# Building Kitchen Cabinets



## swindmill (Nov 12, 2014)

After about 5 years of renovating my house, including general woodworking and some furniture building, I'm starting to think about getting started on my kitchen. I've put off the kitchen for this long because I really want to be able to do the entire thing myself, and cabinets have long been my biggest fear. After a good amount of reading, I feel pretty comfortable building them, but there are a few things that no amount of researching and reading can comfortably answer. This will be a pretty modern kitchen, and I plan on building faceless/euro style boxes. A floating shelf I recently built using solid red oak has a finish that I'm very happy with and I plan to use it in the kitchen. I've attached a picture of that for reference. My biggest concern relates to materials. I'm thinking that because these will be faceless, my main concern for quality finish will be doors, drawer fronts, and exposed sides. I honestly like the look of flat front doors on euro style cabinets, and as of right now that's what I plan on going with. Should I use the same type and grade of plywood for the boxes and the doors/drawer fronts (with edge banding)? I don't know what the common practice is. What type of plywood should I use to achieve the finish I'm going for? There is a supplier locally where I can get anything from A1 down in a variety of species. Perhaps complicating the finish issue is the fact that I plan on a fair amount of open shelving in place of some of the upper cabinets. I'd like to do floating shelves similar to what I've attached, but I'm not sure I could do that with anything other than solid wood, at least on the front face of the shelf. Will I have issues matching the finish on, for example, oak plywood and solid oak? Before I go on any further, let me stop at my questions concerning materials because that is honestly the most overwhelming issue at this point. Basically, I'd like something that takes stain well and can be matched with solid wood that I'll be using on other pieces. I assume this is an issue on any face frame style cabinets since they are mix of solid and ply. This is probably a fairly basic issue, but it's one that is difficult to research on my own. I hope this long stream of thought makes some sense, and I appreciate any help (or requests for clarification).


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## slownsteady (Nov 12, 2014)

I've never been a big fan of banding on the edge of plywood. It never seems to wear well. And I imagine kitchen cabinet doors which get a lot of use, might wear sooner. Of course, it may be the grade of banding that makes a difference...


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## swindmill (Nov 12, 2014)

slownsteady said:


> I've never been a big fan of banding on the edge of plywood. It never seems to wear well. And I imagine kitchen cabinet doors which get a lot of use, might wear sooner. Of course, it may be the grade of banding that makes a difference...





I Sort of questioned whether banding was used on higher end cabinetry. What is the alternative?

Edit: I suppose an obvious alternative would be to go with a different style. I'm not opposed to shaker style. Most instructions I see for faceless cabinets still suggest banding on the front of the sides and bottoms of the boxes, but I suppose those places are not as important.


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## nealtw (Nov 12, 2014)

Try to buy some scaps of the plywood you want to use and play with stains to see how it goes. The factories use a spay on stain that dosn't soak in so they get a good colour match, but the grain will always look different with plywood as it is peeled off the log instead of cut.

The only high end edging I have seen was, they cut the door edge from both sides on a 45* and the glued in either solid wood or plywood cant strip to fit. Most times it is just iron on tape.


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## swindmill (Nov 12, 2014)

That method would be a lot of work for flat front doors, but the final product sure would be nice. 

I guess my next step would be to take a trip to the plywood supplier near me and talk to them. I'm guessing that with so little of the actual cabinet boxes being visible, I don't need the highest grade plywood, short of the doors if I do flat fronts. 


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## nealtw (Nov 12, 2014)

Middle grade cupboard we see here have been built with K3 board or Melamine with hardwood tape on the front edges and exposed gables they just glue on 1/8 plywood. In the past I have seen K3 board that comes with hardwood venere on one side, might not be available retail.


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## bud16415 (Nov 13, 2014)

My nephew builds high end custom speaker enclosures and his shop and process is set up for working with MDF not to be confused with Particle Board. When he decided to build his own kitchen cabinets he ran them thru the process he knew well and built them from MDF. They turned out beautiful and the finished look you would think they were made from stone or something. He glues and screws 100% and in his speakers removes all screws after the glue sets. Not sure if he did in kitchen or not the rest of the process is close to auto body finishing. Everything is coated with thinned polyester resin and sanded out and finishing can then be anything you want. 

So much of the boxes won&#8217;t be seen I would be looking at different grades of materials maybe even MDF for the areas you won&#8217;t see. 

I like the idea above to try a bunch of materials and different finishing processes and find the look you are going for.


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## swindmill (Nov 13, 2014)

I'll probably use some sort of plywood. My understanding is that big box hardwood plywood isn't a good choice due to inconsistency in thickness and the thinness of the oak veneer layer. There is a supplier about 20 minutes from me that sells every grade of plywood I could want. 

