Woodworking: Fundamentals of Cabinet Making

Meet your instructor, woodworker and author George Vondriska. Get an overview of the course, and have a look at the project that will be used as a teaching tool throughout the course.

There are a variety of materials you could choose from for making a cabinet carcase; plywood, mdf, melamine… they each offer pros and cons. Learn what material is best for your project, how to handle large sheets, and how to safely and accurately cut the case parts to size.

Quality joinery leads to a quality project. Dadoes and rabbets are the mainstay of carcase construction, and you’ll learn joinery rules of thumb that can be applied to any project. Stackable dado heads are great for cutting dadoes and rabbets, and you’ll learn great tricks for easily setting the width of the dado head.

When projects call for adjustable shelves a hand-held drill, self-centering bit and boring jig provide a great solution, if the jig is used correctly. You’ll see how to consistently register the jig on your case parts. Cabinets glued together out of square will forever be out of square. You’ll see George’s secret for letting the clamps do the squaring work for you, which greatly simplifies assembly.

Handling narrow door and face frame parts on the jointer and table saw can be tricky, unless you know some tricks of the trade that’ll keep you safe and accurate. This is a great lesson in ensuring that all of your frame parts are consistently dimensioned, which greatly simplifies crafting the face frame and door.

How do you make a face frame that perfectly matches the dimensions of the case, without ever using a ruler? Learn George’s trick for transferring measurements, and all of your woodworking projects will become easier and more accurate. Also see how to glue your assembled face frame to the cabinet without having it slip and slide in the glue.

Shelves are commonly made from man-made materials, which means banding the edge. Learn how you can easily produce a jig for your shop that will allow you to safely rip the skinniest of edge band pieces, with the saw guard in place.

The door style-inset or overlay-affects the door dimensions, as does the tongue length of your cope and stile bit set. George walks you through calculating your door part sizes for a perfect fit, and teaches how to set up and use rail and stile cutters on the router table.

A solid wood top dresses up the top of a cabinet, but must be allowed to seasonally expand and contract, so can’t be rigidly fastened to the case. Learn how to easily create a connection that allows this flexibility, and great tricks for adding a mitered molding to the top of the case.

George wraps up this class with a reminder to use the processes and skills you learned in making this base cabinet – to help you create virtually any type of cabinet project with more success.