Hi, I made all my kitchen cabinets when I remodelled my kitchen, I used good plywood (at a fraction of the cost now) and face frames that I made from 2 by 8 material, cut down to 2 by 1 with pocket screw technology and the cabinets look as good now as when I made them some fifteen years ago. I used soft close euro hinges and made crown moulding on top of the cabinets to conceal the low voltage lighting that you can just buy now. I built an electric oven and a gas hob into the cabinets with pop up power sockets for toasters etc.
Look at it another way, one project like this can go a long way to setting up your workshop tool collection. A couple of drill/drivers, a router, and a sander some bits and a track saw will set you back 1000-2000 usd and cabinets such as these are well within reach and you still have some cash spare for the next project!
As always, a great video! I bought my kitchen cabinets from Cabinet Giant, which are the RTA style cabinets. They are plywood boxes with solid poplar face frames and maple (dovetailed) drawers. They are held together with cam fasteners and clips but that was a tradeoff I was willing to make, as the entire kitchen consisting of 21 cabinets was $3400 (delivered).
Really appreciate the detailed breakdown; it’s been a question I’ve had bouncing around my mind for a while. Going to have to pick up those pre-drill screws regardless 😄 All-around awesome video!
Really fantastic work, Johnny! Beautiful cabinets! 😃 About the CNC... It's just another tool. If it makes the work easier, use it! Happy new year! And stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Hi Johnny, I'm a dutch cabinet maker. Maybe i've got a helpfull tip for your cnc vacuum. At my workplace we use a nesting cnc with a wasteboard which has abs edgebanding all around it. This reduces air leakage through the thickness side of the wasteboard. Hope its usefull. Thanks for your videos:)
You covered “build complete” and “buy complete.” But you didn’t cover the growing trend of a hybrid approach of RTA (ready to assemble) cabinets where the manufacturer cuts and finishes the pieces and you assemble and install.
Great project, Johnny. You mentioned the cabinet drawer and door closers, but I didn't find a name or link in your description below. Could you advise? I love this cabinet style. Thanks for sharing. Felix
Coulda used those screws a week ago when I was building storage spaces for underneath the cargo flat in my truck... LOL. Noted for next time when I rebuild them.
How fast can it cut a sheet of cabinet ply? And how many Ipm can it move without deflection in the machine? Looking to buy an avid with the ATC 7 hp spinal to cut cabinets. I have a 20 hp Becker vac pump so parts movement should be minimal. Just a one man show and avid looks like a great fit but don’t want a 20k toy.
Nice. Building my own house and cabinets are stupid expensive here in CA. Thought about making my own. I used to work for a cabinet shop. Loved this video.
Building cabinets with plywood or MDF costs the same as buying IKEA cabinets in many countries. Plywood and MDF are simply to make the labor cost low, but the material cost is expensive. If you build yourself and don't hire a carpenter, you can make the cabinets much cheaper, all things considered, using stud frames with cladding, like back in the days before the labor cost was considered too expensive for doing built-ins resulting in pre-made cabinets being produced by the industry and later plywood and MDF available for everybody.
Holy fuck, what is with those prices? 200 for 14 hinges? The soft close ones are like a dollar a piece where im from, are they made out of gold over there? And everything else is equally crazy, 100 for banding? 600 for slides? The hell 😂
A pro tip for the Vacuum table. If you surface it down too far there won't be enough resistance to hold things down, so I keep a few 1/8" sheets of MDF laying around for when it gets too chewed up to hold small pieces. We usually get maybe 3 surfacing runs on our spoilboard before it starts underperforming. 1/8" sheet of MDF is $12 and a 3/4" sheet of ultralight is $70. As long as the outside of your board isn't super hammered it's a great way to extend the life of your boards. For anyone confused, using a CNC machine is a logical extension of the skills gained in becoming cabinet maker or millwork carpenter. Being highly organized and having a refined understanding of your tools is critical regardless of what tools you use, and there is no other tool that rewards you for those practices more than a CNC machine.
So, it has been a year. How is the edge banding holding up? I have a smaller CNC (4x4) with an ATC and have made a number of "shop" quality cabinets. For higher quality work, I always end up going back to face frames. I have considered trying to talk to other local cabinet shops to see if I can rent time on a bigger edge bander, but for 30 min here and there, is it worth their time?
I think unless you have a wood workshop and around 15k-50k(?) of tools & equipment and you also make money by making videos about your build to 100k+ viewers on RU-vid it's not really cheaper to build it yourself.
Your description links to 3/4" doug fir plywood but the video says maple plywood. Your cost estimate seems way too low for plywood based on what I've seen, but maybe it was cheaper a year ago. Also I wonder if Lowe's maple plywood is comparable to "cabinet grade" plywood bought at a specialty store.
