The Basics of Building | DIY for beginners

[Music] it's really easy these days to find inspiration for DIY projects all you have to do is look online or watch DIY shows on TV inspiration is all around us it's hard to find though is the information you need to actually build those projects successfully today though we're gonna show you that building DIY projects isn't nearly as hard as you might think once you know some basic techniques you can apply them over and over again to build all kinds of awesome projects take this project for example it might look complex but it really is it will show you the basic assemblies that this project is made from along with the tools and techniques you can use to create them once you know those you'll be able to apply them over and over again to build awesome projects of all kinds like these when you're learning how to build it always helps to have an example so we're demonstrating with this project it's a classic called a step back cover as a lower section and an upper one that's slightly smaller or stepped back to see how its put together you can look at the upper section which is really just a big plywood box that's built a lot like a bookcase plywood makes up the sides and the top inside has two adjustable shelves and a thin plywood back that closes it in there's also a solid wood face frame on the front and that does two things first it covers all these plies in the plywood which really don't look good on a finished project second it helps strengthen the assembly by preventing that plywood box from twisting or racking the lower section has a few more parts but it's still basically a big box that's made out of plywood for the top sides and bottom it also has a solid wood face frame the difference here is that that face frame also creates openings for the doors and the drawer to dress up the lower case it has trim cap molding that wraps around at the top and down below molding that's made from ordinary 1x4 boards and a piece of Cove molding the best thing about this project is you can build the entire thing for materials available at any Home Center plywood boards and off-the-shelf molding plywood is a great material for building projects like the step-back cupboard we're creating or for things like chess bookcases and dressers that are essentially big boxes instead of having to put a bunch of narrow boards together you can break a plywood sheet down into the large panels that are perfect for these box tile projects now a full-size sheet of plywood is big and heavy but cutting it doesn't have to be a challenge a great trick is to make a support system like this it's just two by fours that are in this case suspended between a Craig track horse and a Craig mobile project Center the two by fours build a strong support and it also holds the sheet at a height that's very comfortable so I can cut without having to bend over or be awkwardly working my way around the sheet plus the support helps hold the plywood in position as I'm cutting and it'll keep the pieces that I cut off from dropping so it's a really great way to make cutting plywood a whole lot easier a circular saw is the tool of choice for cutting plywood but before you grab your saw and start cutting here's a good idea circular saws come with a blade that's made for making fast cuts in framing lumber take that blade out and replace it with a blade that's made for cutting plywood it has more teeth that are also smaller so we'll take a smaller bite and make a smoother cleaner cut once you have a blade installed there's one more thing you need to do and that's adjust your saw for the correct depth of cut now a circular saw will cut all the way through a 2x4 but we don't need it to cut that deep for this 3/4 inch plywood so of course make sure your saw is unplugged before you make any setup changes and then check the cutting depth every saw is a little bit different to adjust but in the long run you want to end up with the blade depth so it's just about an eighth of an inch below the thickness of your plywood that way you'll get a nice clean cut the saw won't have to work any harder than it needs to and you won't cut too far into your support grid so if those things done you're ready to cut supporting your plywood sheet well and setting up your saw correctly will help you cut more safely and more easily but it won't necessarily help you cut straight usually when you're cutting plywood you draw a long layout line and then try to guide this all along and eyeball that line so you're trying to keep the saw straight and keep the cut smooth and make sure you're accurate all at once and that's just too many things to think about the solution is to use a saw guide and there's a couple types available this one attaches to the saw and you can adjust the setting and then the edge guide follows along the edge of the sheet this one uses a long guide rail that you can place wherever you need it on the sheet and then the saw rides right on top to make a nice straight cut with either of these types of guides you'll get a much better result a smoother cleaner cut and you don't have to worry about trying to keep the saw straight with the RIP cut you can lock in the measurement that you want then hold the edge guide against the edge of the sheet push the saw along with one hand while you hold the edge guide with your other hand that'll guide the saw for a nice straight cut with the Accu cut first make a couple of marks where you want to cut then align the edge of the anti chips trip with your marks as you cut the anti-slip surface keeps the Accu cut guide rail for moving and the chip strips produce a smooth clean cut when you're building DIY projects one of the biggest challenges can be coming up with a way to hold everything together to create assemblies that are strong and will last a lot of people think you need advanced woodworking skills to create a strong assembly but you really don't there's a simple way called pocket hole joinery pock hole joinery is done with just a drill and a Kreg jig the jig guides a special stepped drill bit that creates an angled hole called a pocket hole you drill a pocket hole in just one of the two pieces that you want to put together and then drive in a pocket hole screw to create a strong lasting joint after you drill the pocket hole all you have to do is bring the one piece into position against the one you're gonna join it to and then drive in a pocket hole screw and it's just that easy to attach the two pieces together so this is the bottom first step back cupboard and the sides so we'll drill some holes along this edge and this edge and a few more along the front for that face frame we're going to add later and we'll be almost ready to start project assembly so once we drill the pocket holes in this