Sommerfeld's Tools for Wood - Cabinetmaking Made Easy with Marc Sommerfeld - Part 1

[Music] [Music] hello my name is Mark Sommerfeld and welcome to my shop today what we're going to be showing you today is how we're gonna build cabinets in our shop we're gonna show you how we build this base cabinet and then after that we're gonna show you how we build a similar upper cabinet now the nice thing about custom building cabinets what you're going to be doing the advantage of custom building a cabinet is this if you are buying these three cabinets basically we have three cabinets here if you were buying them at a Home Center for example you'd be buying this cabinet and taken out of one box you take this middle cabinet pull that out of another box you take this drawer Bank right here pull that out of another box you take those three cabinets you'd screw the face frames together and then you'd screw to the wall well the advantage about custom building your cabinets you can build all three of these cabinets or more all-in-one cabinet with the same floor the same face frame and everything and it's gonna look a lot nicer and you're gonna save materials because you're not bunching up with two sides here and two sides here you just have one partition in the cabinet now let's say we wanted to make this cabinet longer okay we wanted another bank like this another base like that right here all we simply do is take this style off bring a middle style bring it right in here bring these rails coming across and you can make this cabinet any length you want I've built canvas 12 foot long before so that's the advantage of custom building cabinets now another advantage we're gonna have in building our canvas is we have this new method called the tongue and groove method what we're doing every piece of wood in here is put together with a tongue like this and a groove right like that okay what we're doing the side of our cabinet is being tongue grooved into here our partitions our tongue and groove din even our floor down here is tongue and groove din okay when we get up to our corner box you take these corner box we have tongue and grooves on our corner box or their tongue grooves so the cabott is locked together with the tongue-and-groove now years ago when I built cabinets what I would do is I would take and build the face frame attach the sides what I would do then is I would just simply go like this I would take and nail the face frame to the cabinet then along came the pocket hole you would pocket hole the side of the cabin in well the bad thing about that the pocket hole you know you have to line it up it slides you know you have to line up by eye and it's a pretty ugly joint well the beautiful thing about the tongue-and-groove is this when you put that tongue into that groove not only are you getting a tremendous amount of strength but you're also getting a tremendous amount of accuracy and sets it just perfect for you so that's how I'm gonna show you how we build our cabinets now with this tongue and groove method so what we're gonna do next is get started building this base cabinet okay we're ready to start building our cabinet the first thing you do when you build a cabinet is you're gonna build the face frame first the reason why is if that face frame is built square everything that fits behind it has to be square especially when we're using this tongue and groove method everything's going to line up perfect okay you can see I have my face frame laid out on the floor here and you can attach in the corners of your face frame different ways you can mortise and tenon this joint you can biscuit you can doubt you can pocket hole it we're gonna pocket hole we'll show you later how we do that because it's quick and it's easy but that's the only place I use the pocket hole in the entire cabinet okay to lay out those pocket holes now what we need to do is right here you can see this piece is attached to this piece right here okay we're gonna put two pocket holes right here we're also gonna have two pocket holes right here and if you want to mark all the pocket holes on your project you're gonna see that you're gonna end up seeing that every piece at all the end grain is gonna have pocket holes except my InStyle there's no pocket holes here but otherwise every end grain member has two pocket holes so we'll lay all those out the drill now the next thing we want to lay out on our face train is we got to cut grooves remember our side is going to be coming into here right here it's my face frame here's the side of my cabinet coming into here right okay you can see in the back of that of that style there we have a groove well we have to know whether to put that groove on on this side of the board or that side of the board well it's simple here because on this one here the stuck the side panel is going to come in to the outside so you can see this piece right here we're gonna mark it and put our groove on this side okay we'll go across the whole cabinet on this piece now we can put that partition on either side well let's just pick a side we're gonna pick this side we want to do it on one of the sides because we want it flush for our drawers here we want this flush now we go down to this style we can put this groove on this piece on either side well we're definitely going to choose this side because right here and the reason why is because now I'm automatically going to be lined up for four drawers for my drawer slides if I put over here I'd have to build out for all four drawers so we don't want to do that our last one here now this piece here goes next to the wall and we're gonna bring the groove to the inside for two reasons number