I will be making new cabinets for my kitchen, last time I did this I was able to buy just the doors and did the rest myself. The company I did this with last time is long gone, does anyone know of a good company with fair prices to do this with? I did a web seach but turned up the normal 50,000 returns. Any help would be great.
If anyone is looking for a old printers table saw my dad has one that he will be selling, the machine is in CT and is about 700 pounds.
I got my last doors from:
I did have to order thru one of their dealers, a small cabinet shop in town. Paid under $ 11.00 sf for raised panel oak ~5 yrs back.
Wayne,
You didn't say why you didn't want to make the doors yourself but to give you an idea of some cost savings, read on. My sister-in-law volunteered me to make her new doors for her kitchen renovation - 40 doors and 8 drawer fronts.
She wanted the beaded panel and wanted to paint them to match other renovation going on. I selected ash for the rails and stiles and poplar for the panels. The sizes ran from the short ones that go over the fridge to 7' long panel to go on the side of pantry cabinet and everything in-between.
We costed these out thru a supplier for Lowes for unpainted, hardwood doors, no hardware no hinges. With shipping, the cost was nearly $3,000 and she still had to buy the hardware and do the finishing.
I costed out making them and for all the rough-sawn wood, Blum hinges, ceramic knobs and pulls, primer, paint, brushes etc. came out to a tad over $500 for materials. Now I didn't charge any labor and I spent about 30 days of my free time (evenings, weekends) making everything from scratch.
Sounds like you have enough of the basic tools if you can make the cabinets so making the doors and drawers wouldn't be that much of a stretch. If you can find a mill to purchase your stock, some will mill the stock for you to finish dimensions if you don't have a planer and a jointer. Having a tablesaw is pretty much a must, a 2.5-3hp router, rail & stile set, a homebrew router table and fence (
You do not need a lot of clamps but having about 6 Bessy K-body's or pipe clamps of the right size is about a bare minimum. You can glue up 2 to 3 panels (or doors) at once with that many clamps. Depending on weather and humidity conditions, you can unclamp panels after about an hour and let them set overnight. So you can get about 3 sets of glue-ups done each evening with those few clamps.
Point being, if you're so inclined, I think you could make these yourself and use the difference in cost to purchase a router, bits, planer, jointer, make a router table and fence, and even add in a dust collector if you're making a fair amount of doors and drawers. In our case, it was nearly a $2,500 savings.
Decent router - $250 Router plate - $50
12" Planer - $400 6" Jointer - $400 Clamps - Bessy's are on sale now - see Lee Valleys site and others ~$200 Kitchen door bit set - panel bit, rail and stile bits - $150 Other misc router bits for rounding over edges, etc. $50 Dust collector and hose - $200 - $300Total - $1,700 - $1,800 (approx)
What better excuse do you need to get a few more tools? Making raised panel doors is not rocket science. There are spreadsheets available free for downloading that you just plug in the finished dimension of the door size, the width you want for rails and stiles and it spits out all the dimensions for milling your stock. And when you get done - just look at all the new toys just waiting for the next project............;-)
Bob S.
There are spreadsheets available free for
Any Spreadsheet in particular that you use/recommend?
Stew Dunedin, Florida
I concur. It is cheaper to make them!
There are drawbacks, and failures in the learning process. You also left out a good table saw!
What I found is anyone can make anything but some peoples things look better. I can make a door, but can I make it perfect or atleast with a minimal of flaws! Then repeat that 40 times or so. If you're a novice and you want a consistent well made fit and finished cabinet. Buy them. If you want to learn (and remember wood is not cheap and either is time especially fixing you mistakes!) and are willing to accept some flaws then be my guest!
To me, getting the them perfect in color consistency across the whole build and the finish as well.... is the hardest thing to do!
Some people just shouldn't even be allowed to hold tools!
Stew,
I've found and used 3 spreadsheets as I recall. One was really good since it did all kinds of panels and doors but had a couple of minor errors as I recall and I couldn't figure out what was causing it. The other two were much simpler but were all I needed. I'll see if I can't find the link(s) for the spreadsheet and I'll post it back here.
Bob S.
Fer chrissake......when ya gonna buy some real tools......;-)
Well, as I see it then, between your father's woodworking shop and your machine shop - you can make everything, including the hardware. So why wimp out on this challenge...;-)
Bob S.
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