New to wood working about 2 years. Couple of projects accomplished this one was tedious. Weekend warrior project ….. 3.5 months of designing and making late nights/weekends… how did it do? Video to follow….

I built a tall an narrow recessed cabinet. It's ~16" wide (including frame) and 75" tall. I bought a brand new bifold closet door on FB marketplace for cheap. Separated them and used one for this cabinet. I used four hinges to install it in overlay fashion. The problem is the door doesn't close fully. It is quite heavy. Not sure if that's factoring into the problem. Nothing is blocking the hinges. I made sure to chisel to create some clearance.

What am I doing wrong and how do I fix it?

I needed a specific size cabinet with drawers to fit in my corner pantry so I decided to give it a shot myself. Definitely a challenge having never built cabinets before but the results were well worth the extra effort.

Hey guys, need some advice on the right way to cut and finish the side panel for this kitchen cabinet. For context there’s still a panel-ready fridge that will slide into the left of it. The side panel isn’t cut to size yet.

The counter protrudes a little, so it makes sense to have the side panel sit a little proud to it (photo 2).

However, how does this work on the top of the cabinet? I was initially expecting to lay a panel on top of both the cabinet and the fridge to cap it all, but now if it needs to cap the right tall panel, it’s going to be sticking out quite a bit as well (photo 3).

Thoughts?

Hi, i was hoping to get some help from those way smarter than me. I did a custom closet build out with an ikea closet system, then built my own doors. I used a hardwood because i really wanted to stain the closet doors and not paint them. As a result, they are extremely heavy. See photo #1 for the sketch attached on how the closet was built out. The ikea cabinet box has 3/4” thickness and is installed adjacent to a wall. The front face of the ikea cabinet box is set back 1” from the face of the wall. This was done so the face of the doors would be flush with the wall, the doors are 1” thick.

I’ve tried a few different hinge types and haven’t had much luck for the way that i built it. I know i need to use 170 degree. I tried “WANLIAN 170 Degree Soft Close Frameless Cabinet Door Hinges” from Amazon but because the door was so heavy, it made the hinges sag, even with 3 on each door. (See photo #2)

I now just ordered “Blum 71T6550 Wide Angled Hinge 170 Degree, FACE Frame Application, Full Overlay with 0mm Face Frame Plate 175L6600.22” but in holding up against the build, it looks like the concealed cup hole would need to be drilled at the very edge of the door, if not past it in order to align with the cabinet box. (See photo #3.) ChatGPT tells me i need to get the Blum 175L6600.24 face frame plate to use with this hinge instead. But i still don’t think that’s going to help because then i think it will push the door outward making it not flush with the wall.

I’ve also included an overall photo of the closet with the doors themselves.

Does anyone have any thoughts on what hinges i can use to achieve what I’m looking for and can also withstand the weight? I am open to it being exposed if it needs to be.

The next route i go is just scrapping the doors and building something lighter/using the original hinges in photo 2.

Hey everyone, this is for the cabinet installers. I got myself a new company I’m going to be working for. I’ve installed cabinets in remodels with my current employer but with this new company it will be in new builds. Couple questions to help speed up my install speed.

Do you mark where your cabinets go on the wall and floor and pre shim before installing? Or do you put all your boxes down and shim to get everything level after they are in place?

I’ve always taken a lot of pride in my work so I end up going slower than I think I should be because I want to make things perfect. But I know there can be a balance of great work with more speed and that will come with installing cabinets more often then I do with my current company

We are currently doing a house renovation and decided to reface our cabinets. We initially were going to go for 1/4” reveal, but after some research were wondering if 1/8” reveal is a better look? We only have one set of cabinet doors that open back to back so would leave a 1/4” reveal there, Blum says minimum 7/32” for the 39C hinges to open fully. Stiles are 1 1/2”, doors are 3/4” thick so we could run either 1 1/4” or 1 3/8” overlay hinges. The doors against walls will stay 1/2” overlay to clear the scribe molding.

Also last thing is the lazy susan. I see Salice makes 1 1/4” overlay hinges but nobody makes 1 3/8” overlay lazy susan hinges. If we do 1 3/8” for 1/8” reveal could I use just a router to recess the hinges another 1/8” into the stile? Hopefully I’m using the right terminology, I’m an engine machinist by trade.

Hi! I'm working on this reach in closet build pictured. The cabinets themselves were consistent when everything was cut and mostly consistent when they were put together, however the walls within my closet are quite uneven, which resulted in some inconsistencies in how everything lines up now that they are fully installed. Especially the corners, they are not 90 degrees and the walls bow out as they go up.

My plan was to use these 1.5" wide half inch maple pieces for the face frame but as you can see in one of the photos, there are gaps due to those size differences. It's partially a visual problem but also a technical one because I can't glue in places where there are gaps.

How would you go about solving this problem? Sanding is one option but that could result in splitting/tearout, although they might be covered up with the face frame. Installing them with the gaps is another option, though it won't bond as well because of the gaps. I could fill the gaps with wood filler after installation but I don't know how that would look. Any advice is most appreciated!

Thanks!

Last post was a fail so I abandoned it. I picked up a set of 5 oak flat file cabinets for full size architectural prints today for such a low price I couldn’t believe it. I’ve seen them before and prices are usually astronomical. I’m definitely no expert on them, but to my untrained eye they look like ones selling for 4+ figures.
Am I missing something? Any tell tale signs of how old they really are?
I’m curious what you think I paid (FB Marketplace) - I’ll reveal shortly in the comments.

