Building Kitchen Cabinets: Build Like A Pro Series
Expert Advice on Building Kitchen Cabinets

By Udo Schmidt

Expert Advice About Building Kitchen Cabinets From Start to Finish

When you build your own kitchen cabinets you’re not just saving money. You also can improve upon the materials and construction used in factory-made kitchen cabinets, and get exactly the sizes you want. And with the techniques that Udo Schimdt demonstrates and explains, you can incorporate custom details in your cabinets to make them even more distinctive. Arched doors, custom cornice treatments, oversize pantry cabinets, and solid wood end panels are just a few of the options to consider.

If you’re comfortable using a router, tablesaw, and drill, this book will show you how to build beautiful kitchen cabinets in your own workshop.

What’s inside Building Kitchen Cabinets:

About the Author:

Udo Schmidt apprenticed with a master cabinetmaker in Germany before moving to the United States over 20 years ago. Today he combines Old World craftsmanship with time-saving tools and techniques. He lives and works in North Carolina

Introduction:

Building an entire kitchen's worth of cabinets is a large-scale woodworking project. When you imagine a 30-ft. expanse of continuous cabinetry, it's no wonder many woodworkers develop a mental block about building kitchen cabinets. And it's easy to justify this resistance by arguing that major cabinet manufacturers now offer a seemingly endless variety of choices when it comes to cabinetry styles, wood species, finishes, and special accessories.

But neither the scale of the project nor the capabilities of cabinet manufacturers should dissuade you from designing and building your own cabinets from scratch. It's true that a kitchen full of cabinets represents a great deal of lumber and plenty of joinery work. But you use the same construction techniques on one cabinet as you do on many. This book will show you how joinery and assembly work can be simplified without sacrificing a cabinet's quality or appearance. To succeed as a professional cabinetmaker, this knowledge is critical. If you put my techniques to work in your own shop, you'll be surprised at how quickly you can build cabinets. Limited space is a problem in many shops, including my own. But as you'll see in the pages ahead, the construction sequence I use calls for building the smaller components first -- cabinet face frames, then doors and drawers. The cases, which take up the most space, are built at the end.

Although cabinet manufacturers have many "custom" options for customers to consider, they can't compete with the details you can incorporate into your own custom-built cabinets. You can take extra time in selecting individual boards from which to make doors and drawer fronts. You can even utilize locally milled lumber or unusual wood that isn't available to large-scale manufacturers. Where factory-made cabinets show hardwood plywood, you can build a beautiful frame-and-panel assembly from solid wood. This book will also show you how to make curved-top and glass-paneled doors, as well as angled corners to replace standard right-angled corners. When you build your own cabinets, you're not limited by the standard dimensions that manufacturers use. Custom-sized pantry and island cabinets are no problem. You'll have the ability to do what your customers or your imagination suggests. Work safely, and good luck.

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