# building kitchen cabinets



## uptoolateman (Mar 17, 2018)

I am going to embark on building kitchen cabinets this year. I have decided on S4S maple 1×3 for the rails and stiles and domestically produced 3/4 prefinished birch plywood for the boxes. I am planning on frameless construction using confirmat screws. I have built some small workshop carts and boxes with these and they seem to work well, but I am afraid of hand drilling that many holes resulting in a blow out. Any ideas on a drilling jig for the confirmats, the Zentrix jig appears to be out of production. I do have an old Craftsman drill guide I can modify or my other thought is to make a drilling template and use a Snappy self centering shelf pin drill to make pilot holes and come back through and hand drill with the confirmat bit. The reason for the confirmats and frameless construction is that my storage space is limited so storing finished boxes is out of the question so flat packing will solve that issue. I also want to have the cabinetry completed before I tear apart my kitchen.


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## darthford (Feb 17, 2013)

Been there done that…this is a job best left to a real cabinet shop wit the proper equipment and space imo, just saying. The cabinets in my new house are Hickory, a tuff wood that's brutal on tools. 3/4 inch boxes, dovetail drawers, raised panel doors, soft close hardware.


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## uptoolateman (Mar 17, 2018)

I looked at having cabinets built and I even have a company who's only business is making custom order flat pack cabinets using plywood not particle board and my wifes cousin owns a custom cabinet shop 500 miles away from us. The issue in all cases was the price for the quality and design I want. I figured I could build them because I have done a kitchen before, but this kitchen has at least twice linear feet of cabinets and I built slab door face frame cabinets last time. I am pretty well tooled up at this point in time and am just trying to find ways to speed up production a little more. I have already built a custom jig for doing the 32mm system holes that allows me to do up to 3 rows of holes up to 38" high in one setup on either a left or right side panel.


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## 01ntrain (Jun 21, 2015)

I have installed both RTA and custom cabinets in a lot of kitchens, and I will say this….for my money, I'd go with RTA all day long. I see people stressing over cabinet builds running in the tens of thousands of $$. Not worth it, IMO. Granted, I wouldn't do RTA in a million-dollar home, but the money you save can be used for other things like a countertop and backsplash upgrade, or better fixtures. To paraphrase George Carlin…."at the end of the day, it's just a fancy box to put all of your stuff in" LOL


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## uptoolateman (Mar 17, 2018)

I looked at RTA, semi custom and stock cabinets from many sources and even briefly considered IKEA because I had done my wife's sewing studio in IKEA Akrum kitchen cabinets about 24 linear feet and they have held up well. When they went from Akrum to Sektion the prices went up and I did't feel it was worth it. The place that does custom RTA cabinets near me has good quality but I'M still looking at $8000 to $10000 and there were a few cabinet and drawer configurations they do not build that I wanted.


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

https://schmitt32.com


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