How to Build Cabinets in under 30mins //The Easy Way

what do you mean I can't buy any more tools we don't have any money oh so we do have a little bit of money left okay well good because I was going to I was telling you about last week that I was trying to get what do you mean I can't get it how am I supposed to run a YouTube channel with no tools babe come on okay I guess we'll just have to talk about it later this this is ridiculous I can't I do not understand why in the world you would rather get groceries than me buy new tools whatever I'll talk to you later bye oh my God oh shh [Music] yo welcome to my YouTube channel want to learn how to build a cabinet carcass well in this video I'm gonna teach you exactly everything you need to know from point A to point B on how to get to this beautiful cabinet carcass so if this is something that interests you stick around let's go all right the first step I like to take is breaking down my plywood into manageable pieces makes it a lot easier when it comes to the table saw I don't have to run a full four by eight sheet through it so I like to do this by using a track saw and a piece of foam board yeah foam board but you can use a skill saw with a straight edge or however else you feel like breaking it down you can even beat The Hulk and run it through your table saw if you're super strong but I'm not look at me I'm like a string bean so next step is whisper sweet nothings into your plywood's ear get no response and just grab the sheet off the front because it's probably the easiest one to get to all right and the next thing that I like to do is measure my sheet of plywood and cut it a little bit larger than I typically need that way I can cut it to exact dimensions on the table saw and then I like to get a straight edge and draw a line for a reference just makes it a little bit easier when I'm putting my tracks all down and here's a shot of me walking around my shop like I have nothing better to do going after my track saw I mean look how slow I move like holy crap dude but yeah we get it you got a Craig track saw wow really another shot of you walking away from the camera this is ridiculous alright now that we've finally made it back to the plywood I'm actually going to cut out my plywood now this step is pretty important you want to get a straight edge that way you can square up the other side on your table saw and this is why I say I cut my piece a little bit larger than I typically need just so I can make sure everything is good and square and we'll do that on the table saw and here's a shot of me playing with the fence on my table saw I mean very slowly I don't know why I really put the shot in here but it's for viewing pleasure as you can see I'm going to cut it down to 34 and three quarter because I will have a inch and a quarter piece of granite going on top to make my final overall height at 36 inches which is typical for your lower cabinets height and this is why I say I always cut it a little bit larger than I need that way I can clean everything up on the table saw because you're going to get a lot better accurate cuts on your table saw and the next measurement we're going to cut is cutting our plywood down the middle now first cut I'm going to do is cut this at 24 inches which is pretty much right down the middle and then what we're going to do is cut it one more time at 23 and a quarter and why 23 and a quarter well we're going to put a three-quarter inch thick face frame on the front that way it will bring our overall depth of this cabinet carcass to 24 inches which is once again pretty standard for your lower cabinets after you cut your sheet right down the middle and you have two 24 inch pieces we're going to do exactly what I said just a second ago and move the fence one more time and cut it at 23 and a quarter once again allowing for a three quarter inch face frame to give our overall cabinet depth at 24 inches and here's just me cutting some plywood down enjoy foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] so after watching that sweet clip of me cutting the plywood down on my table saw we should have two cabinet sides which are the exact same and that really dude we got so much work to do get up God he's lazy but now what we want to do is determine what we want the inside to be and the outside to be now for me it doesn't really matter because I'm going to have three drawers you're never going to see the inside and this cabinet will be sandwiched between two other cabinets but for you it could be different you may have one side that's going to be exposed so put the best side on the outside now as I just showed you I'm using the woodpeckers Edge Rule and this is the part where we're going to be doing the toe kick and you want to make sure when doing these toe kicks that you're going to have a book match set meaning when you fold them up the toe kick should be on the outside of each piece and I'll show that here in a little bit but typically I like to do my toe kicks at four inches by four inches just makes it simple because I don't have to think about the three and a half and the four but generally your toe kicks are either between three and a half to four inches but like I said four inches just keeps it simple and I don't have to remember what I did on one side versus the other once you have those marked just stick them to the side now here's the part where we're going