Building Upper Face Frame Cabinets

The sample base and wall cabinets shown below have these features to make building them as simple as possible.

Building upper face frame cabinets.

With frameless construction you make all the parts before assembling anything. Build the face frame so that the bottom rail rails are horizontal boards and stiles are vertical boards projects 1 16 in. One of the easiest cabinet carcasses to build is an upper cabinet and to make it even easier there s no face frame. Face frames cover plywood edges.

You assemble the boxes then make the face frames to fit them. Begin with the right cabinet dimensions. Above the bottom shelf of the cabinet. While the lack of face frame does allow for the possibility of racking face coming out of square during installation it does allow for a more efficient use of cabinet space.

E joints between stiles and rails get rein forced with 20 biscuits or dowels plunged into the assembled joints from the top. On the outside edge. The 3 4 plywood case eliminates panel jointing planing and glue ups. Well since the face frame is 1 4 bigger on the ends you can simply use 1 4 plywood in matching veneer or painted as we did to finish out those ends.

That s a big challenge in building conventional face frame cabinets. The plans show how 3 4 thick solid wood 21 4 to 21 2 wide is used for most face frame members. I definitely recommend face frame cabinets over frameless or euro style and the good news is face frames are pretty easy to build. This style is referred to as frameless or european style cabinet.

In this 9 part video tutorial series festool trainer brent shively teaches how to build two types of cabinets. Individual face frame members fasten to the foundation boxes one piece at a time held in place with glue and clamps or glue and metal pins or brads. This makes room for adjustments when installing them next to one another. Wood magazine s kevin boyle shows you this foolproof method expla.

Frameless and face frame cabinets tools used. Learn how to make simple face frame upper and lower cabinets including doors and drawers. For the upper kitchen cabinet drawings and materials list in pdf format click here.