Design comments requested

[DerbyDad03]

Anyone have a 3D printer lying around?

[Bill]

By the way, the Jun/2015 issue of FWW has an interesting article on "side hung drawers". The last step performed, to achieve "perfect" reveals, was to plane the front of the drawer. It made me wonder whether Swingman, and others, do that when they fit inset cabinet doors.

Bill

[Bill]

I hate to carry on these conversations with myself--it seems to bother some folks. But I guess modern cabinet hinges are often so adjustable that there are just "easier options" than planing. What do you think, Bill?

Bill

[John McCoy]

Bill wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Apologies for jumping into your conversation, but I plane cabinet doors. I don't get "perfect" reveals (or anything close) since that's a skill I'm still working on, but that's the intention.

As an aside, I've found a Yankee spiral screwdriver the perfect tool for cabinet hinges. You end up installing and removing the doors a dozen times to get them to fit, the Yankee screwdriver lets me hold the door with one hand while screwing/unscrewing with the other, and it's more controlable on the tiny hinge screws than a power driver.

John

[Leon]

I did not read the article but what part do they plane, the edges or the front? If your drawer slides inside the opening squarely, into a squarely built cabinet at it should not need to be planed at all.

I do however plane the edges of inset doors to produce the perfect reveal.

FWIW These drawers are side hung and while I did not plane at all I did run the drawers through the drum sander to create equal spacing between the tops and bottoms of the drawers. I built two of these chests.

[Leon]

Euro hinges tend to fit tight, meaning there is no slop in their action. Typical hinges that have two wings to attach to the door and cabinet often have a lot of slop and no adjustment at all for alignment. I try to use Euro style hinges if at all possible.

[Bill]

Thank you for your reply! I realized after I posted, that instead of the front, I should have written "the edges of the front". It appears that's the same way you do it (nice work!). I see that hanging an inset cabinet door is even more "troublesome" than I thought it might be!

Bill

[Leon]

I sneaked up on the perfect "width" fit when cutting the length of the fronts. I built the height of the drawers to be a tight fit and drum sanded the tops and bottoms to fit the the reveal you see. Then I glued the tiger maple veneer onto the drawer fronts.

Hanging inset doors are troublesome too. Typically they are much larger than a drawer and large openings lend themselves to sometimes not be perfectly square or there might be a slight bow to the cabinet face frame stiles. In a small opening situation this is usually easier to deal with. And If you use the typical hinge there is no adjustment. I had to deal with that here, on the two upper doors on each cabinet. The drawers are inset too but not nearly as problematic.

These doors and drawers are inset too except on this job I used concealed Euro hinges and that made adjustments for the doors much much easier.

I try to design with overlay doors and drawers to simplify the build.

[Sonny]

As a last resort, if you ever have a visual results screw up, per alignment (gaps), with the fitting of an inset door, and if the design (face edges) permits, then a bead trim (edging) can be used to help take your eye away f rom a slight misalignment issue.

Sonny

[Bill]

That is a clever thought (no doubt one would learn this from experience)!

Nice projects; thank you for a good lesson! I think I would probably be wise to start with overlay doors and drawers.

Bill

[dadiOH]

Oh, I am SOOOO glad to know that I am not the only one to get less than square openings. Onrare occasion, of course :)

[John McCoy]

"dadiOH" wrote in news:mghh59$bs5$ [e-mail]:

Man, I had the exact same thought :-)

John