to be cutting the bottom of the cabinet carcass at this point you can make this any size that you need for me I'm doing a 24 inch cabinet now I know the inside dimension of my 24 inch cabinet needs to be 22 inches but I'm cutting this three quarters of an inch longer than I need because there will be a dado for this bottom to slide into and I'll show you that here shortly it'll make a lot of sense okay now the next step we're going to do is move your table saw fence to four inches now this will be used to cut stretchers for your cabinet carcass and these will also add strength to the cabinet as well as give you place to screw your cabinet into the wall because you really typically don't want to try to screw through a quarter inch backing and hit a stud with that because that really does absolutely nothing so here's me just cutting down the strips and you will need four of these and this will make a lot of sense once we actually start building the cabinet but just make sure you cut four now these don't have to be exactly four inches you can do three and a half but I recommend doing four now that we have the pieces cut we can kind of go over and make sure we have what we need we should have all four stretchers we should have the bottom panel and the two sides yeah now that we have all our pieces cut we're going to want to cut a dado Groove in our pieces for the back panel and here I am using a 3 8 inch setup block that you cannot see because I put the camera in the most random worst spot you could possibly put it but rest assure I'm setting my blade at 3 8 of an inch height and what we're going to want to do next is take a piece of a scrap wood that is the same thickness as your stretchers and move it all the way up to the blade now this will allow our stretchers to be on the back side of our panel that's going to be the back of our cabinet and it'll make a lot of sense once you kind of see it to come together just trust me on this now that you have your saw set up you're going to want to run the bottom panel both sides of the cabinet and one stretcher through now in order to accept a quarter inch panel you will have to run these pieces twice if you do not have a dado stack and I recommend you sneak up on the thickness you need by taking a off cut of a quarter inch piece to make sure it fits nice and snug but you don't want it too snug it should be able to move freely and here I am just cutting everything through once and because I'm lazy and don't want to put a dado in mind I'm gonna have to do the same thing but I don't think it's necessary to show you guys the footage of that because I think you should understand pretty simply how to just move your fence and cut another cut to get yourself a quarter of an inch and once all your grooves are cut this is what you should be left with and here's me just testing the quarter inch panel see it slides nice and freely but not too tight and yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah unnecessary just unnecessary now that we have all the grooves cut for the back panel now we have to cut the dado in both sides two except the bottom of the cabinet carcass and I like to put a dado in there just because I think it adds a little bit overall strength to the cabinet you don't necessarily have to I've seen people just run screws straight from the side and screw the bottom panel in and I mean if you don't want to take this extra step you don't necessarily have to but to me I just think it makes the cabinet even look better and I think it adds overall strength to the cabinet so here I am just setting up my dado now I know the exact thickness of my plywood with my dado set you may have to make a few test cuts to get the exact fit but in the end you should get a fit that's not too tight kind of like the back panel slides a little bit freely but you don't want it too big to wear it's sloppy and floppy tibetanus round sloppy and floppy huh I might have to use that now as you just saw I used a 3 8 inch setup block because that's how high I want the dado blade to be and we're going to go four inches off our table saw fence and that will allow the kick plate for the bottom now take your time when you're cutting this because it's a little tricky and can be a little scary for people who's never used a dado stack but you have a lot of blades spinning at once coming right at you kicking up some dust so just take your time be careful and keep even pressure along the board and you should be fine we're only making this cut to both sides of the cabinet carcass and you're making it on the end where you drew your lines for your toe kick and I'll take a quick shot of that in a minute and you'll see what I mean [Music] and with the dados cut we should have both our side panels for the cabinet and they should look just like this we've got our groove for the bottom and we've got our groove in the back for the rear panel rear panel it sounded weird okay back panel now that we have all the dados cut we're going to cut this line right here which will reveal our toe kick yep right there we get it uh-huh yeah keep tapping yep no no no no no no no good okay now for this step I prefer to use a jigsaw but some people use band saws but to me it's just easier to get down and dirty with a jigsaw but I do like to use a straight edge that way I have nice straight lines for my toe kicks and here I am just cutting down my line for the