case in the bottom panel you can really see the project start to take shape because here you'll have the bottom bring in both sides and then all you have to do is drive pocket hole screws in to attach these pieces together and you can see how easily a box really starts to take shape when you're building DIY projects adding a few high-end details can really make them stand out and creating those details is easier than you might think if you look at the step back cupboard you'll see that it has feet at the bottom they had a nice high-end look plus they help the projects it more stable on any kind of floor and adding them is really pretty easy it starts with creating a notch in each of those lower side panels and that's really easy to do using a tool like the multi mark start by just laying out each end of the notch all you got to do is use your tape measure and make a quick mark because now you can use the square feature of the multi mark to draw a nice straight line at each of those points then with the rule adjusted to the depth of the notch you can use it to drag your pencil along and create a perfectly straight line that lays out the knotch once you have it laid out it's an easy matter of just cutting the notch with a jigsaw start by cutting in along one end line then cut in along the other end now to cut the long line in between start by making a sweeping cut until you get to the line and then cut to one end turn the saw around and cut to the other end to complete the knotch in this case the notch will get covered by trim later so the cut doesn't even have to be perfect when you're building with Craig joinery assembly is a really easy process but there are some tips that'll help you have better success first is to make some layout marks on your pieces that way you won't have to hold pieces in place and measure at the same time it's great for areas like where the bottom meets the side panels the multi marks really handy for this because you can just set the distance that you need and then use it to make your marks just hold the multi mark in place and use the rule to guide your pencil with the marks there I'll know exactly where to place the bottom panel another great assembly tip is to use some clamps while you're putting things together that way you don't have to try to hold two pieces in place and keep them aligned while you drive in the screws clamps like these work great for holding large panels at perfect 90-degree angles leaving both of your hands free to drive in the screws so if the screws in place you can see the box really start to come together and how easy it is to create a rock-solid assembly to complete the lower section of the step back cupboard all that's left to do is install the top just make sure everything's aligned before you drive in those screws and with Craig joinery you can get the pieces positioned drive in a couple of screws and then move things around as needed so you have it exactly where you want it and now you can see the project really starting to take shape we've got the sides the bottom and the top in place with the overhang that we need to add a face frame later and everything's really solid when you're building projects with shelves like we have in this step-back cupboard you can make them a whole lot more functional by making the shelves adjustable that way you can move the shelves up or down so that you can keep things that are tall or short or in-between in your cabinet without having to worry about how they're gonna fit just move the shelves to where you need them and you're good to go when you're creating adjustable shelves you need to drill a series of holes for small pins that the shelves sit on by moving the pin from hole to hole that's how you adjust them now those holes need to be spaced evenly and consistently at each of the four locations so that your shelf will sit flat and it won't wobble that could be a challenge to do with just a hand drill but with the Shelf pin jig it makes it easy because the jig has a series of holes at consistent spacing so you can get the holes exactly where you need them a great tip when you're using a shelf pin jig is to create a spacer I cut this one to length to match where I want to locate the jig in the cabinet just set the spacer in place in the cabinet and then you can set the jig right on top now I know it's located at the height where I want it and the jig has this fence that hugs up against the edge of the cabinet so every time I move the jig I know that it will be at the exact same height with that set I'm ready to drill holes after you drill the first hole you can insert this locating pin that drops right into the hole then you don't even need the spacer to hold the jig in place and you can drill the rest of your holes you can see that every time I drill this stop collar stops the hole at the correct depth and the result is nice shelf pin holes a little sanding they'll be set to go now I can take the spacer and move it to the next location and drop the jig in place that way I know that these holes and these holes will all be aligned drop in the locating pin once again and just keep on drilling now all I'll have to do is a little bit of sanding and I'll have shelf pin holes they'll give me perfect shelves that are easy to adjust and that's it level without wobbling plywood is a great material for building shelves it's strong flat and a lot more stable than solid wood plus it's a lot easier to make into big panels like this plywood does have the plies that show on the edge though and you can give your project a great rich look by covering that edge with solid wood edging just cut from a piece of one by two and goes right on the front it looks great and actually makes the Shelf stronger all you have to do to add it is drill some pocket holes in the underside of the shelf another great thing about building with pocket hole joinery is you don't have to be real particular about this facing especially since you only have to drill holes in one but it's a good idea to have your first pocket whole within an inch or two from the ends and then every six inches or so in between with the pocket holes drilled you can attach the edging and a great way to keep everything in place while you work is to clamp the edging down on a flat surface then just butt the Shelf up against the edging and the clamp will hold the edging in place while you drive in the screws [Music] it's just that easy to attach the edging and it looks really great and you can see that it definitely finishes off the luckier shelf when you're building projects from plywood like this one you usually don't want those exposed plywood edges to show this projects essentially a big box but you can transform it and give it a high-end look by adding a face frame a face frame not only