Kitchen cabinet help??

My problem with flatpack is that it is never exactly right for the location (but then every house I have lived in has been over 75 years old, so maybe more recent houses have more "standard" sizes) and so every installation looks like it has been made to fit rather than fitted. Then there is the question of whether the style and finish is what you want.

The other side of the coin is that weekend warriors often start a job like this by removing the existing kitchen. I saw my Dad do this and the pickle he got into because Mum didn't have anywhere to cook and the new kitchen was "just coming together" in the shed. Domestic bliss, NOT! Get the new kitchen ready first.

My take on it is - have a go at it yourself.
Measure everything in your kitchen (especially check how far the walls are out of square) and note where powerpoints and water are (or need to move to).
If you can be bothered, prove your concept by making a model (accurate to sizes, but it doesn't need to be more than that).
Make it all up in units in your shed and store the completed parts.
If you are replacing appliances, order them and
WHEN EVERYTHING IS READY TAKE TIME OFF WORK AND INSTALL.

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maybe more recent houses have more "standard" sizes

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Don't believe it for a minute!

If you are replacing appliances, get them before you make any cabinets. That way you can make sure they fit.

Follow this good tutorial on getting a good edge on the melamine surface
http://www.woodshopdemos.com/jabil-1.htm

Follow the 32mm principle for cabinets
http://32mm.dalrun.com/index.html

You can get the melamine boards in the following sizes
2400*1200
2700*1200
2400*1800
3600*1800

And if you realy want to drill the hinge holes and shelving holes your self you can get the Hettich Blue Max 2/6 on special at the moment

i am sorry but i have reread my first post and i only recommended that would be well advised to purchase a flat packed kitchen noweher in the post did i suggest that he should buy one of my packs i only advised him this way because by his post i felt that he would be out of his depth with this project this forum is open to anyone to give advice and as such i gave mine ,if only to help him with the decision as to build the kitchen himself or go another way "advice is cheap but the right advice is priceless"

Read all the posts - no one has said that you were pushing your own product. They have said you are pushing your product's concept, saying it is too hard and expensive to do it yourself, which I have objected to, and silentC has equated to telling artists to use a paint-by-numbers rather than coming up with a painting themselves, which is a good analogy.

So where is the "good advice" by saying "don't attempt this unless you have a "good quality panel saw and edgebander"? That is not a prerequisite for producing a top-quality kitchen.

Hmm, I started sometime ago building some kitchen cabinets for a small workshop.

Although the concept was easy and the design was nothing fancy, the time and equipment was greater than I had estimated.

I had the attitude I would build a better quality cabinet than the flat packs.

I have no doubt my results will be better than the flat packs but the time has been great, especially the drawer slides, hinges and edgebanding that I would seriously question doing it this way again.

I could just imagine many getting in over their heads, building some cabinets.

It all comes back to your requirements.

Just give yourself plenty of time if building your own.

Cheers

Pulpo

i am sorry but if you want to produce a top quality kitchen then you must first have a top quality panel saw and edgebander to produce the desired result ,i dont have a problem with the weekend warrior trying to save some money by doing the job themselves but there comes a time that someone should say to them that they will drown if they go ahead ,if you want to make your own kitchens then go ahead and make them ,they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder ,thats great but i can say that i have never had a call from the weekend warrior to finish a kitchen project it has always been xena the warriors princess that has called and said enough is enough get me back to normal life

A pockethole jig makes it even easier, and spend the money saved on good quality vinyl-wrapped doors and bench tops

it seems to me that if you can use a gmc saw to produce a quality kitchen then expanding on the logic couldnt you then produce a vinyl wrapped door with a vacuum cleaner

I think people would be surprised to know how many small cabinet makers / Joiners actually cut board with a fax machine. Last i heard Handicut in Brisbane had the three flat beds working two shifts and a lot of that was for the trade. It worked great for me as I was only doing a kithchen every 6 weeks or so. Mind you your cutting list had to be spot on.

I've just finished two kitchens completely DIY, My neighbour is a cabinet maker with a good ($16K) panel saw.

I bought 550mm wide melamine 16mm shelving from laminex and docked it to length for the floor cupboards. In total about 800kg of melamine and MDF was cut up in about 6 hours.

