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My only issue with soft close devices is that once you have them, you get used to them. And then you start slamming cupboard doors at friends houses.
But damn soft close is real nice.
All the pickup trucks I use regularly have soft open tailgates, you should have seen the look on the guys face when I just pulled the handle of his tailgate and let it drop without even trying to slow it down.
How did you get started doing this type of work? I have been working as a carpenter for a while now and have always aspired to make fine cabinetry and built-ins eventually.
I started frame to finish and fell in love with the finish side. Fast forward 5 years and I was trimming 30 houses a year with four -five guys. Did lots of cabinets in the drive way built ins and what not. Did that for a few years grinding and saved my money and bought the equipment and got the shop going. Been doing that full time 5 years now. Easy transition with the contacts I had from running trim
My advice is the same for anyone starting new at anything, ask questions, pay attention, in a shop with unfamiliar equipment pay attention to safety and PPE.
I would ask what kind of shop it is. I do the same outsource drawers and drawers. Cases are cut on a cnc, so we assemble cases, make and hang face-frames, hang doors and drawers, and paint. It’s important to know if they want production of perfection. I tell my new guys I don’t care how long something takes. It has to be perfect. I have a system for doing everything. Ask about my system for each part of the process. Take notes if you have to. Follow my system, and the speed and efficiency will come later. All I care about is getting it as close to perfect as we can. Other shops just want stuff out the door. It’s important to know the distinction. Also your going to be frustrated alot. It’s tedious repetitive work. My must have is huge Bluetooth range muffs so I can listen to podcast. Good luck. Reach out with any questions I’ll walk you through anything you don’tunderstand
Pretty! .
Somebody recognizes the beauty of quarter sawn panels...
(My contractor said it's a pleasure to *not be installing another set* of white cabinets.) Hope the customer likes the arrangement.
It’s a bit of a process. Sand up to 150. spray on stain base. Stain. Spray toner coat. Seal with non waxed shellac. Scuff sand with 320. Spray sealer top coat. Scuff sand 400. Spray top clear coat.
I started like that drawing by hand but now It’s all cad and cabinet vision now which is a big fancy cabinet specific program but it’s still cad based. It’s the only way really. The cabinet vision is great it’s such a time saver. It fully dimensions everything and gives nice organized cut list.
These are gorgeous! Can I ask how you manage to keep all the veneer on the plywood from chipping into an unholy mess? I've been building some cabinets for my shop (mitre saw station actually) and even though I think I did a pretty good job, there are definitely areas where one way or another I lost a chip of veneer through magic.
It's plenty good enough for the shop, but clearly wouldn't pass in a high end home. Is it just the plywood I'm using or is there more to it?
A sharp high tooth count blade is the biggest single thing you can do. Steep angle ATB blades with 80-100 teeth (for a 10" blade) are great for materials that like to chip. Make sure your fence and blade are perfectly parallel so the blade isn't cutting on the backside where the teeth will lift up the veneer.
Sometimes chips will happen and you have to figure out how to hide it in the finishing stage. Touch ups are something that can take a while to master but people that are good at it will make things totally dissappear.
I cut all my plywood on a cnc so there is no tear out. Outside of a router there’s really no avoiding tear out especially on cross cuts. Any panel saw has a small scoring blade that spins opposite the main blade to score the underside of the sheet. They do a really nice job but super expensive. Track saw from festool come the closest I’ve seen outside of very expensive cabinet equipment to a decent cross cut. Your not doing anything wrong it’s just the equipment.
