How to Build Cabinets

I am starting a huge shop organization project and that means I need cabinets lots of cabinets in this video I'm going to show you how to build standard cabinets like this that can go in your kitchen your pantry or in my case my shop I'll show you how I build a carcass as well as the face frame and the doors and drawers now there is a ton of information to cover so let's get started to begin building these cabinet carcasses I need some 3/4 in plywood and some quinch plywood for the backs and later the drawer bottoms and the first thing that I need to do is break this plywood down into manageable chunks now one of my favorite ways to break down plywood is to use one of these centipede work holders with a piece of foam laying on top it's a quick and easy way to set up a horizontal work surface that allows me to cut all this plywood at a comfortable height and not be doing it down kneeling on the floor to break this down I'm going to be using my track saw now if you don't have a track saw that's just fine you can use a circular saw here instead uh you just need to make sure that you have some kind of straight edge to act as a guide for your saw and once I have all of my plywood blanks cut I can take them over to the table saw to cut them to final Dimensions you can see here that I'm not removing much material just really ripping off those ragged Factory edges so that I get nice clean edges on all my parts next I'll cut out a bunch of strips that are going to be used for the stretchers and the toe kicks and the stretchers here are all the same size at 4 in wide and the toe kicks are 4 and 1/2 in wide the next step is to cut a notch out of the bottom corners and this is going to be where the toe kicks go my favorite way to do this is using a band saw I just set my fence to my Mark and I cut until I reach the depth that I want and to mark that depth I'm using a MAG switch as a positive stop this is a great way to make sure that all of your cuts are repeated exactly the same so that your parts all end up alikee now another way to cut the out if you don't have a band saw is to use a jigsaw with a square as a guide you can see here that I just clamp everything down to my workbench and carefully run the jigsaw along the square and if you use a fine tooth blade on your jigsaw it really produces a nice clean cut on this plywood after The Notches are cut I need to work on cutting grooves in the sides of the carcass and this is going to house the bottom and the back of the cabinet and I'm just going to go ahead and draw a couple of quick reference lines here this is just to make sure that I cut these grooves on the right side of each of the carcass sides so that they mirror one another when I assemble the cabinet now one way to cut these is using a router bit I have a special router bit that is sized exactly for 3/4 in plywood which is going to give me a nice snug fit now since the bottom of the cabinet is going to sit just above the toekick I'm going to use the to kick itself to set the distance from the fence this will ensure a perfect fit with no gaps at the bottom of the cabinet and I don't have to measure anything each cabinet side is going to get one of these grooves now once those are cut I need to do the same thing but this time making a quarin Groove along the back of each side This Groove is going to sit just in front of the stretcher so again I'm going to use the stretcher to set the distance and this is another special router bit that is sized specifically for in plywood and keeping with our theme of alternate ways to do things if you don't have a router or a router table you can also cut these using a table saw you can use a set of data blades or you can do what I'm doing here and just use a single saw blade to make these cuts and take multiple passes and once I make the first cut I just move the fence a tiny little bit and make another pass sneaking up on the cut until the plywood fits perfectly into the datto okay one thing you should do now if you want adjustable shelves in your cabinet is to add the Shelf pin holes doing it right now is way easier than once you already have the cabinet built now with that the sides are done and it's time to build the carcasses I'm going to be using pocket screws as the primary joinery and so to do that I need to go ahead and add pocket holes to all the stretchers in my opinion cabinet construction is the perfect application for pocket holes they are plenty strong enough even without glue and they make building cabinets quick and easy to get started assembling the cabinet I need to add some glue to that bottom dado now this is the only place that I'm going to be using glue because I won't be using screws here I slide the bottom paddle into the dado and do the same thing on the other side before adding clamps next I'm going to go ahead and spin the cabinet around so that I can add the back stretchers now once the stretchers are in place I go ahead and clamp the heck out of them to make sure that they don't go anywhere and I screw them into place I then flip the cabinet onto its top and add two more stretchers now you'll notice that on that back stretcher I'm using a scrap of quarter inch ply as a spacer which is going to represent the back panel of the cabinet I'll show you what this looks like and why this matters in just a minute all right here we go another flip this time we're going to flip it onto its front so that I can add the drawer divider now to add the drawer divider I'm using two scraps of plywood that are the exact same size to act as spacers I can then just clamp the drawer divider to the top stretcher like this before screwing it into place now here's where you can see the slot that I created for the back panel to slide into and this is the reason why I use that quarin plywood as a spacer okay with all the stretcher is installed I can add the toe kick and this also attaches with pocket screws and this cabinet carcass is almost done the last thing I need to do here is to cut some quinch ply to use for the back of the cabinet and that just slides right into that pocket at the top and gets nailed into the back stretcher with a