I read in my Building Kitchen Cabinets book that the face frame should be aligned so that it's flush with the inside bottom of the case. However looking around Home Expo all their cabinets have about a 1/4" lip between the face frame and the cabinet bottom (and it's like that in our current cabinets). Thoughts ?
Shoot for close to flush; say less than 1/32" higher than the bottom of the cabinet. Perfectly flush is a mark of attention to detail and some cabinetmakers make the FF flush with the bottom as a matter of course. Others leave it a bit higher.
It's a production thing. If you are building fine furniture you design the edges to be exactly together and hand plane them to an exact smooth finish, gently creating razor thin curls of wood as classiscal music wafts slowly through the shop.
In the real world, you design them with a 1/4 overlap so as long as you get withing 3/16 it's all good baby and you bang it on with your nail gun as Howard Stern blasts out of the raspy stereo speakers in the corner.
I make mine flush because I like them that way and I'd like to think I turn out a far better cabinet then what you'll find at Home Expo but, when you come right down to it, it really doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference in the functionality of the cabinet.
I guess I'm not getting this. To make it flush would mean the width of the face frame at the bottom would be no more than 3/4" (the thickness of the wood it is covering). Isn't that right?
Flush just on the inner edge of the face frame. The frame can be as wide as you like.
-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
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Lately I've taken to an entirely different way to get perfect fitting face frames.
I cut and dry fit the rails and stiles making one stile is slightly over sized in width. I cut biscuits for the joints in the face frame then I glue and clamp one of the stiles in place on the carcass. That one I flush too the side of the carcass. When the glue has set up I apply glue and insert the biscuits and fit the rails glue and clamp them down to the carcass. Since each is hand laid they are easily placed flush with the shelves. When that glue is set up I apply the second over sized stile in the same manner and when the glue has dried I use a flush cut bit to trim it flush to the carcass.
Due to clamp time it takes a couple of hours longer to do it that way but the result is a perfectly fitting face frame every time with no rush to fix things if I find I happened to maybe cut a rail a tad shy or proud or something thing isn't exactly square, it happens to all of us.
Note, I use the second stile with clamps but without glue to close the joints between the first stile and the rails.
Yes. So what? That's the way the bottom rail of most cabinets is attached anyway.
Looks like a normal cabinet.
-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)
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In the above, assume the == line is the bottom of the cabinet and the || line is the face frame. The face frame is usually about 1 1/2 inches and the bottom of the cabinet is usually 3/4 inch. In a base cabinet there is no problem since the lower part of the face frame stands clear of the floor, and on a wall cabinet the overhang is no problem either as the face frame just hangs down a little.
Note I could not figure out how to get the top of the || to be flush with the top of the == so use your imagination here. Also if you look at the cabinets in your kitchen or bathroom you can probably see it in real life.
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