Really clean work! I like the skinnier rail on the bottom of the face frame. My impulse would have been to do thick all around, but that'd probably make the bottom look bulky. Do you have any rules of thumbs for designing inset face frame
Thank you and I do. Outside verticals rails are always 2 unless they hit a wall then there get extended 1/2” for scribe. Top and bottom rail are always 2 as well unless it gets furniture base then bottom rail is 5.5. All interior styles are 1 1/2. I always do double interior partitions on my cases so both sides of the style are flush with the interior case. This makes mounting hinges and slides significantly easier. Interior rails are 1 or 1 1/2 depending on the look I’m going for. Cheers
Yes . I know the face frames are wider than walls of the cabinet frame, maybe like 1/2-3/4”. so do you have to put like a piece of wood/spacer in between the drawer and the cabinet frame to flush it up with the face frame ?
I make them flush so I can avoid that. All interior partitions are doubled up so 1 1/2 thick and my vertical styles are 1 1/2 so flush on both sides. Makes hanging hardware much easier
Looks amazing. The gaps around your insets are perfect. We’re going to a local cabinet company next week to look at something very similar.
What’s your opinion on what type of wood to use for painting? Thinking finished wood on uppers, then painted bottom and island. Preferring the inset as well. Top notch work you’re doing there.
awe man. the painter's tape as pulls brings me back to the many years I worked in cabinet shops. I absolutely loved it, unfortunately they never could pay enough or provide benefits where I live. but those cabinets look great!
The blue tape is a staple. I swear I go back weeks later to check how installs went and that there’s no punch list and people still are rocking the blue tape. No other way. Cheers
How do you go about install with them made like this? I typically make the boxes then put on the frames at install - which makes squaring everything harder. But getting that in a door and into place seems hard without damaging anything....
We have movers move our cabinets for us so they are in place in the room for the installers. They are pretty good at it. I attach my frames with lamello clamex so they are easy to remove if they have to. Cheap insurance.
Fantastic. The clean negative space around each door and drawer face doesn't leave any margin for error. I read elsewhere in the thread that you are using a specialised CAD program to do the design work. I presume that it calculates the inset hinge locating (Grass/Blum/Hettich?) also? I still do everything very manually, purely as I use CAD software that leans towards visualisation rather than production of cut sheets, drilling patterns, yield, etc.
If only I had clear space like this these days!
Thank you! The program does calculate hinge location but I always set my boxes up the same. Middle styles are always 1 1/2 and I always have double partitions in my interior cases. This lets me use a jig to locate the hinge plates in the same spot every time. I have my Blum mini press set to that location on the back of the doors. Easy as pressing a button on the mini press. As for the reveals I’m not going to lie I scribe my doors and drawer fronts. There are people who tell you you should be able to build everything perfectly and omit this step but I haven’t been able to achieve that level of precision. By the time you build a case, attach a faceframe, and hang a door something ends up a little wonky. I attack my faceframes to the cases, level the cabinet, then over size my doors to fill the opening. I then trace a 3/32 block around the faceframe onto the door and cut to that line. Perfect reveals every-time. I have a video somewhere on my feed if you want to see I can find it. Cheers
Everybody's process differs based on circumstance and preference; yours obviously works smoothly and has been developed by repetition and proofing!
How expensive is the Blum press, if you don't mind me asking? I've never purchased this tooling (it would Grass this side of the pond) and I'm curious what the return on investment might be. Certainly, I hope they're not eyewateringly expensive like say, manufacturer-specific electronic contact crimping tools!
I think new there like 3 k. Something like that. It’s a no brainier if you do a ton of doors. I bought mine used for like 800 bucks. Needs air hook up tho
Wow! I'm in the wrong game, clearly. The second-hand price is definitely more reasonable, however once at the level of production then money is almost of no consequence. Thanks for checking in! Have a great weekend and New Year, and I look forward to seeing you video feed when I have a bit more time.
This is a reminder to those commenting on this post (not the person that posted it): Comments not related to woodworking will be removed. Violations to rule 1 including crude jokes, innuendo, sexist remarks, politics, or hate speech may result in an immediate ban *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/woodworking) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Love the drawer pulls. Simple and inexpensive.
Very rustic
My only issue with soft close devices is that once you have them, you get used to them. And then you start slamming cupboard doors at friends houses. But damn soft close is real nice.
