Breakfront Cabinet Project

good morning here's our version of the breakfront cabinet now it's called a break front because the center portion of the cabinet is brought slightly forward from the rest of it both at the top and at the bottom when we went to antique stores looking for some inspiration we found that they were either too large wide and tall or too ornate very fancy muttons in the doors and a lot of inlay work so I designed one that's a little bit smaller that'll fit in just about any sized dining room where with these glass panels in the top you can display your favorite China or glasses the drawers give you plenty of room for the silverware and the table linens and there's a little bit of storage on each end I built the eyes out of poplar poplar is a little cheaper than pine it machines beautifully and it's a little bit more stable it also takes paint great which is what we're going to do with this piece here I'm just dry fitting together a dust frame made out of 3/4 inch plywood now these frames do several things they go right here they join these side pieces together they support the dries and they keep the draw from tipping out as its opened there's also another frame all the way along the top of the cabinet all I need is a table saw to make them I've set the table saw up with my dado cutter just the two outside blades and I've set the height so that when I take a piece of the plywood and run it through I get a half-inch groove that's centered on the piece now it doesn't have to be exactly a quarter of an inch I'll match the tenon to the size of the groove okay now I'm going to add a couple chippers to give me the right tenon length now here's a test piece and the tenant is just a slip fit that's what I want now just run the pieces when it comes to the assembly a little bit of glue on the Tenon's and in the grooves and I will clamp it just long enough to install a couple Brad's at each joint to secure it while the glue dries let's look at our prototype again there are four vertical panels made up of glued up pieces of 1x6 poplar I've cut them to the right size there's one on the end a pair in the middle another one on the far end in the center the piano needs three dedos for the plywood frames and one for the fixed bottom shelf the top part of our breakfront has a solid tuck these little pieces here which form the breakfront need a rabbit to receive the top as well as the end panels the back of the breakfront is made up of quarter-inch birch plywood and that adds a lot of rigidity to the piece to conceal the edge so it doesn't show through the side I made a rabbet in all the side pieces while I have the dado in the table saw I've run some shallow dedos in the fixed bottom shelf and on the underside of the plywood frame at the top and that will help me keep the breakfront panels square let's look at the prototype again there's a series of holes in the end piano in the breakfront and in the lower cabinets to receive these little pins which are actually going to support the shelves it's the subject of numerous emails that we get how do I get a jig for these well you can buy one that's already made they're either plastic or aluminum and sometimes wood or you can make your own like I did here a piece of half-inch plywood with some 5/8 inch diameter holes one inch on center which match the collet on my router then you equip it with a quarter inch bit now for the panel's I want to make sure that the shells will be level so I lay out a horizontal line that's the same on all the pieces then I set a vertical line where I want the holes to go it's just a matter of routing them up let's look at our prototype again the next step is to notch the bottom shelf to give us that break front I like to make these cuts the table saw so that I get nice straight true cuts because the problem is I don't want to over cut these layout lines so what I do is bring the saw up a couple inches above the table slide the panel right up to one of the teeth which is right even with the table surface and then bring a line over to the fence now what I do is as I push the piece into the saw blade when I reach my layout line that's where I start and they won't have an overtime now I'm moving the fence over for the RIP cut and I always make sure that the waste material stays away from the saw blade I don't want it to get caught between the fence and the blade okay now I can finish it off with my jigsaw that's pretty good now I'm going to show you the sequence of steps for assembling the base cabinet first these dust frames now install the top frame the clamp is only there the hole the pieces in place while I put these screws now for the bottom shelf and that's installed just like the top frame now one of the end panels now I'm ready to start working on the upper part of our break front cabinet and I fight tip this back you can see that the countertop is part of the top section that makes it easier to take it apart and move it around the end panels and the little bump out pieces for the breakfront sit in stop dedos I've laid out the stopped dedos on the countertop I've set up a straight edge clamp and I've installed a 3/4 inch fit in my router just guide the router against the plan okay now that rabbit is going to receive the plywood back now that knotch that i just nibbled away with the saw blade is necessary so that this break front piece will conceal the ends of the day toes the same thing happens on the end panels okay let's see how that fits that's gonna be good with a slightly different setup I've made another small notch at the top of the breakfront pieces so that the top can fit around now it's the time to round over the edges for the counter top I can't do that once assembled they want to use my router all right for the assembly process drop in the ends first and I'll attach it with some screws from underneath now the top sits in the rabbits and I'll attach it with Brad's alright let's pop it back on this one now I'm starting to work on this cornice detail the first thing to do is put in some rails on to which the pieces will be nailed so I've taken some 1 by 6 applied some glue on the ends and we'll slide it in place and attach it with some nails now a rail that goes across the top of the breakfront and we'll be ready to start some moldings the first molding that I want to make is this lower one it's not a stock molding that I could pick up at my home center I could get the Scotia but I'd have to make this piece to put on top of it I happen to have a router bit called a multi profile bit which will do both in one pass the next piece I want to mill is this piece it's 3/4 thick 7/8 wide and has a little rabbit I can do that at the router these pieces will complete the cornets they go at the very top of the cabinet the profile on the edge is exactly the same profile I used on the counter the next piece is the one that goes between the lower and upper molding it's mitered at the corners and if you look at the section it's beveled at 30 degrees on each side with the edges parallel to