covers the edges it strengthens the assembly by keeping the box from twisting or racking a face frames made from solid wood in this case one by three and one by two boards and just has a few simple parts there are vertical styles that get located at the edges and rails that span in between in this case the rails create openings for doors down below and a drawer above and building a face frame super easy just drill pocket holes at each end of the rails and then attach everything together with Craig joinery once you put the face frame in place the pocket holes are in the backside of the frame so they won't even show and you'll use pocket hole joinery again to attach the face frame to the box it's a really easy assembly but it adds a great effect [Music] [Music] in this upper rail I'm also going to drill some pocket holes along the edge for attaching it to the top with the pocket holes all drilled you can assemble your face frame here a couple of tips to make it easier first I went ahead and made some alignment marks where the rails intersect the Stiles that way I don't have to measure as I'm putting each piece in place second use clamps to hold the joints together that keeps everything aligned and holds the faces of the pieces nice and flush as you drive in the screws with that all you have to do is drive home in the pocket hole screws [Music] now you can pop off the clamps and I'll flip the assembly around to do the other side make sure you take time to get everything lined up but the marks make it really easy a lot easier than trying to hold a tape measure hold the piece in place and close the clamp double-check that piece I want to move it a hair and in just a couple of minutes you've put together a face frame and when you add it to the project it transforms a big plywood box into a great-looking piece of furniture Paco old joinery is also used to attach the face frame to the box and as you're attaching it you want to look out for things like alignment issues here you can see that the side isn't perfectly flush with the edge of the face frame and you can't fix that by sanding if you try to sand that off you'll go all the way through the face layer of the plywood and you'll leave a really ugly spot on the side of your project so what you want to do is just pull it back into alignment it's easy to do and then use a clamp to hold it there this clamp fits into the pocket hole and then snaps in place to hold that piece flush while you drive in the screws so if the pocket hole screws installed the face frames in place and I can lay the project down give it a final sanding and it's good to go one of the best ways to really dress up a DIY project and add custom details is with trim and molding it's something that's easier to do than you might think and it really adds a lot of pop to the look in the case of the step-back cupboard the trim and molding starts at the base with feet it's not actually feet though it's just boards that wrap around the base and have an arch shape cut into them when combined together they create the look of feet at each corner the pieces are bevel cut at 45 degrees so they'll fit together nice and tight and before we can attach this piece we need to lay out and cut that arch shape and it's easy to do I'm gonna clamp this piece down so that it won't go anywhere and then you can lay out how far the arch will start from each end I've taken a compass and set it to one inch which is the height of this arch so just use it to draw in that shape that gets it at each end now I've set the multi mark to an inch I'm gonna adjust it just a little bit to match my line and use it to pull a straight line across now you can cut the shape using a jig saw if you haven't used a jig saw a lot it can be hard to keep the blade right on your cut line but don't worry about it just saw a little bit to the wayside and then you can come in and sand everything nice and smooth now jigsaw can put out a lot of noise so I'm going to make sure to get set there you go I've actually got a nice smooth shape there you'll find that using the right blade makes a big difference so I have a scrolling blade that's made for fine cuts and with a little practice you'll be able to get great results once again you can sand to smooth it out if you need to so with the arch cut it's ready to drop in place to create the look of those feet the usual way to attach trim like this is with nails but that doesn't mean a hammer and nails for a lot of us it can be really hard to hold everything in place and try to drive those nails in without the piece moving around and without the inevitable misses and dents that you're gonna leave that's why for attaching trim one specialty tool is really handy and that's a brad nailer it drives these nails called Brad's that come attached in a long clip like that and you might not own a brad nailer but they've gotten really inexpensive these days or you can rent one at any Home Center the nice thing with a brad nailer is it fires those nails right in there and nothing moves around the brad nailer will leave holes but you can easily fill those sand it off smooth and by the time you stain and finish you'll never know they're there with this piece in place it gets topped off by piece of Cove molding Cove is available in any Home Center and you can just cut it to length once again it's mitered so that it wraps around the corner and creates a finished look so you have the pieces cut to length just position them and drive in the nails so you can see how easy it really was to create the look of feet just three boards and three lengths of cove molding now we'll wrap up the top with some cap molding to wrap up the lower part of the step back cupboard we're using another off-the-shelf molding this time it's called cap molding all you have to do once again is cut it to length and miter the corners to fit and then nail it on if you end up with any slight gaps or imperfections around your molding don't worry about it you can use a little bit of wood filler to fill those in sand it down and when you stain you'll never see them lots of beginning project builders and even some experienced ones are afraid to tackle projects with doors but like many things you'll find that building doors and installing them is a lot easier than you might think you can even create a classic frame and panel style door like we're using on the step-back cupboard very easily doors are really pretty simple they're made of a few parts you have vertical stiles with horizontal rails in between and that makes up the outer frame for the panel we're using half-inch thick plywood when it drops in place the half-inch thick panel sits below the 3/4 inch thick Stiles and rails and gives that great classic look panel comes soon but first you need to assemble the frame