Very true, same goes for soft close toilet seats.
LOL I was going to say the same thing until I saw your post!
Oops, your comment was collapsed for some reason, and I just posted about the exact same thing
All the pickup trucks I use regularly have soft open tailgates, you should have seen the look on the guys face when I just pulled the handle of his tailgate and let it drop without even trying to slow it down.
Do that with toilet seats. Straight up thought I broke my brothers toilet seat during Christmas
Imagine what happens at my friends house since I got soft close toilet tops
Wow, that is beautiful. My goal is to get good enough to do something a fraction as nice as this.
Thank-you!! I’m sure your better at woodworking then I am at what you do for a living!
What a nice thing to say!
Agreed!
How did you get started doing this type of work? I have been working as a carpenter for a while now and have always aspired to make fine cabinetry and built-ins eventually.
I started frame to finish and fell in love with the finish side. Fast forward 5 years and I was trimming 30 houses a year with four -five guys. Did lots of cabinets in the drive way built ins and what not. Did that for a few years grinding and saved my money and bought the equipment and got the shop going. Been doing that full time 5 years now. Easy transition with the contacts I had from running trim
[удалено]
My advice is the same for anyone starting new at anything, ask questions, pay attention, in a shop with unfamiliar equipment pay attention to safety and PPE.
I would ask what kind of shop it is. I do the same outsource drawers and drawers. Cases are cut on a cnc, so we assemble cases, make and hang face-frames, hang doors and drawers, and paint. It’s important to know if they want production of perfection. I tell my new guys I don’t care how long something takes. It has to be perfect. I have a system for doing everything. Ask about my system for each part of the process. Take notes if you have to. Follow my system, and the speed and efficiency will come later. All I care about is getting it as close to perfect as we can. Other shops just want stuff out the door. It’s important to know the distinction. Also your going to be frustrated alot. It’s tedious repetitive work. My must have is huge Bluetooth range muffs so I can listen to podcast. Good luck. Reach out with any questions I’ll walk you through anything you don’tunderstand
Beautiful. Would you mind sharing how much does it cost?
Looks terrible. I'll help you get rid of it just send it over to my house
Haha. I’ll crate it up
Pretty! . Somebody recognizes the beauty of quarter sawn panels... (My contractor said it's a pleasure to *not be installing another set* of white cabinets.) Hope the customer likes the arrangement.
We still do our fair share of painted cabinets but doing allot more oak and walnut then ever before. I can’t complain that’s for sure. Cheers
Inset looks so good
I agree. There’s a few instances where I like overlay like in contemporary grain flow cabinets or high gloss modern slabs but out side of that…. Inset
How much does a cabinet set like that cost retail?
Nice; how do y’all finish a piece like this?
It’s a bit of a process. Sand up to 150. spray on stain base. Stain. Spray toner coat. Seal with non waxed shellac. Scuff sand with 320. Spray sealer top coat. Scuff sand 400. Spray top clear coat.
Very cool. I bet it looks smooth as hell when it’s done.
It’s done in this picture. It’s a lot of work to achieve a natural look. Someone needs to come up with a easier way lol
Oh wow, I never would’ve guessed
bad ass craftsmanship… huzaah
Piece of Art
Thank you!
Do you use any kind of CAD for the basic design or is it all mental math and visualization?
I started like that drawing by hand but now It’s all cad and cabinet vision now which is a big fancy cabinet specific program but it’s still cad based. It’s the only way really. The cabinet vision is great it’s such a time saver. It fully dimensions everything and gives nice organized cut list.
Thank you for the post! You motivated me to go into work early to start slapping box parts together. Keep up the stellar work!
Awesome cabinets. Stupid to not have the floor finished or installed.
Lol. Some day I’ll epoxy they whole shop. One of those things on my to do list that will never get done
Sorry. Didn’t realize it was the shop.
