SquareCircle
Established Member
Apologies in advance to the purists who better give this one a miss.
Embarking upon the next project, a small wardrobe + hanging wall cabinet for the spare bedroom. Material is 15mm ash veneered MDF with solid ash edging and ash door frames with 9mm ash veneered MDF panels. In total there is approximately 5m of 500x350 mm vertically or horizontally aligned cabinets and 6 doors. Trying to think about it this time instead of just getting stuck in…..
In the past, I have used a variety of methods for building boxes, and in particular joining the tops and bottoms to the sides. Dowels, biscuits, glued rebated joints, splined mitres (that was not fun), just plain screwed butt joints. Probably driven by what new toy was getting a workout / what side of the bed I got out off.. Cannot say definitively that one method was more efficient than the other. Lately, and especially when working with half inch sheet material, I seem to be cutting rebates to the top and bottom edges of the sides panels with a table mounted guided bearing cutter, coating with some glue, assembling around the tops and bottoms in and clamping up. Seems to work quickest for mid sized stuff, and is reasonably fool proof (and possibly bomb proof as well). Rebates for internal shelves are the same depth, so the panels are always the same size, alignment never seems to be an issue. I also think that biscuits a better than dowels, simply because alignment is usually better with a Lamello than with a cheap dowel jointing kit. Decided moons ago that buying a pocket hole joint set on top of everything else was just going too far.
I have always wondered if there was a particular method that was deemed to be more efficient in terms of material consumption, machining time etc; what preference do the pro’s out there have.
The other question is this. Is it more efficient to apply hardwood lippings the edges of panels before building the boxes, or is it better to build the boxes first and then apply the lippings afterwards. Again I have tried both methods with varying degrees of success / failure; all depends on the degree of care exercised. Afraid I have never liked the iron on edge banding stuff.
Sorry if any of this is obvious.
Cheers
SC
Embarking upon the next project, a small wardrobe + hanging wall cabinet for the spare bedroom. Material is 15mm ash veneered MDF with solid ash edging and ash door frames with 9mm ash veneered MDF panels. In total there is approximately 5m of 500x350 mm vertically or horizontally aligned cabinets and 6 doors. Trying to think about it this time instead of just getting stuck in…..
In the past, I have used a variety of methods for building boxes, and in particular joining the tops and bottoms to the sides. Dowels, biscuits, glued rebated joints, splined mitres (that was not fun), just plain screwed butt joints. Probably driven by what new toy was getting a workout / what side of the bed I got out off.. Cannot say definitively that one method was more efficient than the other. Lately, and especially when working with half inch sheet material, I seem to be cutting rebates to the top and bottom edges of the sides panels with a table mounted guided bearing cutter, coating with some glue, assembling around the tops and bottoms in and clamping up. Seems to work quickest for mid sized stuff, and is reasonably fool proof (and possibly bomb proof as well). Rebates for internal shelves are the same depth, so the panels are always the same size, alignment never seems to be an issue. I also think that biscuits a better than dowels, simply because alignment is usually better with a Lamello than with a cheap dowel jointing kit. Decided moons ago that buying a pocket hole joint set on top of everything else was just going too far.
I have always wondered if there was a particular method that was deemed to be more efficient in terms of material consumption, machining time etc; what preference do the pro’s out there have.
The other question is this. Is it more efficient to apply hardwood lippings the edges of panels before building the boxes, or is it better to build the boxes first and then apply the lippings afterwards. Again I have tried both methods with varying degrees of success / failure; all depends on the degree of care exercised. Afraid I have never liked the iron on edge banding stuff.
Sorry if any of this is obvious.
Cheers
SC