and pocket hole joinery is the way to go here as well all you have to do is drill pocket holes in the ends of each of the rails now you can assemble the frames by driving in the pocket hole screws the switch to a driver bit I was like to turn the clutch setting down so don't worry about overdriving the screws it's also a really good idea to clamp the pieces together while you're assembling them that helps keep everything aligned and keeps the faces of those pieces nice and flush if you ever have a time when you can't drive the screw quite far enough just turn up your clutch setting a bit sometimes when you're putting pieces together you need to kind of pull or push them into position and that's where the clamps are really helpful because it would be very hard to hold that and drive the screws in at the same time you ever thought that building a doorframe was hard it's really just that easy now we can drill the pocket holes in the door panels and for that we're going to use the Kreg jig accessory called a micro pocket drill guide you can use standard Craig screws and the standard guide in half-inch material the half-inch plywood is actually pretty thin quite a bit under half-inch so switching to the micro pocket makes sense because it uses a smaller screw than a standard Craig screw and that lets you create a smaller pocket hole and drive that screw down in deep where it won't show as much from the backside all you have to do is take the standard drill guide out of the Kreg jig and drop the micro pocket in set for half-inch material then install the micro drill bit and you're ready to drill the pocket holes here's a good tip anytime you're building with plywood plywood has a good face and a less attractive face so always want to be sure that the good face is what's going to show that means drill the pocket holes in the backside [Music] doesn't take a lot of holes to hold these panels in do a couple in each end and then a few along the edges potholes are done before installation I like to take a little sandpaper and just knock off the edges that are splintered on the pocket holes now you can install the panels in the doors which is just a matter of driving in the pocket hole screws but since the panels are half-inch thick and the door frames are 3/4 the panel may not drop evenly into the opening or it may push all the way down which will take away that reveal the reveals in the back now and we want it in the front an easy way to make sure the panel's position properly is to use spacers these are just pieces of quarter inch square dowel that I had left over from another project spacers can be really handy to help hold things in place and keep him consistently spaced during assembly so let's drop him into the opening and set the panel down onto the spacers now I can drive in the screws since I have the panel sitting on the spacers and I can hold the door in place easily I'm not gonna worry about clamps I like to kind of slowly drive in the first couple and work my way around the panel that way I can be sure that it's going to hold while driving in the rest of the screws now with those set should be able to just drive the rest of the screws in I've got them all there and you get a nice consistent reveal and a classic frame and panel look with really simple construction you've seen that building doors is really easy what can be intimidating though is actually mounting the doors to your project there are lots of kinds of hinges available and it can be tough to sort through all the choices Plus installing the hinges correctly really scares people because if you don't the doors won't work or fit properly but once again it doesn't have to be hard if you go about it the right way on this project we used concealed hinges they fit in behind the door and what's nice is they don't show once the door is installed plus they're adjustable and they work really well they can be challenging to install though because they have to fit into a deep hole that you drill in the back of the door and you need to position them correctly to make sure that they're straight and that the door will fit right thankfully there's an option that makes it easier once again with the jig a concealed hinge gig guides a drill bit that will allow you to drill that hole straight and accurately to the right depth without needing a drill press or other fancy tools it's really easy to use it sets the right offset so you know that the hinge will be located the correct distance in and it has a measuring scale so you can determine how far from the end you want your hinge to be usually two to three inches from the end is fine so just position the jig and clamp it down at the same time I'm clamping the door to the work surface so it won't move around then put the bit in your drill when you lock the guide into the jig it holds everything in place and ensures that you'll drill straight and to the right depth so it's really easy to drill that large hole but you also need two holes for the screws that will mount the hinge so you can drill those at the same time now just pop the jig off and move to the other end of the door once again going three inches from the end and clamping the jig to the door and the door to the work surface don't forget to do those hinge holes for the mounting screws so though it looked messy while it was being done look at that perfectly clean hole for the hinge Cup and properly positioned holes for the mounting screws now I know the hinges will drop in in just the right place and I'll be able to mount it to the cabinet successfully it'll fit right and work right so if the hinge is installed I'm ready to hang my doors mounting the hinges onto the doors is half the job the other half is mounting the doors on to your project there's no jig for this but there are some tips that'll make it easier these hinges mount on the edge of the face frame and the doors overhang the opening in this case by a half-inch at the top and the bottom so I'm going to take the multi mark set to a half-inch and just make a reference mark here doesn't even have to be perfect I'm just going to use it to eyeball the location so now I can hold the door in place and line it up with that half-inch mark there's adjustment built into the hinges so I don't have to worry about getting it exact make sure it's in place and I'll mark locations for pilot holes for the hinge mounting screws and then I can drill the pilot holes now bring the door into place get around where I can see that hole I like to get both screws kind of started get myself approximately lined up and then drive the screws in raise this one just a hair and that gets the basic installation done you can see that the door swings just like it's supposed to and it sits nice and straight so if that done can move on and