The melamine type box sounds similar to the boxes sold by Ikea, which I've looked at, but I'd rather do custom sized boxes and do it myself. Otherwise, I'm not totally opposed to that material for the boxes. The MDF with that type of finish is probably too difficult for me. I've worked with MDF on furniture I painted, but it was all glue and nail stuff. The auto like finish sounds nice and unique though. It's just too easy to mess up with MDF if you don't use it a lot.

Depending on prices, I'm thinking a lower grade plywood for the boxes, and higher grade for visible sides, doors, drawers, and any open shelving I construct with plywood. I may just go ahead and do shaker style fronts and use 1x and 1/4" ply of whatever species I decide on. I've heard walnut is great for cabinets, but I'm sure it's expensive. The red oak I used for the floating shelf I attached above finished off great, so maybe I'll stick with that. Hopefully, the supplier can give me a few samples to mess with, as you have suggested.

Aside from materials, I really just need to decide on a joinery method. I've read that pocket screws and glue are plenty strong for cabinets, which would be relatively quick. I sometimes have problems with that method causing one side to get away from where I intended it to join, so maybe biscuits with pocket screws as permanent clamps. I'd like to get a biscuit a joiner anyways.


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## nealtw (Nov 13, 2014)

If you google (building kitchen cupboards) you will find a method for every day of the week. The trick is to find a method that fits your skill level and the tools you already have and of coarse with every new project you do need at least one new tool.
Most videos are showing off some new tool or other but I like just cut dattos to fit the shelves or tops and bottoms and backs, glue and pin nails.
I also like jigs, nothing fancy just build what you need to make consistant cuts and assembly jigs so you can repeat the process many times.
If you use screws with any sheet stock there is a chance of spitting the wood, You can get a stepped countersink drill bit that has a tapered drill bit for the screw, they really are worth the $8 or so.


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## mako1 (Nov 17, 2014)

Owned a custom cabinet shop for 14 years and have built many euro style cabinet.My confusion with your post is the floating shelf that you want to match.That is oak with the grain showing thru the finish.Is this the same look you want for the kitchen>If so you will need to use oak or an open grained wood.If you want a smooth finish I would go with A1 maple ply and from a good supplier.Not big box.I have never had an issue with the applied edge baning but you need to buy the better quality product.It is thicker and has a better adhesive.
You could also go with a 5/16" edging on the ply in place of edge banding.With the finish you propose it may not show but you will have to try a sample to figure that out.
 If using 5/16" edging you can rip board and plane to the desired thickness to get face grain in place of just ripping and using edge grain.


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## swindmill (Nov 18, 2014)

I guess I should broaden my idea of the type of finish I want. I would be fine with a smoother finish. I'm more interested in getting a uniform stain in the same dark color that the floating shelf has. My main concern is achieving the same finish on the cabinets and open shelving. The cabinets will definitely be a higher grade plywood, perhaps A1 maple as you suggest. What I'm not sure of is whether I can make the open shelving from plywood. I plan on a design very similar to what I've posted above for the shelving (but it will need to be about 4-5 inches deeper), and I'm not sure how I can do that without using solid wood, due to the fact that there is visible edge grain. I don't think edge banding would look right for that application because I can't sand it down for an smooth, even face. I guess I could use the same ply and 45 every edge on a table saw, or with a circle saw guide, but the opportunity for error there seems pretty high.  

I'm sure there's a simple solution to this, but it's just not something I've had to figure out before. Basically, I want to make 12" deep floating shelves that are stained to the same finish as the plywood cabinets. Maybe I just need to rethink the shelf design to make building them with plywood more feasible.


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## beachguy005 (Nov 18, 2014)

If you're going to make more shelves like the one in your photo why not use the same cabinet ply for the top and bottom then use clear maple or oak stock for the face and ends.  Using a biscuit joiner and mitered corners.


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## swindmill (Nov 18, 2014)

beachguy005 said:


> If you're going to make more shelves like the one in your photo why not use the same cabinet ply for the top and bottom then use clear maple or oak stock for the face and ends.  Using a biscuit joiner and mitered corners.



That seems like the best solution, so long as I can achieve a similar stain finish on the ply and solid pieces on the face and ends. 
On those types of floating shelves, I use a 1x2 in between 1x_ which makes using 1x2 cleats on the wall very simple. In order to use 1x2 as cleats, I would probably need to rip a true .75x3 for the face and sides. I'm not sure if there's a better way to do a floating shelf. That's just what I've always done. This may call for a different method.


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## slownsteady (Nov 18, 2014)

http://www.homedepot.com/p/DecraMol...-and-Cabinet-Trim-Moulding-10000107/100392983

I've used a molding similar to this on the edge of 3/4 oak-faced plywood to make a desk top. I'll try to get a pix of the finished piece.


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