one another all I need to do that is the table saw well we're at it let's make this piece it's a skosh of molding that gets attached to the underside of the counter and it gives it a look of a little more thickness okay now the bit that I'm using is a half inch co fit they've moved the piece closer to my miter box because I have numerous cuts to make on all these moldings mitering them around the corners I'll put some glue wherever the two pieces come together and attach it with some Brad's now I'm starting on the top piece of molding and the risk here is that this joint is going to open up but not if I put a biscuit and glue it in place now these bevel pieces are glued in place no biscuits on the corners just a few Brad's to hold it in place wow this is the last piece for the cornice let's put it up on the base and see what else we have to do okay that's going to look fine now before I leave tonight I'm going to take this Scotia molding and install it on the underside of this counter tomorrow we'll make doors and drawers and paint the project good morning come on in I've been expecting you and we got a lot done yesterday this is a big project and we have a lot to do today I'm starting with this base and one by six that wraps around the bottom all the joints are glued mitered and held together with biscuits just like the cornice clamps are a big help in pulling this joint together okay now this half inch quarter round dresses up the base now a few rails to cover all the edges of the exposed plywood they just made a little tenon on the end to fit to the dado if I don't install these 3/4 by 3/4 cleats the draw has a tendency to tip down as it's open well now it's time to make the doors for our break front there are four doors at the top which will have glass panels and there's two doors at the bottom that have a plywood panel a quarter-inch plywood panel there's a slight og detail on the Stiles and rails let me show you how I make them let me show you how the door goes together there's a style piece and a rail piece and that's the connection between the two I use a router bit set to make those two cuts the one that's in the table now produces the COPE cut on the ends of the rails the one that's in the box still produces the groove in that og detail that I showed you I start by coping the ends of the rail okay now I can swap bits run a test sample and then I'll run all the rails and styles the reason this joint works so well is all the glue surface area between the cope and each side of the tenon you have about six inches of surface area if this was a panel door that I was assembling at this point I would slip in the quarter inch plywood panel since this is the glass door all I have to do is slip on the other style and clamp it up once the doors have dried I want to remove some of the material from the original milling on the glass panel doors to do that I'm using my rabbeting bit when it's at its height in the collet and I want to make sure the router is locked down because if the bit drops it's gonna ruin my door with the router I'm left with these rounded corners to clean them out I'm just going to use a sharp chisel all right now it's time to build some drawers they're made up of half-inch medium-density fiberboard with the plywood bottom the first step is to put a groove in the four pieces for that bottom with the dado widens to a half-inch I've now plowed out a groove in the side pieces to receive the back here I'm beginning to form the dovetail joint between the side pieces and the front you've seen me use this dovetailing jig before I set the fingers for the spacing I want I've just run one of the side pieces which creates the tails here I've mounted the draw front on the top of the jig flip the fingers over and that allows me to machine the pins okay now for the assembly I put some glue on the pins and in the sockets just tap the pieces together okay now I drop in the quarter inch plywood bottom that's dry no glue and then slip the back piece in nail it up we'll be ready to make a draw front the draw front that gets attached to the box is made up of a piece of 3/4 inch birch plywood and then I wrap the edges with this poplar that has a rounded front I make that over at the router station I'm using a 1/8 inch radius beading bit I take quarter inch stock one pass is all it takes a little glue on the pieces and they get attached with Brad's and I carefully bihter each corner for a nice tight fit now we just take the box tip it up on to the draw front line it up where I want and tack it with a couple brats now that I know it's not going to move I can pre-drill put some screws okay let's try it out that's good now I have a couple shelves to make for the top and for the bottom that's pretty straightforward well sand it up bring it into the finishing room you've heard us say this before whenever we paint the project the first three steps are the most critical a very good sanding of everything and just knock the corners off any sharp edges then make sure that it's totally dusted off with a tack rag and use a very good primer I also want to make sure that the primer I use is made by the same manufacturer that makes the final coat so that everything is compatible now after the primer dried we send that everything and we like to use these sanding blocks they come in all different shapes this one has a bevel on the edge it's rounded square it has foam on the inside and the abrasive is on the outside they last a long time they don't tend to clog up so now we have a nice smooth base and I'm putting on the final coat which is a gloss latex now this exterior color is called Nantucket grey inside the cabinet we used ivory and down here on the lower cabinets we had a detail to deal with and that was where to cut the line off between the exterior and interior color so we chose the front edge of the door put some masking tape on and now we have a nice clean line after I finish up the second coat we'll be ready to put the doors back on for the upper doors I picked up some double strength glass from my local glass supplier cut it a little bit smaller than the opening that we need and I'm using this quarter inch quad around mitered at the corners to hold it in place held with some 5/8 Brad's you know all I do is mark these four lengths and if I tried to cut these with my power miter box it would just tear the molding up so I use this lion trimmer it's a bit like a guillotine just cut it off and then just a bit I'll shave off a tiny bit which will give me a nice tight joint okay a couple knobs on each of the drawers the knobs on the doors and the adjustable shelves installed you're looking at a break front cabinet now if you take your time and you do careful joinery I'm sure that you can get results as good as these

Channel: John Loonakle

Views: 64,541

Rating: 4.822844 out of 5

Keywords: ChillySunshine, CBSRMT, Woodworking, The New Yankee Workshop, Norm Abram, Breakfront Cabinet

Id: IM-JGBrvUHA

Length: 23min 9sec (1389 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 10 2015