Face frame cabinets have a long tradition in theUS. Their solid-wood show surface makes face frame cabinets apopular choice in high-end kitchens. A face frame cabinet takesmore time and materials to build than a frameless cabinet, but ithas an elegance that some customers crave. Let's take a look at howone of these cabinets is constructed.

Face frame cabinet

The face-frame cabinet gets its name from the solid frame thatis attached to the front face of the cabinet. This frame is bothdecorative and structural. The eleme

European style frameless cabinets are a commonsight in modern kitchens across America. Originally designed tomake kitchens cheaper, frameless cabinets are now considered to bemodern and stylish. Let's take a look at what it takes to build aframeless cabinet.

The Basics

A frameless cabinet consists of an open-front box reinforcedwith rails and a thin back. All components of the cabinet have beendesigned to allow for fast and economical industrial production.Frameless cabinets are both sturdy and make economical use of

Base cabinets, while similar to wall cabinets,require a few special considerations. Chief among them is thedecision how to build the back of the cabinet. Most economicalminded cabinet shops opt for an open back instead of a solid one.This saves material. Let's take a look at how these cabinets arebuilt.

Material saving construction

The back and the top of the cabinet are formed with 4" widestrips rather than solid pieces of wood. While this results in aplenty strong cabinet, the wall and the underside of the coun

I recently finished the carcass for a row oflower storage cabinets in my woodshop. The carcass will hold 6columns of 3 drawers stacked on top of one another. The lowestdrawer is designed to store tool boxes. It is almost 18" high. Thefull extension drawer slides make excellent use of the dead spacein the cabinet. The user has easy access to the drawer's contentwhen the slides are fully extended. The middle drawer is 6" high.It will contain containers of screws, material, boxes. The upperdrawer is only 4" high. It will contain frequently used tools

With all my woodworking equipment squared awayin the new cabinet wall my attention moved to the pile of autoparts, oil, and lawnmower parts. All of these parts are dirty,oily, and unpleasant. I do not want them anywhere near mywoodworking tools. Since I do have a woodshop, I decided to build afull height storage cabinet for just these parts.

The Design

A full height cabinet is no different from a normal cabinet. Theconstruction methods are the same. The full size cabinet is justtaller. It can be built by stacking two

It is true that one can never have enoughstorage in a shop. I decided to make a dent into the chaos that ismy shop and build storage cabinets.

The cabinets follow the same design as wall cabinets found inkitchens. In fact, these are kitchen cabinets. They are just asmuch practice for my upcoming kitchen remodel as they are anecessity.

The Design

The carcass is made from pre-finished 3/4" plywood. The faceframe and doors are paint-grade poplar.

My design dedicates the entire w

One way to create visually interesting highquality doors is rail and stile construction. The ease ofconstruction and high quality results of this method have made it afavorite in cabinet shops.

Required Tools

The tools needed to build such a door are a table saw todimension the stock, and a shaper to cut the appropriate profilesin each piece.

Besides a good blade for the table saw, you will need arail&style cutter for your shaper. A multitude of cutters withdifferent profiles are widely avail

I recently discovered Spaceballs as a tool for aligning floating panels.Spaceballs, as the name implies, are small rubber balls that fillthe expansion gap around a panel. The panel compresses the ball.Since there are Spaceballs in the gaps all around the panel, thepanel is pushed into the center. Each ball compresses roughly thesame amount. The panel resting spot becomes the absolutecenter.

Panel expansion is still possible since the Spaceballs can becompressed further if they are subjected to a greater force

The Term "European hinge" collectively refers toself closing, concealed cup hinges. These hinges are found onalmost all cabinets, be it in the old world or new. The hingeitself is completely concealed by the cabinet door when the door isclosed.

Installation requires a cup, a shallow 35mm hole, to be drilledinto the cabinet door. The head of the hinge fits snuggly into thiscup creating a bond that is much stronger than screws alone canprovide.

The hinge snaps into a bracket installed on the cabinet carcass.Th

Just like every woodworker I know, I need morestorage space for my tools and materials. It needs to be dustproof. The open shelves in my shop seem to attract the dust I putin the air much better than my air cleaner.

To solve my storage problem I am building counter heightcabinets along the back wall of my shop. The top will be made frommelamine and plywood for even more storage. Gone will be the dayswhen I piled my fresh cut stock on the planer's outfeed table.

The Design

Each cabinet is buil