one now we're automatically going to be lined up for our drawer slides plus we have a huge scribe area out here in case our wall is out of plumb we can take and scribe this if it fits a crooked wall so we've got all of our grooves established in all of our styles now let's go back here we also need a groove on this top rail here and we need the groove on the top side to connect all of our corner blocks here see we've got a groove along the whole system here for our corn box so we're gonna pick that top rail and we always put the groove on the top side now on the bottom one down here our bottom rail we're gonna put a groove also on the top side because that's where our floor is gonna come in and be flush right here so what we have now we have all the grooves established all the pocket holes were ready to go start drilling our pocket holes okay we have all of our face frame members laying here we're going to draw the pocket holes where they're required we have our little pocket hole jig here I just use a little pocket hole jig is this the only place I'll use it whenever using a pocket hole jig here's a step drill you want to set the stop collar on that step drill so when it goes into your bushing there you want to set that stop collar so you're about an eighth of an inch off the floor you don't want that to penetrate through the wood okay so all you do is take your member and sort it into the jig clamp it and we're gonna drill our pocket hole all right like this refusing a little battery-operated drill electric drill you can use too right there's your two pocket holes now we'll continue doing that on all the rest of our members all right you can see now we have all the pocket holes drilled now what's needed to do next is we have to take this over take these members over to our router table and we're gonna cut that groove in the back here wherever those are needed okay we're ready to start cutting the grooves in the back of those face rein members with our tongue and groove set right here and you can see this is our groove cutter and this is our tongue cutter and what's nice about our tongue and groove set as all of our sets they're perfectly matched if I'm gonna pull these two together you can see what that groove is perfectly matched height wise right to fit in that tongue with these two bits bottom down now so it all goes to say when you stick that groove cutter in there and cut your groove if you pull this out and stick your tongue cutter in what's going to happen is the tongue and groove are gonna match and when they go together right here like this you're gonna have a perfectly flush fit because those two bits are perfectly aligned now a lot of people don't make their bits that way and the reason we can get by doing it it makes it so much easier because you're not you're not adjusting the height of your router once I have my router set to the right height I can build a whole set of kitchen cabinets without ever moving my router and the way we get by with it is when we set that bit in there you go to tighten up that bit everybody says you're supposed to move it up about an eighth or a quarter of an inch why because when you tighten up that bit that bit should have the capability of sucking down the collet to get tight well in the bottom of my collet right there I got this little o-ring you can see it right here so when I set that bit on top of that little ol ring right there when I go to tighten it that bit will compress against that ol ring the same every time and that that's our little secret all right so we're gonna stick that groove cutter in to our router all right we're gonna snug it up right here now once it's tight once it's tight we're ready to go we're gonna put our insert it ring in here now the next thing you have to do is you have to get that bit set to the correct height and using the tongue and groove what I always do is I want about an eighth of an inch shoulder right here on this tongue on the offset I want about an eighth of an inch shoulder into one side so that's where we want that now if you happen to have our little easy set it's a little gauge that sets eight different bits the groove cutter tongue of glue cutter is right here and the thickness of wood I'm using today is thirteen sixteen so I just dial this little jig into 3/4 over here to 1360s I know I'm set at the right height so I'll bring this around and you can see I've got to raise my group cutter up okay now you can see we're lined up perfectly to the right height with our easy set now great to start cutting that groove so we're gonna bring our fence over and all we have to do is take a little straight edge on that bearing and pivot that fence over lined up flush with our bearing we're ready to start cutting the groove now what we're gonna do is we're just making a sample cut here to show you what's going on we're going to come into here and we're gonna cut the groove [Music] okay right there you can see our groove is cut now the next thing we want to do is come into here and we're gonna change the groove cutter out and put that tongue cutter in so if you simply pull it groove cutter and start the tongue cutter we know we're set at the right height snug it up insert ring we're ready to go again what we're gonna do is take that straight edge on the middle bearing now pivot our fence so we're flush with that bearing and we're ready to cut the tongues now you'll see whenever we start cutting matching tongues you're always going to put the good side down the side that you want the side that you want flush I here is considered the good side you always put that down [Music] okay right there is our tongue and right here is our