mount the second door so when I close the doors yep you can see there's some difference in the height here this one's sitting a little bit low that's okay though because there's adjustment built into the hinges you just open the door and loosen the mounting screws and then slide this one up and tighten it back down I may have to move this door down just a little bit as well now everything's nice and even there the thing I love about these hinges is not only can you adjust the position of the mounting screws but there are additional adjustments like this one that sets how far in or out the door sits and this one that adjusts how close or far away it sits from the cabinet so with all those adjustments you can really fine-tune your doors and make them fit great with the doors installed there's just one last piece of hardware to add and that's the decorative knobs or poles that you're going to use should be easy since it's just drill a hole and mount a knob but this part can still be intimidating because this is the hardware that shows and if it's positioned wrong it's going to throw off the look your project now we're going to go ahead and install it now on the unfinished cabinet that's a great tip for building I like to get all the hardware installed drill the holes and everything before I stain and finish that way I can sand out any rough spots and then I don't have to worry about messing up my finished project so to install the knob you need to make sure that it's centered on the width of the style and then decide how far up or down you want to locate it if you're not centering it a good choice is to put it right in line with the lower edge of this rail so if I had to mark all of that out by hand and try to drill that hole that'd be tough especially when I need to repeat it on the other side thankfully once again there's a jig this cabinet hardware jig has a drill guide to drill a straight hole plus it has measuring scales and a fence built-in so I've set that fence to position the hole half the distance across the style and I can use the measuring scale and the centering mark to line it right up with the bottom edge of the rail then all I have to do is clamp it in place and drill the hole now it's a nice straight hole it's positioned just where I want it and you can see that when I install the knob it's in just the right place great but now I need to do the exact same thing over here once again with the jig it's no problem because all the measurements are set put the fence against the edge set the zero mark and clamp it down this is the kind of rough spot on the back of the hole here that I'm talking about that I'll sand all of it out before I apply the finish but for now put the mounting screw in and spin on the knob and you can see those are perfectly aligned and ready to go a lot of people avoid building projects with drawers because they think that drawers are hard to build but we're here to show you that they're really not a drawer after all is just another type of box with a front and back two sides and a bottom the drawer box fits into an opening in your project and then a false front will get applied later to cover up the gaps and create a finished look even sizing a drawer isn't difficult if you're using drawer slides like these they're always 1/2 inch thick so as long as you make the total width of your drawer an inch narrower than your opening you'll be good to go and speaking of hardware just because you're building DIY doesn't mean you can't have high quality hardware these drawer slides are available in any Home Center and they're not expensive they ride on ball bearings so the actions really smooth and they're called full extension slides that means they open far enough you can complete access to the drawer without having to reach inside these even have a soft closed mechanism just like you'd find on a high-end kitchen cabinet so we'll get to installing the hardware in a bit but the first step is to build the drawer box a lot of times drawer boxes are built from half-inch thick material using half-inch material allows more space inside the drawer than using thicker 3/4 inch material would so you get a little bit more space and like other box construction building a drawer is a straightforward process just cut your front back in sides to length and then you can put them together using pocket hole joinery you'll just drill pocket holes in both ends of the front and the back to drill the pocket holes in the drawer box we're using a Kreg jig accessory called the micro pocket drill guide it creates a smaller pocket hole than the standard guide and uses a smaller screw that's great for seating down into half-inch thick material all you have to do is clamp the drawer front or back into the jig and drill the holes [Music] [Music] so that takes care of the drawer front and back the bottom is made from half-inch plywood I've gone ahead and cut that to size so all the jig set up I'm gonna go ahead and drill those pocket holes - you really just need a few along each edge [Music] so the potholes in the drawer box are in the bottom of the drawer box will go in the underside that way they won't show from inside and you can see too that I've drilled the pocket holes in the front in the back of the drawer instead of in the sides and there's a reason for that this way with the pocket screws going this way it adds a lot of strength and when you pull the drawer open you've got more strength in that joint so you don't have to worry about your drawer box ever coming apart just like when you're building any kind of box clamps are really handy and these corner clamps hold the pieces together at 90 degrees while you drive in the screws with the first screws in you can pop the clamps off everything stays in place and you've got access to the other pocket hole a nice thing with building drawers this way too is with the pocket holes in the front and back of the drawer box they won't be seen the false front will cover the ones in the front of the drawer box and the others will be on the back side of the drawer so when you look inside you won't see those sometimes when you pop the clamps off things might move around just a little bit but the other screws holding the joint together so it's easy to just tweak the position a little bit and drive in the last screws now you can install the plywood drawer bottom and it needs to sit flush with the bottom of the drawer box if you just try to set it in place it won't stay and it's gonna be hard to hold it there while you drive in the screws the trick is to use spacers spacers can be really handy in projects I've just cut some to length from scrap wood the drawer sides are three and a half inches tall and the drawer bottom is a half inch thick so I made my spacers three inches long just