Stronger cabinet face frame joinery
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- Опубликовано: 23 июл 2021
- Face frames have a purpose, and the joinery you choose should too!
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In your video from 3 years ago, the one about explaining things about routers. In the video you said that if i can i sould get a 1200w plunge base router. In my local store Vinkomprom, I have found a router that's about $60, with 1200w,plunge base, micro adjustment, 6/8mm for bits. Its from a brand Workers Best I allready have 2 of their tools that work fine for me, and there is another router thats 2x the price from black&decker but it doesn't give any information about the router, just says what it can be used for and that it weights 5.2kg. Witch one sould i buy. Im a beginer woodworker and i dont think i need much, and i have a tight budget.
Edit: The black&decker router also has 1200w and both have adjustable speed
Custom cabinet maker here, face frames are still alive and well in my business. We use pocket screws most of the time.
Same thing in our custom cabinet shop I work at. Pocket screws and an assembly easel save the day for faceframes
I generally wont do frameless cabinets!
Hey Paul, et al,
I took a cabinet building class at my local Woodcraft store with a guy who used to build custom cabinets for a living. This was for built-in cabinets for a kitchen, etc.
He preferred to make the face frame first to fit the space, then we built the carcass around it. He admitted that it was backward from what most people do, but it worked better for him.
How do you do yours?
Thanks!
@@David_K_pi quite similar to my shop in fact! Carcass size can depend on factors such as side skins, desired lip of the frame past the carcass, wall side vs. seen side, etc. If you size your frame first, you can work backwards from that to deduce the sizing of the carcass behind it
@@josher-ch6sf - Great! Many thanks for the info. 👍😁
Dominos, loose or tight fitting separate tenons, and dowels work too; and both can be done with simple jigs and regular tools or special dedicated tools, like Festool Domino.
@Chris Lackey - Yes indeed. 👍
I've been using dowels for joining face frames for 45 years and have never had one fail.
Dowels are easy, inexpensive, and effective.
I just can't justify the expense of the Festool Domino because I no longer make enough cabinets. But it sure is a nice tool! (I keep checking garage sales 🤣 )
I’m a big fan of floating tenons. Quick and Easy to cut, lots of glue surface as strong as a mortise and tenon and as a bonus, there is no need to buy expensive dominos or a dedicated overpriced tool. A router with an uncut spiral bit and Shazam you are rockin. To make it even better, I did build a horizontal router table that made this process super fast and easy. Nearly as fast as pocket holes, faster if you bother to fill the pockets.
@@skippylippy547 I got a Festool Domino at my 50th birthday and felt in love with it ;-) I had build my first cabinet with only Dominos and glue. It was so easy. If you have the chance to get one for a reasonable price buy it ;-)
@@klausschleicher523 Oh I will! 👍
I've wanted one for such a long time.
I keep watching for garage sales!
Congrats on getting your new tool - I bet it's a ton of fun!
@@skippylippy547 I will press my thumbs for you! You are right, it is a ton of fun. ;-)
Great video as usual. I am a sixty-something that has been doing woodworking a long time. When I was in high school, I would work summers at a local custom cabinet shop, and we always made them with face frames. The owner would walk around with a story stick like it was some sort of security blanket. He would usually mark everything, cut it all to length and mark the joints. We did everything with dowels, and a big part of what I did was run the horizontal borer. Pull down on the lever to hold it on the table and drill the bores with a foot pedal. There I go waxing nostalgic. Fast forward 40-odd years and by now, I actually know what that story stick was all about. I also have a special place in my heart for face frame cabinetry and it has stood the test of time. Not only does it add strength, but it does a damned good job at covering the plywood edges that no iron-on edge banding could ever do. Today, I pretty much use Dominos for the frames and it works out just fine.
And, I failed to mention how we did installations. This was way back in the day when the only battery powered devices were transistor radios. We had a 2-foot hollow steel pipe and a solid steel rod that fit inside, with a steel ball welded on the end. While one or more people held the cabinet in place, someone would place a 16-D nail in the open end of the tube, and you would drive the nail home and through the plywood back by a couple good whacks with the ball and rod. To my teenage brain, that was pretty high tech for the day.
@Ira Kopilow Oh yes I remember those days very well! 😃
I'm 70 now. I build only a few cabinets these days but I still use dowels for the face frames.
I also worked in cabinet shops after school and that's how I learned the craft.
Long live the Story Stick! 👍
Those were very good days indeed.
The shop I work at still dowels them together. They've been around since the 50s.....I'm pretty sure the horizontal boring machine I use most days has been there close to that long....
Half lap with a pair of face dowels is my preference. Really easy to cut & construct, the dowels mean that you're not just relying on glue to hold it up, & I think using a contrasting wood for the dowels (rather than trying to hide them) gives a really pleasant aesthetic touch. You do have to make the dowels yourself though; those intended for joinery are never intended to be seen.