first cut and then what we're going to want to do is spin around and get an overhead shot you want to cut the bottom of your dado I stress this very very hard the bottom of the dado I've made the mistake many times cutting at the top of the day though but you don't want to do that and once you make the cut you should be left with a piece that looks just like this and here's another shot of me doing the exact same thing to the other side do you really need to see it no but I recorded it so here you go now that we have our toe kicks cut out we can see we have our dados for our bottom panel the dado for our rear panel our back panel and perfectly book Matched sides oh God a little bit of dust got my eye oh and now that you see we have both side panels cut perfectly matched we can move on to the next step but before we do that I do want to show you guys that my bottom panel does fit the dado Groove that I cut and here is a clip of me showing just that beautiful but goodness gracious I could definitely use some lotion on them thingies [Music] and for the next step here I am just marking out some measurements where we're going to put pocket holes now a lot of people have their ways and their thoughts about pocket holes but I'm gonna tell you for cabinet building pocket holes are absolutely perfect for this now I'm going to be using my Craig Foreman but if you do not have a Craig Foreman you can use a Kreg Jig similar to the one I'm showing here it does just as good a job just may take a little bit longer now here's some shots of me using the Craig foreman and I highly recommend if you're going to be building any kind of cabinets with any kind of regularity you should get one of these because doing pocket holes is a breeze with this machine I'm telling you it is night and day from going to an old school one versus this one now that we have the pocket holes drilled The Next Step I like to do is go from the bottom of each side of the cabinet and I Mark a line four and three eighths now this is a reference line for when I drill countersink holes for the screws that will attach my sides to the bottom panel and here I am just adding some glue to the dado to help secure the bottom panel in I mean we're going to be screwing it in but glue also adds a little bit of string and what you want to do is take your bottom panel with the groove match towards the back on the side panel and just put that thing right on down there in that Groove just like so you want to make sure it's lined up at the front and the back as well and once you get it all lined up we'll go ahead and apply some glue to the other side very carefully I mean just look at that focus on me then saying how focused I was putting that glue down but anyway so now we're going to go ahead and stand it up we're going to go ahead and set it inside of this groove and as you can see the cabinet is starting to take a little bit of shape and with a little bit of struggle a little bit of Wiggle a little bit of stress because I'm on camera a little bit of tap tap taparoo God I am struggling a little bit okay there we go yeah we want to beat the side of it a little bit tap it all in place get lined up nice and good and continue to beat it because apparently I don't have it locked up yet where it needs to be [Music] if I got it yet no we're gonna tap this side now okay wow this is a very long clip I've kind of ran out of stuff to say oh okay finally now that we have the bottom panel in our dados that we made we're going to take a clamp and we want to go ahead and put a clamp on the front and once you get that locked into place you're going to also put a clamp on the back cue the shot of me putting it on the back here we are and once you get all your clamps where they need to be and everything is nice and tight we can move on to the next step well I guess before we move on to the next step let me just double check and walk around the front as you see me doing here and make sure everything is still lined up and everything is good to go now that we have our cabinet is clamped up we can go ahead and move on and start pre-drilling holes in the sides of the cabinet to accept our screws to lock the bottom panel in place now there's really no Rhyme or Rhythm to this you can do three you can do four I typically like to do four because I've done three a few times and had nightmares all night long so now that I do four I sleep like a baby at night and with all the holes pre-drilled we're gonna go ahead and run some screws in there and go ahead and lock this thing down and what we're going to do after this is do the exact same thing to the other side but I'm not going to talk through it so just watch it enjoy [Music] thank you and now that we've finished that last step we can finally see it starting to take shape a beautiful cabinet carcass in its natural habitat lovely and quickly realizing that we are not done yet I get right back to work and we are measuring for the back panel right now and just keep in mind when you cut this back panel that you have to add 3 8 on each side of the back panel and 3 8 to the bottom with our measurements in mind the next step we want to do is go to our table saw and cut down our back panel now when I cut down this back panel I typically like to make it a sixteenth of an inch smaller on the top and the bottom and in doing this it just allows for seasonal change and just makes it overall a