brad nailer and just like that we got ourselves a carcass now for this cabinet I build it with a spot on the top for a single drawer and a door on the bottom now for my shop cabinets I want a lot of drawer space so I'm going to show you how to modify this cabinet to make a four drawer version the cabinet is built the exact same way the only difference is the number of drawer dividers that you add after installing the first drawer divider I just use the spacers again and add a second divider and then a third using the exact same method spacing of the dividers is going to depend on how big you want your drawers to be I'm making mine with three of the drawers being the exact same size with a bigger drawer at the bottom now if you want to join two or more cabinets together into one unit the way to do that is to just clamp them together so that the edges are all flush and screw them from the inside of the cabinet in this case I put the screws in the four drawer side so that they're never going to be seen one benefit to combining cabinets like this is that you can make one face frame to cover them both and that's what I'm going to to work on next for my face frames I'm going to use hard maple to match the maple plywood that I'm using if you're going to be painting your cabinets you could also use popler as a slightly cheaper option here after I cut my lumber into rough blanks I go ahead and Joint one Edge to make sure that it's nice and straight and then I just need to rip all these down to final width my face frame will be mostly 1 and a/4 in parts to give me a/4 in overhang on both sides of the plywood and the part where the two cabinets meet in the middle will be 2 in I can then cut everything to length using a cross cut sled now again a miter saw could be used here if you don't have a sled for your table saw to join my face frame Parts together I'm going to use pocket screws again this is another thing that pocket screws are really good for because they're never going to be seen one tip I have for you if you're screwing into really hard woods like this Maple is to wax your screws to keep them from stripping or snapping off the heads another tip is to make sure that you clamp down each joint to keep the parts from shifting with pocket screws if you don't clamp that joint down tightly it will move on you and tip number three is to use a spacer to help you line up your face frame Parts evenly here I'm using that spacer to make sure that I get a proper distance between all my drawer dividers and that's pretty much it for making a face frame I give each of my face frames a good once over with 120 grit sandpaper and then 180 grit sandpaper and this is going to get rid of any of the mill marks on the Maple and it's also going to make sure that those joints are all nice and flush to attach the face frames to the cabinets I'm going to use glue and clamps now if I were going to paint the cabinets I would go ahead and use a brad nailer to fix the face frame I could fill the holes in before I painted it and you wouldn't see them but since this is going to be raw Maple I'm just going to go ahead and clamp them and wait for the glue to dry so that I don't have any visible nail holes on the face now when it comes to drawers you have a couple of different choices of material you could use Hardwoods like popler Maple or Oak which I would do if this was a project for my kitchen or a bathroom but for all other cases I like using 5/8 inch Baltic birch plywood I think it looks really nice all sanded up and finished and it works well for office projects pantries and other built-in projects or in my case shop cabinets after cutting up all the parts that are going to make the four sides of each drawer I need to cut a/4 in dat along one side this can be done using the table saw the same way that I cut the Dos in the side of the carcass to hold the back panel again I just slowly sneak up on the cut until the drawer bottom material fits snugly like this okay now I actually messed up by putting Doos in the drawer backs well I didn't really mess up so much as I just decided that I wanted to show you a different way to build the drawers I think this way is better so instead of having that dado on the back I want to go ahead and cut those drawer backs just above that dto this is going to allow me to slide the drawer bottom in from the back once the drawers are assembled you'll see what I mean in a minute to assemble the drawer lay out your parts with the grooves facing out your front and back parts will have the pocket holes in them and the sides won't arrange the parts so that the front and back sit inside the sides and clamp them together making sure that the Doos line up all the way around the drawer then just go ahead and screw everything securely together now you can just slide that drawer bottom into the grooves from The Backs side nice and easy sometimes a little tap here helps then you could just use screws or brad nails to fasten the bottom into place easy peasy lemon squeezy now for these cabinets I'm going to install full extension side mount slides to attach the slides to the drawer go ahead and set that drawer on a flat reference surface and set the slide on the same surface lining up the front of the slide with the front of the cabinet like this this is the easiest way I found to consistently install these draw slides on both sides perfectly then I go ahead and remove the part of the slide that goes inside the cabinet by pressing the little tab that releases the locking mechanism and they slide right off now to install these slides into the cabinet I get myself a piece of scrap plywood that is cut to the exact height of my first set of drawer slides on the top side of the cabinet I then just rest my slide right on top of that scrap and screw it into place I can move the scrap over to the other side and repeat that same process you'll also see that I'm using a quarter inch strip of plywood to act as a spacer so the slides won't be blocked by the face frame and after repeating that process on all my cabinets I take my scrap ply wood and I cut it down to match the height of the next set of slides I then install those