I do a daddo so they "snap" onto the face of the plywood face of the cabinet carcass. Works great in my experience so far
I always go with pocket screws, and adjust other aspects of the cabinet to compensate if necessary. I don't have the skills necessary to make the other types of joinery with the required precision. But, at least half the time I've been building cabinets for kid's furniture. They are not the most demanding of clients...
I have been working on kitchen cabinets. I was worried about racking as well. So instead of a 1/4 back I used 3/4. I ran a 3/4" wide 1/2" deep rabet around the edge of the back panel. The panel insets into the cabinet carcass. Looks like a 1/4" back panel but a lot more strength.
I've used face frame biscuits with the Porter Cable biscuit jointer for over twenty years. The biscuits are smaller than the "0". As long as you supply sufficient glue in the slot and on the biscuit, failure is very rare. I've racked large cabinets with this method with no problem.
There are indeed many ways to make face frames and everyone has their own preferences. I make my tenons 1/8" narrower than my mortises (1/16" on both edges). This eliminates the problem of end grain failure on the stiles and gives some leeway in case the ends of the mortise aren't perfectly perpendicular to the sides of the stiles. It also provides a bit of wiggle room in case the "outside" edge of the rail doesn't line up with the end of the stile. The strength is in the glue surfaces of the cheeks so there is no need to have the edges snug-fitting. I learned this from an old timer more than 50 years ago. He also told me that the joint should fit snugly but you should be able to push it in using just manual force. I don't like lap joints for fine work. It's too fiddly getting the 1/2 cut perfect. I detest bridle joints. Just as easy to do mortise and tenon. I use a relatively cheap hollow chisel mortiser with good hollow chisels. To each his own.
How about some discussion on the best way to attach the face frames?
When we demoed our old kitchen last year (1970’s) the face frames had rabbets.
HI, not related to this video but I figured the most recent video is the best place to ask a question.
I've been curious about wood movement in tropical locations. I live in Jamaica and I've never noticed any sort of special accommodation/construction being employed in say a table top to allow for movement. As far as I know, our humidity does not fluctuate significantly throughout the year so is it necessary to build with wood movement in mind here?
I used to be a big Kreg Jig user. (The other machine you promote is sweet but a bit pricey for a non-pro) You introduced me to DowelMax and that is now becoming my goto. It is stronger than pocket holes, registers the parts so that the joint is much more accurate and is a lot easier than mortise and tendon and MUCH cheaper than Festool Dominos (which I have not tried yet).
Fantastic, James! Thanks a lot for all the tips! 😃
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Very informative
A face frame without some sort of joinery is a face not even a mother can love.
I have started using doninos for my face frame construction
Very good graphical illustrations made that very easy to understand and compare the options.
I use pocket screws for face frames but my cabinets have full cut-to-fit backs with screw rails at the top and bottom inside. I use these in the garage / workshop to store very heavy power tools including saws, drills pneumatic framing nailers etc and i have no problems with sagging or door alignment. They have taken years of abuse
also, the face frame has a small overhang on the cabinet sides which helps alignment when hanging a row of adjacent cabinets. The cabinets have a small gap between but the face frames screw into each other very nicely
Jaes you're always informative and pleasant to listen to. Thank yu!
Great info James. Thanks for all you do.
Mr. Hamilton, I recommend you review the strength comparison tests done by the editors of Fine Woodworking, in the book Joinery, by the editors of that magazine. To their surprise, mortise and tenon was not the strongest joint design they tested. Half-lap and bridle joints were the two strongest. The book is copyright 2016, so I don't believe the testing is much older than that.
These are the only test with failure strengths that I know of. I'd be interested to see other test results with descriptions of how the tests were performed clear enough to reproduce them.
Considering that bridle is almost identical to mortise & tenon, I'd question how well their mortise & tenon was built... which, considering _what_ the difference between those two joints is, should perhaps be considered to be the point.
Thanks for putting such great quality videos on RUclips
Great information with options and pros and cons.
Thanks for sharing with us James. I have been using the pocket holes myself. Fred. 🙏🏻🙏🏻👍👍👏🏻👏🏻👋👋
Excellent and very informative vid as usual. Looking forward to more cool/droll tools series.
So interesting. Thanks for sharing James 🌞
As usual, interesting information and thought-provoking insights. Thanks, Jim.
Great as always! I'll be making some cabinets later this summer. Half laps are my choice because of my skill level.
Thanks for the great video James 👍
Great interpretation!
A castle join at each corner requires just a table saw and a multi tool, only requires two table saw setups, is guaranteed to be square once all corners are in, and feels like a solid block once the glue dries.
I have nothing to say really, but I appreciate your content, and wish to help with the yt-algorithms.
Pocket screws make building face frames a breeze. The time you save is incredible compared to the mortise and tenon !!!