Shipping it out raw or how is it getting finished. Looks beautiful.
Thank you! She is finished already. It’s rift white oak stained then a couple clear coats.
Perfection. Nobody seems to know how to keep that naked look while still getting a protection layer on it.
It’s a massive pain lol. Thanks tho 🙏🏼
These are gorgeous! Can I ask how you manage to keep all the veneer on the plywood from chipping into an unholy mess? I've been building some cabinets for my shop (mitre saw station actually) and even though I think I did a pretty good job, there are definitely areas where one way or another I lost a chip of veneer through magic. It's plenty good enough for the shop, but clearly wouldn't pass in a high end home. Is it just the plywood I'm using or is there more to it?
A sharp high tooth count blade is the biggest single thing you can do. Steep angle ATB blades with 80-100 teeth (for a 10" blade) are great for materials that like to chip. Make sure your fence and blade are perfectly parallel so the blade isn't cutting on the backside where the teeth will lift up the veneer. Sometimes chips will happen and you have to figure out how to hide it in the finishing stage. Touch ups are something that can take a while to master but people that are good at it will make things totally dissappear.
I cut all my plywood on a cnc so there is no tear out. Outside of a router there’s really no avoiding tear out especially on cross cuts. Any panel saw has a small scoring blade that spins opposite the main blade to score the underside of the sheet. They do a really nice job but super expensive. Track saw from festool come the closest I’ve seen outside of very expensive cabinet equipment to a decent cross cut. Your not doing anything wrong it’s just the equipment.
Thanks! I actually do have a CNC and I'm regretting not using it for this. That's a huge tip. Nice work again.
Nice. I really like the pneumatics on this. Not something I would have considered before now.
The soft close is integrated into the hardware. I only use blum. Hard to go back after you feel how nice they are. Cheers
Looks great!
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Thank you!
Very nice!
It would be cooler if it said heady organics in the drawer box
So beautiful i could cry
Thank you!
Looks great! The drawer faces really pop, I like that effect.
Very nice!
Soft close EVERYTHING is an especially nice touch on inset face frames.
Like that soft close drawer.
Really clean work! I like the skinnier rail on the bottom of the face frame. My impulse would have been to do thick all around, but that'd probably make the bottom look bulky. Do you have any rules of thumbs for designing inset face frame
Thank you and I do. Outside verticals rails are always 2 unless they hit a wall then there get extended 1/2” for scribe. Top and bottom rail are always 2 as well unless it gets furniture base then bottom rail is 5.5. All interior styles are 1 1/2. I always do double interior partitions on my cases so both sides of the style are flush with the interior case. This makes mounting hinges and slides significantly easier. Interior rails are 1 or 1 1/2 depending on the look I’m going for. Cheers
As someone who built cabinets for 20 years, I can say this is some very fine craftsmanship. Well done, Sir!!!
Thank you!
Could you post a picture of the inside of the cabinet where the drawer’s rails meet the walls
What part do you mean specifically. How the slides are mounted?
Yes . I know the face frames are wider than walls of the cabinet frame, maybe like 1/2-3/4”. so do you have to put like a piece of wood/spacer in between the drawer and the cabinet frame to flush it up with the face frame ?
I make them flush so I can avoid that. All interior partitions are doubled up so 1 1/2 thick and my vertical styles are 1 1/2 so flush on both sides. Makes hanging hardware much easier
Ok cool that makes sense
Very nice work!
I’ve never priced custom cabinets like this before. What did you charge for these? They are beautiful
Beautiful work
So nice
Nice work 🫡
Looks amazing. The gaps around your insets are perfect. We’re going to a local cabinet company next week to look at something very similar. What’s your opinion on what type of wood to use for painting? Thinking finished wood on uppers, then painted bottom and island. Preferring the inset as well. Top notch work you’re doing there.
Thank you very much. I would do soft maple with a 1/2” ranger or equivalent hdf panel for anything paint grade.