groove and you can see how nice and flush that is I can't even drag my fingernail across there there meet that flush so that's how we do the tongue and groove so what we're gonna do is we're gonna take this tongue cutter out of here put the groove cutter back in and we're gonna start cutting our face-frame members for real okay we've got our groove cutter back in there now we're ready to start and cut that groove remember when we mark these we don't want to cut that groove on this side that was the front side we want to cut the groove on the back side but we want it on this edge of the board so we're gonna put it down we're gonna cut that groove right along here now when you cut this you don't want to cut that groove the entire way otherwise you're going to destroy the integrity of that pocket hole so what we're going to do is start cutting the groove approximately somewhere in here and end up approximately somewhere open here what I use on my as a gauge of my router table is my little insert ring here I start about an inch in from here and I stop about an inch in on this insert I'll show you what we're doing right here [Music] okay approximately inch three quarters whatever what we don't want to do we can come into here but we don't want to go through that part of the pocket hole right there so we'll continue doing this with the rest of our base frame members here now and then we'll be ready to assemble our face frame okay you see we have our face frame all laid out ready to assemble it over here I'll go over a few dimensions for you and your building standard cabinets cabinets are thirty four and a half inches high so you're gonna build just this style is always 31 inches because we cut our toe kick three and a half so that's always 31 this is always going to be 27 you know plus the four is 31 these the length of these pieces going to be whatever width of your drawer whatever whatever you want there so that's that's gonna vary the bottom piece between your two styles is gonna be four inches shorter than the length of your cabinet of course and all your other members are gonna be variable all right up and down on a drawer bank now when we do this we always make five inches here five inches here in the bottom two drawers are five and a half five and a half to do that we always have these blocks handy we always keep them handy laying around you know for sure that that top rail is going right here we can mark that okay then then comes our top drawer five inches so we can mark that our next drawer comes into here we can mark this this is five and a half we can mark that the bottom one we know is right here and when we remove these now we can simply mark the top of the drawer right here like that at the top of those rails so we have exactly the position where all these are going to go now anytime you have a matching rail coming across you want to make sure they're lined up bring these two pieces together okay I'm going to slide this down here and I'll always take a spring clamp right here like this okay now I can take a square and transfer the position of those rails across to that other member right like that anytime you have matching pieces like that it's it's nice to do that because you know you're gonna get perfect alignment remember like I said the beginning of the DVD here we want that face frame square if that face frame is square everything fits behind it it has to be square okay now we're ready to start assembling this face frame and when you start assembling a face frame you want to start in one corner and you want to work diagonally when you start assembling that face frame here's what you don't want to do we're always going to put this one in here first that corner then we're going to put this piece in then this piece then this piece then we'll come in here and put this piece in next and then we'll keep working now you don't want to do this you don't want to put this two here then stick this member in because that means you have to squeeze this one in between two pieces see that's hard it'll work but it's heart I'll always keep an open edge and work diagonally all right so we're gonna start pocket screw in this corner together now when I pocket screw my face frames here's how I do it I like this little glue bot here you don't have to be shaking the glue it's like a it's like hydraulics you push this here you always get glue no matter you have to shake the bottle upside down but we're gonna put a little bit of glue right in here we're also going to put a little bit of glue on our end grain okay now what I'll do is the bad thing about in green I'll show you right here whenever you put glue on in green and I always spread it a little bit like this the in grain of a piece of wood is like a bunch of straws they're just going to keep sucking that glue in so what I'll do is I'll go through my whole face frame I'll come into here and I'll put a bead of glue on all my face-frame have all the in green okay I'll go through all that whole cabinet or the whole face frame but glue on all the in green then I'll come back and put another layer on and what that first layer does it absorbs into the in green and it creates a better joint with that other glue coming on that second layer of glue all right we've got that glue into there we're gonna assemble this joint now the way we do that we have our little face clamp here it has a large pad on one side we're gonna cut that pad is going to go on the good side on the back of the good side right like this we're gonna squeeze it down line it up and it keeps that front flush now excuse we're using you can we have two different sizes of screws inch and a half inch and a quarter