put one in each corner and then set the drawer box or the drawer bottom in place in the box now it's held solidly while I Drive in the screws even though I'm using the spacers I like to go a little bit gently and get one screw in on each side or each edge and that pulls things together and then it's easy to just drive in the remaining screws with the bottom in place you've got a solid drawer box and it's just made from half-inch boards and a piece of plywood when you're building a furniture style project with a face frame like this one usually the outside edge of the face frame is flush with the outside of the box it looks great but it does mean there's a gap inside and if you're installing a drawer you won't have a surface to mount it to you can easily get around that though by just cutting someone buy stock putting pocket holes at each end and screwing them inside the cabinet so that they're flush with the inside of the face frame these just go from front to back and attach to a brace that's pocket holding at the back and with those you've got a surface where you can mount your drawer slides when you're installing drawer slides it's a two-step process because the drawer slide has two pieces one that gets installed inside the box and another that gets mounted to the drawer when you're trying to mount the piece inside the box you need to try to hold it in place and keep it straight and level and drive in the screws all at the same time and that takes more hands than any of us have thankfully there's a solution once again using a jig a drawer slide jig is just a pair of brackets that get clamped inside the cabinet with the jig in place you can set your drawer slide in position and it sits nice and level and straight and stays stable so you can concentrate on driving in the screws your drawer slides will come with instructions for just how far inside the cabinet it should be positioned usually it's around 3/16 of an inch so once you've got it in place using the jig you can concentrate on just driving in the screws with the inside portions of the slides mounted the next step is to mount the drawer box let me grab it and for the drawer to work properly it also has to be aligned and straight the jig once again makes that easy because you can pop the brackets out and flip them around these little tabs make sure that it lines up now you can reinstall the drawer portion of each slide sometimes you got to wiggle it around a little bit to get them in place now with the brackets in place on the outside it makes aligning the drawer box easy just set it in place and I'll line up the front edge with a couple of marks here on the jig it takes just a little negotiation but you'll get it there and then open the slides back up now you can slide the drawer box out and position that portion of the slide just where they'll get put varies a little bit depending on the slide manufacturer these go right at the front now the drawer box is held in place and you can drive in those screws [Applause] got to kind of locate where the back screws go by just kind of playing with the halves of the slide with the screws in the drawer box you can pop the jig racquets out and close the drawer sometimes the slides are a little bit stiff at first but they'll come around now they work great but if you notice even with the jig the drawer box is a little bit low on this side that's fine though the mounting holes are slotted so all you need to do is loosen one screw adjust the position and you can take care of that misalignment the final piece to add to the drawer is the false front it goes on to hide the hardware and the gaps around the drawer box here are a couple of simple tips to make it easier to align it first I like to use a spacer and I want a half-inch between the doors and the drawer front so I've grabbed an extra piece of my half inch material second to align it from side to side I know what I want the offset to be so I've set my multi mark to that and I just align it with the spacer holding it I can clamp it down then you can go ahead and attach the false front with a couple of pocket hole screws driven from the inside and with that this cabinet will be ready for its last piece of hardware the drawer pull after you've gone to the work to build a drawer and add a nice front to it you want to make sure that you get the hardware positioned correctly usually that means having it centered from side to side and from top to bottom on the drawer front getting everything aligned and drilling the holes accurately would be very difficult by hand especially on a pole like this one that has two holes the solution and a way to make sure you'll be successful is to use a jig this cabinet hardware jig will automatically position the holes and allow you to drill them nice and straight but to do it you first got to get it centered on the drawer and that's easy just measure the width of your drawer front in this case twenty-one inches so I know that half of that is at ten and a half now I'll just draw a little line using the multi mark to make sure it's square I've already adjusted the drill guides on the jig to match the hole spacing of the pull and I've set the fence so that the distance from the fence to the holes is half the width of the drawer front now you can align the jig with the center line you drew on the drawer front using the zero mark or the little window and then clamp the jig down then you're ready to drill the holes the guides make sure that the holes are nice and straight [Music] pop the jig off and got two perfect holes now I'm not worried about the alignment mark that's drawn on here it's one of the reasons I always like to install hardware when the project is still raw I'll go ahead and sand and get everything ready before applying this final stain and finish but for now we'll test fit the hardware and you can see that thanks to the jig it's gonna line up and look great the upper part of the step-back cupboard is built a lot like the lower section in this case it's built a lot like a bookcase so again a big plywood box you can start by cutting the two sides and the top to size from plywood after you have the pieces cut you can drill pocket holes in the sides and in the top the pocket holes will be used to attach this part together and to attach the face frame and mount it to the lower section later after that you can put it together using pocket hole joinery once again using a couple clamps will help hold everything in alignment while you're driving in the screws then you can add shelf pin holes in this case there's two sets of holes because there's two shelves just position the jig drill the holes and then move it to the next location the face frame comes next so cut the parts to size from 1 by 2 and 1 by 3 boards drill pocket holes in the