Common top and bottom rail between cabs

[Greg Julius]

Greetings all, I'm new here and this is my first post. If I goof something up please let me know.

I've taken most of the video training and have just received my copy of Nearly Everything but not gone through it besides flipping pages. I expect it will get some solid usage for a while until I get good at the product. The Nearly Everything set of books are very nicely presented, very polished. I'm hoping they will be as good as they look.

I'm working with a cabinet maker and we're trying to setup some of his common layouts to make production easier and work our way into CnC (considering our own 3-axis Thermwood) if our initial foray does well. I'm very computer literate, but not too savvy on the ins & outs of cabinet making - learning fast and getting ready to send our first pieces to a mill for evaluation.

Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to get a common top and bottom rail to run across three cabinets. I didn't see anything like that in the videos and haven't found it in the brief look at the books. Can you tell me how to do it?

For an example, suppose I have three 24" wide cabinets. Each has a 24" top rail (it sits on top of the vertical stile). Can I "merge" the three 24" pieces to make one 72" piece in the cut lists?

I would think this is a common happening, but I can't find it anywhere. And any solution I come up with is a perversion of the cabinets or a separate piece entirely (which won't size if the cabinets re-size).

Thanks for your assistance!
-g

[Terry Hall]

This is an 84" island. I normally do one cabinet as long as I can get it in the house. You can install partitions if you've got say for instance drawer stacks on the outsides and a door in the middle.

[Greg Julius]

Thank you Terry for the reply.

I had thought to do an assembly but that would still result in a lot of tweaking.

The "whole thing as one cabinet" idea I hadn't thought of. I suspect resizing something in that would require a lot of tweaks as well. Still, I can see some interesting possibilities.

The cabinet maker would prefer the cabinets to be separate boxes however and just the face common (assembly offsite, ease of handlinge and transport).

So, no "merge" function on the face frame members, right?

Thanks again,
-g

[Scott Marshburn]

Hi Greg,
Here is a cabinet that I came up with based upon this thread as well as your previous thread. This is a single cabinet that uses the new feature opening locks and part associations. It is pretty much totally resizable with the exceptions of the toe kicks. If you need to change the toe kick height and or depth then you need to accommodate for that on the partitions in the constraint manager. As well as inset 3 in the stretcher editor for the toe kicks.
Sorry for the lack of details. But I will try to get a video together on this soon.
Hop this helps.
Scott Marshburn.

[Scott Marshburn]

So 12 downloads so far. Any one care to give some feedback?
Just curious as to what you all think.

[Ralph Balanik]

Looks good Scott,
The only thing I might have done has to do with my own preferences for construction. I would have made the mid style/mullions twice as wide as the outside stiles and I would have run them from top rail to bottom rail putting the drawer rails between them rather than running the drawer rail through. As for resizing, I trust you have that covered.

[Greg Julius]

Scott, I just saw the post. I will examine and respond. Thanks!

[Greg Julius]

Oh, Wow! Nice. I am looking forward to that video.

I'm going to try and disassemble the thing and see what you did. I did some resizing and I did not see any problem with the toe/kick.

I use a detached toe/kick anyway so the non-resize of that is not a problem.

I agree with Ralph that I would keep the mid stiles the full distance between top and bottom rail. I use mid stiles at 1.375". My left and right end stiles are flush to the inside and have 3/4 scribe on the outside edges. This keeps me from having to block the slides. Also makes getting adjustible shelves in and out a lot easier.

I cannot say enough about the encouragement this gave me. Thanks again Scott!

Blessings,
-g

[Scott Marshburn]

Thanks Ralph and Greg for the feedback.

I was experimenting with it a little this morning. I found it quite easy to reconfigure the face frame as per your construction preferences. I also used a detached toe. I made the Toe kick stretchers phantom parts just in case I might want to use them in the future. I did have to remove the cutouts in the partitions. It did not like it when I tried to constrain the cuts to 0.

[Scott Marshburn]

One thing that I would point out.

I am not trying to say that my construction methods are the best but...