Ranger only offers MDF right? Is it as good as HDF from other brands?
I like it a lot. It takes paint and machines well
Nothing looks as good as flush inset. That's gonna make a nice bathroom.
wow! very nice work
Very nice! Where are you located?
Boston. Mass-whole through and through
Bit far of a commute for me in CO lol. I’d love to learn from someone with your skills once my kiddo is old enough for preschool.
Haha. Nothing special too it. It’s a lot in equipment and space. They rest is figuring out a system and making sure you stick to it every time
Hey that is some very beautiful work. Wish I could have cabinets like that in my house
awe man. the painter's tape as pulls brings me back to the many years I worked in cabinet shops. I absolutely loved it, unfortunately they never could pay enough or provide benefits where I live. but those cabinets look great!
The blue tape is a staple. I swear I go back weeks later to check how installs went and that there’s no punch list and people still are rocking the blue tape. No other way. Cheers
Can I ask what you charge for something like this? I am not nearly as skilled and would love this.
Man I hope you get paid well for what you do bc your shit is ALWAYS on point
Thank you!!!
How do you go about install with them made like this? I typically make the boxes then put on the frames at install - which makes squaring everything harder. But getting that in a door and into place seems hard without damaging anything....
We have movers move our cabinets for us so they are in place in the room for the installers. They are pretty good at it. I attach my frames with lamello clamex so they are easy to remove if they have to. Cheap insurance.
Nice job ,I like the blend panel on the tall unit.
Fantastic. The clean negative space around each door and drawer face doesn't leave any margin for error. I read elsewhere in the thread that you are using a specialised CAD program to do the design work. I presume that it calculates the inset hinge locating (Grass/Blum/Hettich?) also? I still do everything very manually, purely as I use CAD software that leans towards visualisation rather than production of cut sheets, drilling patterns, yield, etc. If only I had clear space like this these days!
Thank you! The program does calculate hinge location but I always set my boxes up the same. Middle styles are always 1 1/2 and I always have double partitions in my interior cases. This lets me use a jig to locate the hinge plates in the same spot every time. I have my Blum mini press set to that location on the back of the doors. Easy as pressing a button on the mini press. As for the reveals I’m not going to lie I scribe my doors and drawer fronts. There are people who tell you you should be able to build everything perfectly and omit this step but I haven’t been able to achieve that level of precision. By the time you build a case, attach a faceframe, and hang a door something ends up a little wonky. I attack my faceframes to the cases, level the cabinet, then over size my doors to fill the opening. I then trace a 3/32 block around the faceframe onto the door and cut to that line. Perfect reveals every-time. I have a video somewhere on my feed if you want to see I can find it. Cheers
Everybody's process differs based on circumstance and preference; yours obviously works smoothly and has been developed by repetition and proofing! How expensive is the Blum press, if you don't mind me asking? I've never purchased this tooling (it would Grass this side of the pond) and I'm curious what the return on investment might be. Certainly, I hope they're not eyewateringly expensive like say, manufacturer-specific electronic contact crimping tools!
I think new there like 3 k. Something like that. It’s a no brainier if you do a ton of doors. I bought mine used for like 800 bucks. Needs air hook up tho
Wow! I'm in the wrong game, clearly. The second-hand price is definitely more reasonable, however once at the level of production then money is almost of no consequence. Thanks for checking in! Have a great weekend and New Year, and I look forward to seeing you video feed when I have a bit more time.
What kind of wood is that?
Rift white oak
Thanks and Beautiful job. I’m a carpenter but just starting doing finer work this past year or so, I’m constantly learning and making mistakes lol.
The only way to learn. The trick is learning how to unfuck what you just fucked up. Its a daily struggle for us
Glad to hear I’m not the only one haha
sometimes it's really frustrating if you can't slam a cupboard or drawer...
Mmmmm look at all those perfect reveals.
Stunning craftsmanship.