face frame parts where needed and screw it together then you can attach the face frame using pocket hole joinery give the face a good sanding to smooth everything out and you're almost ready to complete the upper section with the face frame on the upper box is looking great you can dress it up even more with some simple trim that wraps around it consists of a few pieces first is a cap that's made of three mitered one by threes and then there's Cove molding that goes underneath putting the cap together is really easy a lot of people don't think of using pocketable joinery with mitered corners but it works great you can see it's really no different than doing any other pocket whole joint the holes are still perpendicular to the edge that you're going to join so when you drive in the screws it'll pull those two pieces tightly together once again it really helps to clamp everything down and you can drive in the screws don't forget when you go from drilling to driving to come back to your clutch setting so you don't over drive kind of handy sometimes to have a clamp on each end of your work surface if you have to sometimes it'll clutch out before the screws completely tight just crank a little more pressure on the clutch and drive the screw the rest the way in so now you've got a cap that you can place on top when you're installing something like this cap you want to have it overhang equally on each side and that's another great place for the multi mark because you can set that distance and just gauge it on each side of everything's even you're ready to nail it on now you can complete the look with Cove molding Cove molding just comes off the shelf at the Home Center in long lengths and you can miter it to fit using a miter saw I like to put one piece in place and hold it up tight then use the next one to align the corner now I know when I nail it in I'll get a nice tight fit then you can just work your way around you do end up with some small nail holes but that's no problem a little wood filler will take care of those sand it smooth and you'll never know the nails are there and really for just a little bit of extra effort you can see that it's really worth it it's taken what started as a plywood box got a face frame to dress it up and now really looks great by adding simple molding the shells for the upper section of the step-back cupboard are just like the shelf in the lower section plywood with solid wood edging but there is one difference you'll see that the edging stops short of the length of the shelves and there's a good reason when you put the shelves in place the edging sits flush with the face frame for a very nice look it's a simple detail but it adds a lot when you're building DIY projects one of the most satisfying parts is getting to this point where everything's put together and you're just about ready to apply the final finish you know finishing is one of those places where you can really customize your project even if you're building from a plan you can totally change it up depending on the stain color or the paint that you use and applying that final finish to your project doesn't have to be as difficult or as intimidating as you might think got some tips that will help you have great success first you'll notice that I've taken the step back cupboard and kind of blown it apart you don't really need to disassemble your project but if it has pieces that easily come apart it's a good idea to kind of separate them and then you don't have nearly as many nooks and crannies to reach into and try to work around I also like to pre fit all the hardware and then remove it before finishing that way if there's a marks or anything around the holes that I've drilled I can sand those out before I go on with finishing and once you have your hardware taken off and you're ready to go it's time for the part nobody likes but that's really important and that's sanding you know it's not a lot of fun but it's really important to take the time and invest in that prep work it'll make a big difference in how your project looks you want to be sure to sand consistently if you say in some parts to say a hundred grit and others to 150 or 180 the rough parts and the smooth parts may absorb stain differently and lead to big inconsistencies in color so it's really important to take the time you know you're gonna live with the project for a long time and so you know what's another hour or two of sanding time and a great sanding tip that a lot of people forget about is when you have these edges on your project just take a piece of sandpaper and just slightly go over all those edges you're not rounding them off you're just knocking off that sharp corner you'll get a lot better results it won't be a fragile corner and the stain will stick better as its wrapping around there when you're done sanding obviously you're going to vacuum or wipe down your project and you may think it's ready to go but there's probably a lot more sawdust left behind than you'd think so grab a tack cloth and wipe down the surfaces you'll get a lot more sawdust off than you might expect you know tack cloth is kind of gummy or it's the tack cloth so don't press real hard you don't want to push that tacky material into the surface but just get everything wiped down finally when you're sanding it gives you a great chance to look over your project one more time and make sure that you haven't missed any spots and if you need to add a little wood filler to fill in the gaps be sure that you get wood filler that's sustainable so it won't interfere with your staying with those things done you'll be ready to apply your finish when you're ready to stain your project one of the hardest decisions to make can be what color to choose there's so many stain colors available I like to make up some samples you know this is one where I've taken a piece of the scrap material and applied two colors that I thought I was gonna like well one was way too red didn't like that the other one was really light so I went back to another sample board that I'd made before and it has a bunch of different colors on it and I found that for this project I really like this one happens to be mahogany so that's what I'm going to use now even if you're sure you found the right stain color there's nothing worse than getting partway through and deciding that you just don't like it because there's no turning back at that point you can't sand through the say most of the time so a good idea is to start on an interior part of your project or with a small piece like these shelves because if you make a mistake on the shelf can rebuild this pretty easily but having to start over on this is not going to be any fun at all so speaking of stain I like to use a gel stain and I think you'll really like them just like it