If you have your mid stiles running from the top rail to the bottom rail and you add the mid rails for the drawer openings. If you change any of the opening widths you cannot equalize them using the equalize feature unless you remove the mid rails for the drawer openings. Then you will lose your drawers and your drawer fronts as well as your doors. That goes for any cabinet.

[Terry Hall]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your meaning Scott, but I equalize and resize mine all the time using the construction method of running mid stiles to top and bottom rails, then adding mid rails. In my opinion the look is better and it makes for a more stable face frame. I have done it both ways over the years and it's personal preference I guess.

[Scott Marshburn]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your meaning Scott, but I equalize and resize mine all the time using the construction method of running mid stiles to top and bottom rails, then adding mid rails. In my opinion the look is better and it makes for a more stable face frame. I have done it both ways over the years and it's personal preference I guess.

It might just be me but I cannot for the life of me get the openings to equalize. If I set the mid stiles to run from the top rail to the bottom rail with mid rails between them. For example a 60 inch cabinet with 2 inch stiles. If I make the center opening 36 inches with the left and right being 8 inches .Then select the three lower openings and try to equalize them. The result I get is nothing happens.

[Ralph Balanik]

Good afternoon Scott,
I simply took the cabinet that you created, made the changes to the faceframe as per my preferences and changed the width of the cabinet. I made it six inches wider and it resized and equalized all the openings automatically and without issue. Perhaps something in the cabinets as you have created them might be running interference. You know -- gremlins

To Greg,
Rather than build three cabinets and then try to fit a common frame I would consider the frame as a separate component of any cabinet. If it needed to be a specific size you could simply take a cabinet out of the standard library and create the face frame on it with all the stile rails and openings sized to your specs then use phantom parts to hide the rest of the cabinet leaving only the face frame itemized in the cutlist. you could then use frameless construction to create the cabinets that fit behind the frame. The beauty of CNC if you have it is that you can specify an opening size on the frame and on the frameless cabinet and they will match as close to perfect as you need.

[Scott Marshburn]

Hi Ralph.
Could you try this on the cabinet that you modified the mid stiles to run from the top to bottom rail.
Change the center opening to say 36 inches adjusting both sides.
Take it back to main. Then back to face frame editor.
Now select the three door openings and click on equalize.
Please tell me that they do not resize because I have been racking my brain to try and figure out what I am doing wrong.

[Ralph Balanik]

Scott,
You are correct, -- they do not resize. When I changed the center opening to 36" the left opening remained the same asit was and the right side reduced accordingly. it modified the frame but did not change the cabinets behind the frame. When I went back to the frame editor after going to main I highlighted all openings and asked them to equalize. the image simply froze and did nothing.

When I initially did this, I simply modified the frame, added doors and drawers, then changed the width of the cabinet. I did not wish to change one cabinet only so it resized everything as a unit equalizing all openings automatically.------

I just created a face frame on a single cabinet and it behaved the same way. I could change the width of the center opening with the drawer rail in place which left me with three openings all of different widths, but I could not get it to equalize after the change was made unless I removed the drawer rails from all openings. So here it is -- I ran my fingers before engaging the brain once again . Using your initial construction method will allow you to resize the individual openings and return them to their original configuration - if you have a need to do so.You can still resize the opening width by simply entering the width of the opening in the opening width dialogue box of the faceframe editor even with the drawer rails in place whatever construction method you choose. It is the equalize feature that can fail to perform as we might like.

I can't help but think this might be a bug for the programmers to look at. I think if you can change an opening which has a drawer rail then equalizing should be a simple push of the button without having to remove and replace drawer rails. Another observation is that if you change the left or right opening you can equalize the other two openings but you cannot equalize the two end openings if you change the middle opening. Would be nice to select and equalize whichever openings you choose, but honestly-- I havent built enough three door cabinets in my entire career to be worth the effor it might take to make such changes. As far as creating a face frame with three custom or equal openings, it takes far less time to just do it, by whatever construction preference, than it did to write any one of the posts i've submitted