Cabinet face frame cuts

I cut all the face frame lumber.


The standard height of all the cabinets boxes is 30 inches.

• Standard uppers are 30 inches for a room with an 8 foot ceiling. You can go higher, but the top shelves are not reachable without a ladder.
• The bases are also 30 inches, plus the kick-plate below at 4 1/2 inches, and the counter top at 1 1/2 inches. This gives a total of 36 inches.

Some details about the face frame construction:

The face frame lumber is all 1 1/2 inches wide and 3/4 inches thick. There are 1/2 wide and 1/4 inch deep dados in the back to allow solid connection to the cabinet boxes. Cutting the dados is a bit of work, but makes assembly much easier. It also creates a very strong cabinet

I am assembling the frames at the corners with a couple of 1" staples and a 1 1/4 screw. The staples align and hold the pieces together, and screw reinforces it. I cut a small shoulder next to the dado to make shooting in the staples easy - again, a little extra work up front that ensures everything will go well.

Here is a picture of the assembly on some scrap pieces:

I am not using any glue on these joints. The holding power you get with glue on this minimal, and any glue that bleeds out of the front of the joint is going to cause problems when staining the wood. The cabinet boxes will be glued and stabled into the dados, which will give plenty of strength.

Getting all this lumber cut from rough to "ready to go" took about 10 hours total.