sounds a gel stain is thick kind of looks like pudding and the big advantage of gel stains are several first of all because it's thick it doesn't run and slop and get all over the place like liquid stain second being thicker it clings to surfaces so whether you're doing a flat surface or a horizontal surface it's not going to get all over the place but third and the reason that I really like gel stain is it doesn't soak in quite as deeply to the wood it still gives great color but when you apply it it's thicker so it doesn't soak in as much and you won't get inconsistencies in color like liquid stain can give you because soft air is the wood absorb more air stain than the light or the pardon me soft areas of the wood absorb more stain then the harder areas so it's really easy to apply just go ahead and wipe it on I'm just using a foam brush and by the way don't buy the cheap foam brushes buy good ones they'll actually last while you're using them and just cover an area one thing I'm making sure is that I cover a whole panel at one time I don't want to stop part way across and let that stain dry and then start again or you may end up with a visible line called a lap mark where you get more staying overlapping and it will really show so with a gel stain just wipe it on you can leave some excess on the surface and then let it sit for a minute or two grab a rag and just start to buff up the extra now one great thing about working one panel at a time too is sometimes projects get interrupted you know everybody's busy we got things going on and you may not be able to even finish the staining in one session so if you do one panel even if it's the side of the cabinet and you have to walk away for an hour or a day or a week again you can come back and just start staining at the next spot because you don't have to worry about that overlap once you have your panel done take a look look for any bare spots or areas that may need more stain if you don't see any you're ready to move on so eventually you'll work your way around it really doesn't take a long time because the projects been sanded well and because I'm confident that it was ready for stain I'm really not worried about the results I'm gonna get I know that if I use a gel stain and I apply it by the directions which is pretty much slop it on and wipe it off not really directions I know I'll get good results and I'll end up with a color that I really like now of course when you first apply stain it will be a little bit dull but don't worry about that before I talk about what comes next I want to talk about these your stain rags these rags that are soaked with stain please don't leave them wadded up a wadded up rag will actually start having a chemical action and it can get hot enough to catch fire it happens in shops it happens in restaurants with greasy food rags don't let it happen at your house take your st. stained soaked rags open them up flat and then lay them out on the concrete or hang them on a line until they're good and dry might take a couple of days then you can throw them away with your regular trash but you just need to be safe and to make sure that you don't risk anything with a simple mistake which can be taken a rag and tossing it on the floor so if that one laid out when you get your staying on again projects going to start to look great but you might be a little bit disappointed at first because you expect that really vibrant color and it's a little bit dull that's because stain alone doesn't finish your finishing process you also need a top coat or a clear finish over the top and again I like to make that process easy so a good choice is to go for what's called a wiping varnish you can get wipe-on poly urethane or wipe on varnish and like the name says you can wipe it on with a rag or with a foam brush and you don't rub it back off in the same way that you do stain but you don't have to spray it with expensive spray equipment that can be hazardous you don't have to try to brush it and get those brush marks out it's just very forgiving and it'll give a really nice look so that's a lot of basics about staining but you know this is an area where a lot of people really get scared because great looking color can make a so-so project look fantastic and a bad color can make a great project not look so good so take the time check your project over sand it choose the right color choose the right stain and you'll have great results so with that gel stain applied and a couple of coats of wipe-on varnish I think the stuff that covered project looks great I really like the color and the sheen of the finish it does feel a little bit rough and that's gonna happen when you're finishing in your garage or maybe even outside but all you need to do is grab some furniture paste wax and very fine steel wool and just kind of buff it out like waxing your car wipe it off with a rag and you'll get a really smooth finish so I hope you've learned here that whether you maybe have been afraid to build DIY projects or you built the iy projects in the past and not got the results you wanted that it's really not as hard as you might think even a complex project or a seemingly complex project like this one isn't if you break it down yeah we really started with pieces of plywood and built essentially big boxes then we used ordinary boards from the Home Center to add features like face frame and even doors and a drawer some simple trim dresses it out and creates a project that doesn't look too mini like something that you do yourself but guess what you did it yourself you'll be proud to have this and the cool thing is if you can build this project you can build tons of projects like it I mean after all it's really just big boxes that are dressed up so if you want to build a chest of drawers or maybe a bathroom vanity even kitchen cabinet even a whole kitchen these are the techniques you're going to use you know now that you don't need high-end skills you don't need fancy woodworking tools you need basic DIY tools some great tool accessories and the right tips and techniques so if you break a project down instead of thinking of it as complex you'll see that it's a series of easy steps and if you expect great results and take your time you'll get great results when you build your own DIY projects you

Channel: Kreg Tool

Views: 2,196,616

Rating: 4.7939739 out of 5

Keywords: Kreg, Kreg Tool, Kreg Jig, pocket hole, pocket hole jig, Kreg Joinery, building, wood, woodworking, DIY, DIY Project, project plan, project plans, Home Depot, Lowe’s, DIY home décor, home décor, DIY furniture, DIY build, DIY idea, DIY skill, DIY skills, DIY tool, DIY tools, stepback cabinet, stepback cupboard

Id: y6-Y8QvQNuk

Length: 80min 41sec (4841 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 18 2018