "unflat" I can just remove the aluminum angle with the wood face and run it through the jointer. Wood side down of course!:)

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I am going to add an Incra T-Track Plus to the top of the fence so that I can add a scale and adjustable stop. I will then calibrate the sled and it should be good to go.
 
Update on Panel Sled

Waiting for me at home was a package from Amazon. Inside was one of two Incra T-Track Pluses that I ordered. Unfortunately it was not the 48" one that I needed for the new panel sled, but one I ordered for a future sled. I was interested to find out if the flip stop off of my Kreg Miter Gauge would work. I had cut the height of my new fence based on the height of the Kreg, hoping that I could use the flip stop (also hoping it would fit into the Incra T-Track). Well it does as you can see below!

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Since I was messing around seeing if this would work, I decided to relieve the bottom of the fence a wee bit in order to create a gap where the fence meets the base of the sled. It helps make sure that sawdust does not prevent the work from sitting tight to the fence. A side rabbet plane made the task very easy. Invariable I pull the wrong side rabbet plane and find I need to use the other one because of the grain. Well, my luck ran true to form.

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One more post to go to catch up to where I am currently at in this pre-project work.
 
New Electrical Work

My garage is like probably all garages built, not enough power or lights. I have one circuit in the garage that runs all the lights, the two outlets and the garage door opener. I do not remember when I turned our garage into a shop (8 years?), but in all that time I have used one extension cord to power an assortment of machines and tools. The band saw, drill press, shop vac and air compressor are all near one outlet and by using a three way splitter I am able to have them plugged in at all times. The router table, planer, jointer, tablesaw and any electric hand tools are run off the one extension cord. I spend most of my woodworking time running around with the extension cord plugging in equipment. Invariable I get in position with a piece of wood and push away at the start button to realize the machine I am working on is not plugged in.:bang:

And if it is plugged in, it does not take much to flip the breaker. I have acquired the skill to walk through a totally cluttered shop in the dark and flip the circuit breaker on (remember the lights on the same circuit). I also got many scars on my shins before acquiring this wondrous skill!.:doh:

Soon, I will no longer have to worry about all that. A couple of months ago, I bit the bullet and reached an agreement with a electrician that we have had do some small jobs for us, to wire up the shop with outlets and some more lights. He was busy at the time, but said he was free in September. I forgot all about it until the wife reminded me that this was the week he was coming.

Yesterday he showed up and completed the work you see. He will return tomorrow to finish it up.

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Basically he is adding a sub-panel with 110V 20Amp circuits (one on each wall), three 220V 20Amp outlets (but he is pulling 10 gauge wire so I can upgrade to 30Amp later) and two more light fixtures. He has all the boxes on one wall, but only one box one the other, it will be filled with boxes when he is finished. I also had him add an overhead box. No investment in any tool has ever made me feel so giddy. Unless you have gone through working off of extension cords, you can never know the feeling.

So this where I am currently at. I am glad I have taken the time to get the shop ready to pull off this project. Actually building the cabinets is a no brainer, just a bunch grunt work, but know I will enjoy the drudgery a little better and I am in a position to do more interesting work. This weekend...kitchen cabinet building!
 
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Congrats on the electrical upgrade. :thumb: My shop went through a similar upgrade last winter, and it sure is nice having ample power. I had a single 15 amp circuit for my whole shop (not including lights), and it was shared with the laundry machines. I couldn't run my table saw if the washing machine was running. :bang: Now I've got four 20 amp 110v circuits, two 20 amp 220v circuits, a 40 amp 220v circuit dedicated to the compressor, and a 15 amp outdoor lighting circuit. There's still some room in the subpanel, too.

I would have liked to add more outlets scattered around the room, but one wall is the roll-up door, and two others are covered with cabinets, so I only had one wall (and the ceiling) available for new outlets.
 
Ditto on the congratulations. This is one improvement that will pay dividends for a long time. You will never be sorry that you invested in better electrical service and more outlets.
 
Congrats on the electrical upgrade. :thumb:

Ditto on the congratulations.


Thanks Vaughn & Rennie. I attached some photos of the completed work. What I finally ended up with was four (4) 110V 20Amp circuits and three (3) 220V 20Amp circuits. The subpanel has 80Amps pulled over from the main panel. The outlet boxes with the cover plates are 220V except for the box right next to that strange spinney machine (concealed under a paint cloth in order to protect the innocent) which is just a spare box for some future strange spinney machine. I will install the 220V outlets when I decide what type to get. That shot of the ceiling is where I am going have a drop down plug-in.

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This last photo is all the extension cords and splitters that were one duplex outlet.

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It will take a while to get use to the fact that I have plenty of power. I turned on the compressor and found myself getting ready to walk over to the panel and flip the breaker back on...habit I guess
 
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