the same way and then I measure for my next set and repeat that process all the way down the cabinet I can then pop my drawers into place and now we have something that really looks like a cabinet all I need to do now is dress up the front to begin making the frame and panel fronts I need to cut all my frame parts and again I'm going with hard maple all of these parts are going to be 2 in wide because that's what I think looks the best but this is really up to you what size you choose now after cutting all the frame parts to length I go ahead and add a/4 inch Groove down one side of each piece this is where the center panel is going to go I then need to cut a tongue or a Tenon on the ends of the top and bottom frame pieces these will be used to connect the frame together now to do this operation I'm using a special jig called a tenoning jig my tenoning jig attaches to the auxiliary fence of my table saw basically what a tenoning jig does is allows you to make these very precarious vertical Cuts safely and accurately on your table saw I'm also using a d stack here to make these Cuts mainly for Speed you can do this with a single saw blade but you'll need to make multiple passes which is just going to take a bit longer and this is what that tenant will look like isn't that awesome and I made it all on the table saw now for the center panels I like to use half inch plywood and I'm going to go ahead and cut a rabbit around all four sides doing this will allow the side of the panels to go into the grooves of the frame all right to begin building the door I go ahead and add glue to the tongues and insert them into the grooves on the frame sides I can then just slide one of those panels into place like this then I can end the final frame side with more glue and tap everything in the place before clamping it together I also like to go ahead and get rid of any of that squeeze out around the joints just Mak sanding a little bit easier later now to build the drawer fronts I do the exact same process just on a smaller scale now the benefit to using halfin plywood here is that the center panel will be flush with the back side of the frame this will help by giving you a completely flat back to Mount them to the drawers now once everything is out of the clamps just like the face frame I'm going to sand these to 180 grit to make sure all those joints are nice and flush all right the last detail we need to attend to is the drawer poles and the hinges I need to drill the holes for the drawer PES and I'm going to use this really cool jig to do it now there are a lot of jigs like this out on the market but this one is from true position it has adjustable stops that allow you to line up the drill Guide to the top and side of the drawer to perfectly position your pole and you can address the two drill guides to match up perfectly with whatever size pull you're using this jig makes adding PS to multiple drawers fast and repeatable and for the door I'm going to go ahead and install hidden cup hinges now sometimes you may hear someone say Euro hinges that's the exact same thing and to drill the pockets for the hinges I'm going to use another fancy jig the drill bit here has a depth stop that cuts the perfect size Pockets you can see the hinge just drops right in that hole and I can go ahead and pre-drill those screwes using a self centering drill bit this is just going to put that pilot hole right in the center so that when you screw the hinge in it doesn't Wonder off Square now you might notice that my bottom hinge here is located a little further from the edge than the top top one is and that's just to allow for something special that I have planned for this cabinet which is going to be revealed in a future video and the same jig that I use for the drawer PS will also work for the door pull too now to install the door I have a Nifty little trick where I make a makeshift spacer out of a couple of scraps of plywood that I attach to the bottom of the face frame using double-sided tape I then set the door on that spacer and now I know that my door is exactly POS positioned right where I want it and I can go ahead and drill the pilot holes and screw the door into place now to install the drawer front on top of it I have a dead simple process that makes installing drawer fronts much less of a headache to begin I go ahead and add a spacer strip 1/8 of an inch thick on top of the door to create the reveal that I want I then make sure it's lined up with the door on both sides now my trick for installing these drawer fronts is to go ahead and screw in from the front of the drawer using the two holes I drilled for the drawer pull now this gets the drawer firmly attached so that I can go ahead and open the drawer and screw it into place from the back side I can then remove the screws from the front and use a drill bit to drill all the way through the drawer I then just go ahead and add the pull and fasten it into place I did the exact same process on the four drawer cabinet just adding a spacer between each drawer as I work my way up the cabinet and bam done man that was a ton of information I think I covered it all but if you do have any other questions please leave those Below in the comments I'd love to help out also make sure that you like and subscribe to the channel and also hit the Bell icon to be notified every time I release a new video speaking of videos I've got a couple other ones floating around up here that I think you guys would really enjoy so go ahead and check those out and until next time have fun in the shop

Channel: MWA Woodworks

Views: 2,650,306

Keywords: mwa woodworks, how to build cabinets, how to build cabinets for kitchen, how to build kitchen cabinets, how to build cabinets for laundry room, how to install cabinet drawers, how to build cabinet doors, kitchen remodel cabinets, how to, woodworking projects, cabinetry basics, cabinet tips and tricks, kitchen cabinets, cabinet maker, kitchen cabinet ideas, cabinets from plywood, diy, woodworking, diy cabinets, building plywood cabinets, cabinet drawers

Id: 7KkvrgMk8Us

Length: 18min 31sec (1111 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 15 2021