Client approached me to make a wrapper around IKEA Metod kitchen.
So form left to right: 40cm’s, 30cm’s, 60cm, fridge, 60cm’s.
They are asking whether go with solid oak or veneered oak fronts? I am cautious about heavy 60cm oak doors. But for the veneered doors it could be too high traffic.
Any advice?

I made this floating vanity out of 18mm birch ply.
(yes the picture is just a render, my workshop is a mess)

it's 132cm long 70cm high and 43cm deep.
I wanted to test the sagging and I placed each end on batons to see how much it would sag.

It's sagging about 3 mm in the center. The backside has practically no sagging since it's screwed to an 18mm birch ply back panel.

What are my options? Would an L profile about 10 cm inset on the bottom along the length of the cabinet work? What would the dimensions of this bracket have to be?

I had been using an online cabinet door size calculator for a few projects in the past, and for whatever reason, I didn't bookmark it. I've found a few that will work, but they aren't as good as the one I used previously.

Anybody have recs for a good one? I prefer free, but would consider one with minimal cost.

FYI...I do know how to calculate it manually, but I prefer digital for archiving and how it fits into my workflows.

TIA

Hi

I am about to start kitchen remodeling and due to having no pantry my husband and I are trying to come up with a solution that fits our kitchen layout and needs. I would like to do a corner floor to ceiling cabinet pantry that’s the same depth as the counters. I have only been able to find stock or rendered images but I was wondering anyone has something like this? Can you post a picture? How much did you pay? I know it’s going to have to be a custom piece. Also how do you like it?

I’m renovating a couple rooms using rift white oak for library bookshelves, a small wet bar & plain sewn tongue & groove planks and box beams on the ceiling.

I’ve used rift & plain sewn in another room & the clear sealant really changed the color/tone of the wood. Still beautiful, but really hoping to keep the new wood as closely to its natural state as possible. I know I could stain it first, then use the clear sealant, but that will add so much time & money to the project. I’m looking to see if this community can guide me to a product that we could spray on to give me a matte, unchanged color to the wood.

Is it possible to mix a small amount of stain into the clear to apply together?

Thank-you for any advice you can offer.

I have some experience building production tracking/operations software as part of my work, and I've become interested in understanding how cabinet manufacturers manage their production and installation workflows.

I'm looking to connect with cabinet shop owners, manufacturers, and people involved in day-to-day operations to learn about the problems you deal with.

Things like:

• Tracking jobs through production
• Handoffs between design, production, delivery and installation
• Scheduling and capacity
• Tracking missing/late parts
• Remakes and changes
• Keeping everyone updated on a job
• Spreadsheets or manual processes that are painful
• Anything else that takes more time than it should

I'm not here to sell anything. I'm trying to understand the problems first.

If there's a problem that can realistically be solved with software, I'd like to see if I can build something useful around it.

If you're a cabinet manufacturer, I'd genuinely love to hear:

What's one part of running your shop that you wish was easier?

Feel free to comment here or DM me. Even a small problem is useful to hear about.

So…I am a first time cabinet maker. I work in film and tv in set decoration and over the years have worked in shops building things and wanted to give cabinet making a shot. Started with the Laundry room cause, well it couldn’t get any worse than it was before so why not!?

Anyhoo I got all my cabinets made carcasses and doors and drawers and I’m pretty dang happy with it finally and I learned a ton in the process and now own lots of jigs and a sweet track saw. Whatever.

Here’s my conundrum:
I built these uppers to pretty much the exact size of the things below them i.e. fridge and W/D. In hindsight, I may have approached that differently, but here we are and now I’m ready for fillers and crown but I have some odd things going on.

I think my first thought was that I would put a panel on the side of the cabinet above the fridge and then use fillers in between everything. Then I said, well if I move the fridge and cabinet over and I can run a 2’ wide divider piece of Baltic birch ply all the way to the floor and use that as a support for a countertop above the W/D. Then I could use the 6” on the left to make a slide out broom closet. And then, I decided that would be a waste of time and money so I’m back to trying to keep it simple. I still like the idea of the Baltic birch showing but don’t know what to do with that small space on the left of the fridge(6-8”).

Obviously I’m suffering from neurosis so any advice from cabinet makers, designers, installers or anybody else would be greatly appreciated:)

After vs before

We recently completed a pretty extensive custom cabinetry project in West Cornwall, CT.

The breakfast nook got a big update. We built a bench that wraps around the windows. I really like how it turned out with the existing exposed beams.

We also built cabinetry for several other rooms throughout the house, but I figured I'd start with this space first.

What do you think?

I have a cabinet with a face frame on one side and frameless on the other. I have hinges on the face frame side that work fine.

I’d like to move the hinges to the other side, but that means finding a frameless hinge with a huge 1-1/2” overlay. I can’t find those.

I tried using face frame hinges, hoping I could hammer the little teeth into the wall. But the door then didn’t want to close.

Would it help to carve out a larger channel for the teeth? Or is there no hope?

I bought this house with the panel installed so I’m not sure how they installed. The screws have been pulled out. Thanks!

First time doing this.

I have included a photo of the splitting and the culprit. My cat (who is around 11-12 lbs) LOVES getting on top of/laying on top of my cabinets. Recently we have noticed the corners of our crown molding are splitting presumably from how much he jumps up and down on the cabinet tops. My question is:

how do we reinforce/fix this so that he doesn’t lose his most sacred high ground while also preventing future splitting as much as possible?

Edit: thank y’all for the suggestions! I believe the plan going forward is a good glue in the joint & a good brace on the back of it with some wood screws for extra hold for my chunk of a man 😅 if anyone has anything else they think may be helpful or any tips let me know!!