I like to use the inch and a half on the face frame because you got a long ways going us gonna make this a little bit stronger joint and also we like the big washer head screws they don't sink in as fast we just take our square drive driver and screw the joint together right there okay well continue on now and start assembling that whole face frame okay our face frame is now complete you know we got all the grooves cut where they're gonna be face frames all done now the next we're gonna start making our sides and attach the sides of the cabinet next okay you can see where our face frame is done we have that the next thing we're gonna do is we want to attach the side panel to the face frame now to do that this side panel is going to be this end panel side panel is gonna be showing so whenever we do that anything that's exposed we don't use plywood we use a raised panel and you can refer to our raised panel DVD on how we make raised panels but going over a few dimensions here for you on the top rail here I always make that 5 inches at the bottom rails 5 inches the back rails 5 inches this front rail we only make that four and a quarter because once it gets attached to the face frame here it becomes 5 inches see and also make sure you make it actually a little bit longer than four and a quarter four and a half because quarter of an inch so that it's going to get eaten up in that tongue this realz middle style here I make three inches and then you can figure out what the panels can be but in our handout sheet that we have remember this is thirty four and a half inches high and the depth of all cabinets is 24 so you can figure the dimensions there all right after you have your panel made there's going to be four things you have to do to this panel before you can attach it to the rail what you have to do first is cut the groove there's a we're gonna go to kind of groove on the top and a groove on the back the groove on the top member holds it holds our corner box see our corner box fit right into those grooves also we're gonna cut a groove going down the back to receive the back of our cabinet the other thing we have to do is kind of Tong on the front so it can be receiving the groove in the back of our face frame the next thing we have to do is down here in the bottom we have to kind of toe kick area and all of our toe kicks are three and a half inches high and three and a half inches from the here to the start of the face frame okay when we do that I have another sample here we always cut our toe kicks on a finished edge at a 45 degree angle a lot of people just square them off and cut them straight when you put your toe kick in there you're gonna see in green well this way we can cut a 45 on our toe kick and the ingrain disappears it makes it look much more attractive okay after we've cut the toe kick and when we cut that toe kick just take this over to your table saw tilt your blade to a 45 put this next to the fence and cut cut your 45 then bring your bottom next to the fence and cut in and the piece falls out now if you start to do a left-hand cabinet okay my table saw tilts this way when I do the other cabinet you want the other one go tilt this way your table saw is not going to tilt well that's when we take a jigsaw set the jigsaw at a 45 degree bevel and do that by hand okay after the tool kick is done the last thing we have to do those four steps is we're gonna take an ear nail a cleat and this cleat is always 4 and 3/4 inches high and it's gonna start right behind our toe kick and we want it to end before we get to our groove in the back with our nail that on on all of our sides what's that for well let's assume that this is the floor of my cabinet that's my floor of my cam that comes down and rests on that and that transfers all the weight to the real floor so it makes it makes the floor of your cabinet very strong and of course the front of my floor is tongue grooved into my face frame alright so what we're gonna do next is we're gonna take this piece we've already got the tool kit cut let's say we're gonna take it over to our router table and we're gonna cut the grooves and the tongue okay you can see we still have our groove cutter in our router and we're gonna cut that groove in the back and the top of our panel now in doing so we're going to stick this panel up in here like this run this through and it's a little bit hard keeping this thing here you know tight and square so we got a new a new feather board it's not only a feather board it's also a guard we'll use it on our router table here we're clamping into here's I'll show you later how we're gonna use that it's a guard it guards a bit but also you can see how these members here it's a nice feather board well we're gonna use it this way we're gonna run it in these tracks and right here and here now I'll show you how we're gonna I'll show you how we're gonna set this up to set this jig we're gonna take a piece of stock the same thickness is what we're using right here and we're just going to bring our feather guard in here takes about three or four fingers just press in and snug your down right there and you get your member out of there and we're ready to run the back through now they're running this back through that feather guard is tall enough it's going to keep help keep it nice and plump [Music] right there

Channel: Sommerfeld Tools

Views: 1,308,021

Keywords: wood, sommerfelds, building, cuts, working, sommerfeld, routers, sommerfeldtools.com, Panel Doors, bits, handmade, remsen, Door Panels, for, iowa, tool, wooden, router, tools

Id: klv0jzWD26w

Length: 27min 14sec (1634 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 26 2012