We finally got to the point in the build that I have been looking forward to since we decided to embark on this enterprise.  Of course, I am talking about building the cabinetry.

Warning: Since I know several regular readers are sawdust heads, for the next few weeks, while I build the cabinets, I will be going into more detail on the process than I normally do.  So, if you do not care about the finer details of how or why I build cabinets the way I do, please feel free to just skim the blog after you get the appropriate mental help for not being a sawdust head in the first place.

This week started off with me getting the rest of my machines unpacked, put together and tuned back to square.

I even got some of my favorite hand saws hung up in my shop.

These are not saws that I use on a regular basis.  A couple belonged to my favorite grandpa, one was my dad’s, one belonged to my grandpa’s best friend and a couple were my grandpa’s brother’s.  I know how to sharpen a hand saw and even have a swedge to set the teeth, so they are all razor sharp.  But I do not use them much.  I just like having them around.

I decided to start the cabinetry with the wall that must be exact.  The blueprints for the house call for a 36 inch corner cabinet followed by a 30 inch cabinet under the cooktop, followed by a 12 inch cabinet.  That would leave exactly 38 inches to fit a 36 inch refrigerator.  So I decided to make those three cabinets first.

The way I make cabinets, I always rough cut the plywood to height first using a circular saw.  I cut them about 1/4 to 1/2 inch long, then cut them to exact size on my tablesaw.

Then I cut out the toe kick.  In this case, I was able to reconfigure a dovetail jig that I made several years ago to cut the toe kick.

I made up a jig to route dados to hold the bottom of the drawer cabinets and a piece to mount the trim on the toe kick.  I obviously cleaned up the corners with a bench chisel.

The next step was to plow the dados to hold the pieces for the drawer glides.

The drawer glide manufacturer does offer a bracket that just mounts to the plywood on the back of the cabinet and the face frame on the front.  But since I am going with 100 pound drawer glides for most of the cabinets and the 200 pound drawer glides under the cooktop, I do not want their strength compromised by how I mounted them.  So crossgrain hardwood is the way I am going.

When building base cabinets, I like to make a pine frame that goes at the top of the cabinet.  It helps to keep everything square during glue up and adds a little more rigidity to the cabinet when installing it.  Obviously, I do not make them for the under-sink cabinet due to space constraints.  But otherwise, it is something I usually do.

Since the frame does not get much stress once the cabinet is complete and installed, I just put them together with a quick dowel joint.

The corner cabinet was the first carcass that I glued up.  A corner cabinet needs to have a plywood top since the top will be visible when the door is open.  I also need it to have a surface to mount the lazy-susan.

Every woodworker has a few things they do to make their work unique.  One of my “signature” things is to cover all the cabinet bottoms, drawer bottoms and shelf tops with Formica.  If you have never worked with Formica, it can be a challenge.  Until it is glued to a surface with contact cement, it tends to tear and chip real easily.

When I built the cabinets for our Minnesota house, I was able to buy Formica in sheets that were 25 inches wide and about 10 feet long.  The 25 inch width made them somewhat manageable to be able to rough cut them to size on the tablesaw, then cut them to finished width using a flush-trim router bit once the Formica was glued to the part.

Unfortunately, this time around, I was only able to get it in 4 by 8 foot sheets.  The 4 foot width makes it very difficult to manage on the tablesaw.   The first sheet I tried to cut on the tablesaw ripped into 6 pieces as soon as I started cutting it.  At almost $60 per sheet, I really do not want to make too many mistakes.  So I began experimenting with other ways to rough cut it.  I found using a tin snips works pretty well if you go slow.

Also, since the house is empty except for our tools, I decided to glue up the corner cabinet in the livingroom to avoid having to build the back corner with a 45 degree angle to fit it through a doorway.

That was when I noticed we have a bit of a problem with the 30 inch cabinet for under Tina’s cooktop.

The gas line for the cooktop comes out right at 30 inches!

My solution was to combine the cooktop cabinet with the skinny 12 inch drawer cabinet.  This allowed me to make the drawer cabinet 11 inches wide and expand the cooktop cabinet to be almost 33 inches wide and still leaves 37 inches for the refrigerator.  It will be close, but I am pretty sure it will work.

I also decided to not use the crossgrain oak for mounting the drawer glides on the left side of the drawers.  That allows me to make the drawers almost the same size that I had planned with my original design.  The drawers are small so I am keeping my fingers crossed that weight will not be a problem.

I have not yet done the final glue up on the drawer side of the cabinet as I am still waiting on the arrival of the drawer glides.  The drawers are too narrow to be able to drill the holes for mounting the drawer glides once the cabinet is glued.

Doing the cabinets this way is how I should have planned it in the first place since it will also allow me to do the face frames the old school way, where I have a single face frame that goes across the front of all of the cabinets.

It will also allow Tina to start finishing the insides of the cabinet carcasses as soon as I get them glued up.  Then I can make the face frame, doors and drawers and get those in place and she finish them separately.  So it should make finishing much easier as well.