little bit easier to slide into the dados that we cut in our cabinet pieces [Music] foreign [Music] now that we have the back panel cut we can take it around to our cabinet carcass and hopefully get the fit we were looking for should slide in semi-snug but should be able to move freely just like you see here in this video clip and with a little bit of persuasion on the bottom to get everything lined in should drop right in place just like so and if it fits like that then well hey you deserve a thumbs up and when we get that part complete we want to go ahead and get the four stretchers that we had cut previously one two three and four now what you want to do is measure the inside of your carcass so you can cut your stretchers down to size and with that measurement we'll head over to the miter saw and I'm going to use a stop block that way I know I can cut everything the exact same if you don't have one that's fine just measure twice cut once and we'll go ahead and roll some footage of me cutting down the stretchers [Music] now that we have all of our stretchers cut to size we want to go ahead and put pocket holes in them now I put two pocket holes on each end of all the stretchers and on three out of the four stretchers I will come back and run them horizontally which is you'll see here shortly those pocket holes will be used to attach the face frame as well as attach other cabinet pieces together and what it pretty much does is just locks everything together so the cabinet can't shift it can't move and it'll essentially just keep everything nice and square but if it doesn't make sense right now you'll see here shortly just hold on I'll show you I promise and oh I guess I had more pocket holes to do didn't realize it but anyway here's some more shots of me doing more pocket holes and with the pocket holes out of the way we can finally bring them into our cabinet and start installing them and as you see here these stretchers also act as like nailer strips where you can run your screws from the inside and add strength to screwing them to the wall and overall they add strength to the cabinet to keep the cabinet from racking or twisting or anything during the installation so one of your stretchers will go here at the bottom and we're going to lock the two sides in with the screws and also we're going to lock the bottom panel into this stretcher as well so this definitely adds strength to the cabinet and on the next stretcher we are going to put it on the back remember that Groove that we cut in that one well yep that goes right there on top of the back panel and should slide in just like so and what we're going to do to make sure we get everything lined up and in place we'll add a clamp that way when we screw this in it can't shift or move we want all this to be perfectly square and perfectly level with the top and once we get everything exactly where we want it to be and it feels like it's in the right spot we'll go ahead and lock that thing in now I didn't show me putting glue on all this but glue is a must when you're building this together because as screws act as clamps the glue is the actual bond that holds it together now with that one installed we can move to the other stretcher that goes on the back side and now this one will be screwed in to the top stretcher along with being screwed into the two side panels now at this point you should be able to tell that this cabinet is becoming very sturdy and starting to take shape now some people will say that you don't need all these stretchers and however that can be true this is just the way I build mine and I've never had an issue I'd rather over build than under build and have to do it twice and with that one installed we can finally move on to the last stretcher now this one will be placed at the front you want to make sure it's flush with the sides of your cabinet and the top of your cabinet once you get everything lined up you can go ahead and run some screws in there and secure it in place now that I have that done I'll go ahead and address the fact that I know some people will comment and say how do you know your cabinet Square you didn't use a square well I can assure you if all your equipment is set up to cut Square then if you build your cabinets like I just showed you I promise you they will be square like watch I'll show you right here as I slide this woodpecker 1281 in and boom squared thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign guys we did it we built a cabinet carcass well I guess I built this cabinet carcass but if you followed along in the video maybe you learned how to build a cabinet carcass and if you enjoy doing that and now you're wondering what goes on the face well you're in luck because next week I'm coming out with a video on how to build face frames for your cabinets so if you enjoyed this video maybe consider hitting that like button and subscribing to the channel I would greatly appreciate it and until then I'll see you next week yeah I gotta figure out where I'm gonna put this cabinet at oh beautiful

Channel: East Carolina Woodworks

Views: 1,718,892

Keywords: cabinet, construction, build, woodworking, kitchen cabinets, how to, woodworking projects, woodworking projects for beginners, build cabinets the easy way, how to build cabinets for bathroom

Id: Lqz-I8Ue4AI

Length: 24min 21sec (1461 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 27 2022