Thanks for this video. Informative as always! Stay safe and cool! 👍🏻
Thanks stumpy !
Great video as always. I’ve had a few projects I struggled with because I wanted a particular construction and mechanical result. A flush face frame with interior is difficult. I ended up using a slide in door that goes up higher and drops into slot instead of a hinge. Another project I used a large face on the top and a smaller on the bottom but that’s not quite a face frame.
You didn't mention dowels which I think are a good option in a production environment if someone wants more strength than pocket screws. Maybe dominos are a good option too.
I would vote "domino" for the highest stength-to effort ratio.
The face frame can also hide little discrepancies in the box. I thought we aren't supposed to have discrepancies.
Actually, walls are not always perfectly plumb. So, a face frame can allow for the adjustment needed to bring the cabinet flush against the wall that wasn't your fault to begin with.
you shouldn't be forcing your cabinets to meet the wall and twisting them to touch the walls but shimming them where you screw them to the wall to hold them in place without putting undue stress on the cabinet.
Trim is for hiding the gaps due to wall not being square
@@josher-ch6sf True, but there is no reason at all that a face frame can't be trimmed to do exactly the same thing. I've seen professionals using exactly this technique.
@@johnslaughter5475 in my line of work we attatch frames in our own shop before we deliver to the client's house and the measurements we are given may not always be totally accurate. If trimming frames works for you, go for it
Ain't nobody got time for mortise and tenon joints! Pocket screws aren't the strongest - they are the fastest and cheapest and exceedingly strong.
Good info. Thanks.
You my boy blue
thank you very much for all this info. it's very usefull!
That was great. Will you be doing one on how to attach the frames to the cabinet?
Great YTV , Thanks !
Good information tks agin
If you were to update this video with instructions for how to create a frameless cabinet, how would you do that?
My flat has a small room for storage, and with things living wherever they want, things get cluttered quickly.
What reenforcements would you make, how large spans are OK, what joinery is recommended? I'm thinking of using plywood or even oriented strand boards.
Did you forget the floating tenon? 😉
FFor what it is worth, When I construct face frames I tend to use dowel joints. (Probably because I don't have a pocket screw jig)
How come you did not mention dowels? Back when I built cabinets we used wood dowels. By the time we had all of the face frames put together the first ones were dry enough to start building with. I still like then since to me they are just about as fast as pocket screws and i believe they are stronger too.
I can't imagine how you could say dowels are just about as fast as pocket screws. But I do think they can make a strong joint.
@@StumpyNubs I am the face frame builder for a custom cabinet shop.....we dowel most of our stuff together with a horizontal boring machine that has to be at least 60 yrs old...nowhere near as quick as pocket screws. We pocket screw some jobs together. I routinely see kitchens the company built in the 70s that are still holding up like new. Dowels make a dang strong joint. You're content is always well thought out and is appreciated.
Man I brought so many cheap cabinets and desks, the ones with like mdf or something but, trough time the door joints unscrew, the desk get saggy and even a whistle move it so not sturdy at all! xD
When you notice that one you really like is starting to give out, take measurements, draw a little reference picture of where to get individual pieces from (you'll likely be stuck with plywood, but maybe you'll be able to use plain lumber), buy yourself some proper wood (and a relevant saw if you don't already have one), track down relevant hardware, and have at it.
Remember that for surfaces, you'll likely be best of just buying some relevant finishing material and gluing it on. Be aware that if you use both sheets and boards then they probably won't match in appearance, so plan to either go for an intentional contrast, or expect to glue on another wood to both.
When preparing to glue large areas, buy some bags of sand or something- there sometimes is no such thing as enough clamps. A flexible children's pool can also work if you eliminate the risk of punctures first.
I prefer traditional joinery, but if you were going to include pockets then why not dowels and biscuits? I would think the latter would be the best solution for production combining speed and strength.
Pocket screws are definitely faster than dowels or biscuits. No glue.
@@StumpyNubs but do they have the best combination of strength with that relative speed? I guess that's my question. I've never been impressed with pocket joinery.
Biscuits have their place in woodworking but definitely not a strong application for face frame joinery.
0:54 You left out joints using dominoes which are close to mortise and tennon.
Please provide a link to ourchase door hinges
What about dado'ing the face frame?
Does anyone attach their face frame to their carcass with a routed groove to sit in? My dad used to but I can’t figure out how to do it.
🤓👍
Sayin hi for the algorithm:-)
I dont realistically see much of the structural benefit… but i do think it is prettier than any edge banding finish. Those always look cheap to me.
Domino?
All good information but from the title and photo I thought/was hoping you would offer suggestions how to strengthen frameless cabinets also...🙄
Check us out The Tool Haus Gladwin MI 😉
This is at least the second video you have posted this on. Are you affiliated with that business?