Kitchen Cabinet Progress

In the last post, we had just gotten started building out the lower cabinets for the kitchen. I got the cabinet boxes built and then built the drawer boxes and pull out drawers. Since then, I’ve installed the rest of the drawers into the remainder of the cabinet boxes. Slightly off topic, but for all of the drawers I’m using side mount drawer glides. When purchasing the drawer glides, I had an option for “knock off” inexpensive glides or high end glides. Having many poor experiences with the lesser quality glides, I opted for high end. They are made by Knape and Vogt, otherwise known as KV. It’s my first experience with them, and they are the nicest side mount glides that I’ve used.

Face frames

Now that all of the drawer boxes are in, it was time for the face frames. I went back and forth on what to do here. I could keep the face frames simple and square, it would look OK, and it would be done quickly. Or, I could add a bead to the inside edge, which looks awesome, but takes 3 times as long to build. I finally succumbed to the fact that I’m going to be looking at these cabinets every day so I should make them how I want them, even if it takes longer to build.

Beaded frames for the win

When you build a typical cabinet face frame, there are four pieces, two rails (top and bottom horizontal pieces) and two stiles (the two side vertical pieces). The rails butt into the stiles and then there are various methods of joinery used here to connect the two. For beaded face frames, it’s the same four pieces, however, since there is a bead on the inside edge, where the rails meet the stiles, you have to cut the bead off of the stiles and then cut it back on a miter, so that the bead goes all the way around the inside. Like this picture below. Doing this joint is slow, tedious work. There are machines that can make it much faster if you’re doing them all the time, but since I rarely do it, I’m making the joints by hand.

For making the miter cut on just the bead, I built a jig so that I could use a Japanese hand saw to cut it at exactly a 45. Once the bead has been mitered, I then go to the table saw and make a small cut to remove most of that section. Lastly, I use a chisel and clean up any remaining material in the inside corner. The rails get a 45 cut on the ends, but this can be quickly performed on the chop saw. After the rail is cut, I fit the two together which generally consists of using a chisel on the miter to achieve a proper fit.

Dominos

Now that the pieces fit together well, it’s time to join them. In this case I’ll be using dominos. A German tool manufacturer, Festool, came out with a tool about a decade ago that revolutionized face frame joinery. It creates oval shaped pockets (mortises) that a loose tenon is inserted into. Basically it’s a type of mortise and tenon except that it uses a loose tenon. The joint is quick to make and strong. Because the cut is oval, it also resists twisting. Here’s an example of the two mortises cut in mating pieces. The funky shaped piece on the right is a jig that I made to help keep my cuts straight on the stiles.

Assembly

With the parts fit together and with the mortises cut, it was time for assembly. One by one I glued up the joints, inserted the dominos, and then clamped the face frames together. Once again opting for a nicer look versus a faster build, I’m also building face frames for the exposed sides of the cabinets. I’ll go into more detail on this in future posts, but for now, I had to build another 3 face frames to cover the sides.

New-old Generator

I made a trip up near Jacksonville last weekend to pick up a massive Generator. It’s a retired military generator with lots of life left. A month or two ago Oceana and I went up to South Carolina to pick up another machine for the shop – a large moulder. However, I currently don’t have a way to power it. There’s not enough electric in the shop to run it. I see two options – I can get three phase power ran to the building or I can get a generator to power the machine. As we keep growing at work, I have reservations about spending the large sums of money required to invest in three phase power to a building that I may be outgrowing here shortly. As such, a good temporary fix is a generator. So, here we are!

Oceana and Teak

Oceana has been on a roll lately. Pun intended…..she’s been making lots of sourdough bread. She’s experimenting with different recipes and is generally having fun with it. Also, she’s started making soap. As with the bread, she’s trying different soap recipes to learn about the different types of soaps that you can make. Teak is doing well. I’d care to say he’s starting to calm down a bit from puppyhood. Oceana takes him on a bike ride around the neighborhood each afternoon. The neighbors seem to enjoy that as they always have treats ready for him.

That’s all, folks

That’s all for now. Thanks for following along!