Arms is right.... a panel saw with a scribing blade does produce cuts that are square and chip free... therefore better quality.

Pulpo... you are right too, it is all about time, with a GMC saw it probably would take twice as long.


This is a DIY forum and people like us hate relying on other people for something they can do better themselves. I guess it come down to how much spare time you have and how much you want the satisfaction of DIY.

Cheers
Pulse

that assumes that a vinyl wrap door is good

:D

as opposed to merely popular. But seriously, isn't the nature, cost and availability of machinery used to cut a piece of material straight vastly different than what is required to make a vinyl wrap door?

Folks have been managing to reduce material from large unwieldy sizes down to usable sizes for thousands of years.....they haven't been wrapping stuff in vacuum-sealed plastic for nearly as long, so no, I for one think that is not a logical conclusion...... Though in my other passion of model making, we use vacuum cleaners to vacu-form stuff all the time

:)


Nothing is easy that's done well - just easier than facing her indoors when DIYíng goes awry or (as in my case according to my wife) progress can only be measured in geological time.

:D:D:D:D:D

Of course, there are a million tricks of the trade to making a kitchen cabinet and you know them all I imagine. I liken this thread to a discussion I had with one of my clients, who maintained that if she had PhotoShop, she could've done the design job herself. I told her that was like expecting to be able to play golf because you'd read a book on the subject.....Certainly the right tools are important, but they are not the only elements necessary..... this was reinforced by the fact that once I had created her design, I told her that I had ignored just about everything she said she wanted - needless to say, when I met with her next, to get her approval on my design submission, she had grave reservations. After several minutes she stopped crying because the design went so far beyond her hopes and embodied what she stood for, that she was in disbelief. I used an old 386 PC with a old $50 version of PhotoShop. No offence intended at all, but by your reasoning the result should've been terrible. it wasn't, nor was it a fluke. I used what I had available to me .... and my mind, to produce the best work I could for her. BTW she is a children's performer and makes over $100 an hour! When i found that out, it was my turn to sit in awe.

Anyway, I now have to go make dinner before the wife gets home and starts throwing punches...

:D:D:D:D:D

Apologies for the disjointedness of my post - I put it down to old age and way too much sawdust

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Originally Posted by Pulse

This is a DIY forum and people like us hate relying on other people for something they can do better themselves. I guess it come down to how much spare time you have and how much you want the satisfaction of DIY.

Cheers
Pulse

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And how much wastage you are willing to create in order to learn and eventually get it right enough to be worthy - I must've learned HEAPS!

:D:D:D

But aint it grand to know that at least somewhere "hands" are still making things in this country!

Here is a quick guide to making quality kitchen carcases (using basic equipment)

1). Cut cabinet components with a sharp blade in your power saw (circular saw or Triton etc). The sharp blade will keep those inevitable 'chips' to a manageable size. Pay no attention to the chipped melamine yet. :eek: Cut your components 4mm oversize in width and length.

2). Get yourself a carbide tipped router bit. (these bits wont dull as easy as HSS). Fire up the Triton router table (or whatever router you have) and set the fence to take away 2mm in a single pass. Route each piece 4 times (turning clockwise after each pass). All chips will now be gone and your components will now be the proper size. The edges will be so nice it would be a damn shame to edgeband them. :cool: (next step!)

3). Two ways to go here. You can buy pre glued melamine edge tape and iron it on or (the better quality way) you can buy 0.4mm PVC unglued edge tape and use contact adhesive to bond the tape to the board. (an old airgun will dispense the adhesive just fine if you dont want to brush it on). Just make sure you apply the contact adhesive to both surfaces and allow to get 'tack dry' before applying together. Trim the excess tape with a sharp chisel or knife.

4) Now that you have all of your components nicely edged you can now start to screw them together. Some 40 or 45mm chipboard screws will do the trick. (and no need to use a pocket hole jig either)

5) Stand back and admire your handywork.

or face the fronts of the shelves with a nice strip of real timber and have those around you go oooooh aaaah, adoringly

:D

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Originally Posted by seriph1

or face the fronts of the shelves with a nice strip of real timber and have those around you go oooooh aaaah, adoringly

:D

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Aaaah :)