If I found someone proficient in working with all my tools and I taught them how to make cabinets and only paid them minimum wage, it would be cheaper to buy pre-made cabinets than have them make them. And that's if you have a CNC. Without, it would probably be 5x more in labor (if not more). If you're going to sell the cabinets, then the same is true, but that can work to your advantage if you're pricing them at a premium (the whole point). None of this even factors in equipment costs or software costs.
Hidden gotcha when making the build vs. buy decisions: how will a significant other act about the whole thing? Will you get full appreciation for all of your labor, or is it better to spend that time working for pay, even if it's even in the long run?
Interesting. I would probably not mind building the boxes and then just buying the cabinet doors... It seems like the boxes are always that cheap press board junk when you buy cabinets these days... I'm not a fan of press board. But I don't have anywhere near the tools to do a good job with cabinet doors or faces. The last time I did a kitchen, I bought my cabinets premade and preassembled, that saved a lot of work... But then I installed them myself because my kitchen was a bit weird, and had to do a lot of custom bits and pieces to bring it all together. Turned out beautiful! But then I sold and moved 2 years later... Rats. I loved that kitchen.
Great Job !!!! No pickle here (unlike that paneling debacle) I build my self small edge banding trimer and that help extremely (John Heihtz video) and Yes, finishing is most challenging part , but it looks like You got that cowered anybody can bang the boxes on way or other
friend, can I suggest what I am looking for? I am looking for a chest/cabinet to hide my 3D printer. I'd like to be able to open the lid, and then turn a handle so the machine rises out of the cabinet and then locks in place on top. After printing I can then hide it back inside.... I would definitely buy that design!
Glad I watched this. I've been considering redoing my kitchen now that I have a 4x8 cnc. Really puts it into perspective. I always jump blindly into a project and struggle through it. Imo, it would not be worth it to DIY. I know my finish quality will be sub par basically ruining all the hard work (I have no patience for finishing).
Do you have the actual plans for these cabinets? I was thinking of building something similar here in Australia. The Kitchens cabinets I found here in Australia are a bit to small (Ikea products) and other places seems to be made from cheap wood materials.
I have a question : If you cut a plywood panel, cutting tru the board. how do you hold your board? do you leave a space between the spoilboard and the plywood so the spoilboard does not get cut?
It still seems like a lot of work. I’d rather have a super beefy floor standing machine personally, that spits out perfectly edge banded parts. That’s the next step for me.
What I really like about your videos are the mistakes. Plenty of people that get it right on the first try, for which we learn nothing. Thanks a lot for the insight on commons mistakes and overlooks.
I priced the cheapest cabinets for a large kitchen, and the quotes I got were all over $10K Then I went to IKEA and bought everything for $2500 !!! It's not the best quality, but I figure they'll be around for 25 years when the warranty expires.
When you remodeled your house about a year and a half ago, you didn't have to pay the Covid Tax that we have to pay now. So if it weren't for Covid and us all getting the shaft by them (steps off of political soapbox now) doing it yourself would be saving you even more money.
My local big box hardware store sells an 80” tall, 24” wide pantry cabinet with 4 doors and 1 drawer for $200. And just my material cost on that exact cabinet is $211 + tax…
The one they sell is probably particle board with veneer and cheap hardware. I would check out custom cabinet makers near you or even the kraftmaids through HD/Lowe's OR Ikea for a better product. Also if you have ever ordered...anything, from a big box store you know that about half of the stuff you order will be damaged and you will spend countless hours trying to get it corrected.. Personally I did RTA Cabinets which was probably the worst of both worlds.
@@DavidMoncrief I am a 16 year cabinet maker. The price I gave is for materials to replicate that cabinet exactly. Hardware and all. For anyone looking to buy proper custom built cabinets, you should be willing to pay (an average of) $650-700 per cabinet (fully complete) before thinking the cabinet maker is fleecing you.
3/4x4x8 Sanded Birch is currently $68 at our local Lowe's. The Menards next door has Birch for $64-68 and vertical grain Poplar with a UV primed backside for $60.
@@craftedworkshop Thanks. Would love to see how this is done. I'm just getting into wood working and in all of the videos I've watched everything is just magically square all the time. I'd love to see a video on how to fix squareness issues.
One factor you didn't mention, but I think is worth considering for the general population, is the cost of tools. A project like this would necessitate a considerable investment that would really change the value proposition.
Tools was literally the first thing I mentioned, hah. What tools you have at your disposal is probably the most important factor. I don’t really think the tool value should be factored in unless you use the tool solely for this project, which would obviously be far from ideal.
