Hello
Thinking about switching The way we fasten our FF to the Box, right now we glue and pocket screw the outside of the box to the FF, we keep our FF and the inside of the box flush (easy on hardware installation), I'm thinking in dado my FF sides, bottom and top 1/4'' from the inside edge, pocket screw and glue, but I'm concern about the 1/4'' step at the bottom of upper and lowers. How you guys treat your bottom rail to the box?Flush or step? Noted that our FF is 1'' thick and we are thinking on dado 1/4'' deep. I can set up a dedicated table saw with power feeder to speed the dado process. thanks for any tips

Eddie, I make the deck flush , it creates a catching edge otherwise and looks like it does not fit or more like a modular not custom imo.
I usually put a few pins in the lower rail and simply clamp the face onto the box.
I know a lot of guys pocket screw the box to the face but honestly to me they look ugly either inside or under a wall cabinet where you see the pockets.

thanks D Brown, we pocket hole the outside of the box, after installation you'll never see them and we skin the uppers with 1/4 material.

What thickness of material are you using on your cases? We use all 3/4 prefinished maple ply for interiors unless it's a matching interior. We pocket screw only the frame onto the box, frames are all finished flat then appiled. We also skin the underside of all uppers with 1/4. Goes pretty fast as long as everything is going normal.

If your thinking about the dado why not just ditch the dado for a rebate. Rebate all your face frame material one edge and then rebate your rails on your faceframe accordingly. It will leave you a rebate around the interior of the faceframe to accept your box and then just glue and pin the box to the faceframe.

Seems way overkill to me but if your ply thickness was consistent it would sure make assembly easy and the faceframe/box connection would be bulletproof.

We build exactly as you say you are currently. Flush interiors (sides and bottoms) mainly to make hardware installation a snap. Pockets screws and glue.

I could see going the rebate route if we were in a higher dollar market but were not. The lip at the deck if the faceframe isnt flush would seem to take an utter beating in anything other than a drawer base.

Dustin- we use 3/4'' Prefinished for our boxes.

Mark_ The rebate will a no-no for us (thanks for effort). I'm not too concerned with the 1/4'' lip on the lower since our lowers are either with drawers or doors with pull out, and we use a SS liner in our sink base. I am more concerned with the uppers, maybe I should keep the uppers flush at the bottom and step everywhere else.

Our cases are tops flush to the top of the face frame, bottoms are set to be 1/8 below bottom rail top edge. Sides are 1/32 in on both sides, basically flush. Frames are 1 1/2 on sides, 2 1/4 bottom rails and 4 tops on our uppers. Bases are 1 1/2 on all sides with 2 1/4 between doors and drawer fronts. We use 2 1/4 alongside walls to allow for the awesome job that framers and drywallers do.

We are pretty much the same as Dustin. I think of our face frames as thick edge banding. We use the undersized 3/4" prefinished ply to our advantage. It gives us a 1/32-1/16" overlap. That is bot & sides. Castle pocket screws and glue.

Eddie,
Why do you use 1" frames? By dadoing you are kinda sorta making them 3/4". I understand if you are using thick doors, but that is not common.

Thanks again for the replies guys, the 1'' FF and Doors are common here in Northeast, we don't even order 4/4'' material anymore. just finished a job that the Arcquitect request 1 1/4'' doors and drawer fronts. Hey, whatever they want!!!!

I'm curious why so many leave an 1/8" on the bottom or deck's . I typically leave at least a 1/2" of scribe on top for cabinets that go to the ceiling but my decks are flush ?

D Brown, I believe some guys leave 1/8'' on the deck because it makes it ease on the masking tape for finishing or even for sanding. I'm still doing flush all around, but we've always struggle to accomplish a nice flush surface all around, doing to material thickness variance and so on.

We leave an 1/8" pocket on decks when behind doors. Open cabinets get flush decks.

We do the 1/8 pocket because apparently it is impossible to make plywood a given thickness and flushing things out just creates a nightmare of alignment problems.

We sand the inside edge of the bot rail with then it finishes even with the ply. Its a 1/16" proud of the ply. You would not even notice it. Its not tall enough to catch a glass. The transition from prefinished ply to a faceframe is just that a transition. If the face frame is white and the box is varnished maple who is going to notice.

I always ask myself if I would do it in my own house. Yes, I did it in my own kitchen.

Ed,

We are in CT. We occasionally get a request for thicker doors. Definitely not every job. Where are you making sawdust?

Adam, We are in Ct as well.

Just wanted to jump in here quickly to mention that we have many customers using our Lamello Zeta P2 along with Tenso P-14 connectors to attach face frames to cabinet boxes. They're self-clamping, invisible fasteners that allow the user to flat finish their face frames without having to mask off the cabinet box and then install in the shop, or even on site after scribing. A lot of guys use a mitered face frame return panel and these connectors are unlike any others for clamping miters too. Don't take my word for it though - do a search here on Woodweb for "Lamello Zeta" or "Tenso" and see what your colleagues say about it.

Tenso P-14