Fixin' Up the Bungalow

Last time I built cabinets, I used my biscuit joiner. I thought about going with it again, but since I have a Domino I said what the hey: Go for it.

Solid panel waiting for mortises

The cabinets have 5 identical rails: Two at the top for attaching the counters, one to act a a face frame nailer, and two at the back for securing to the wall during installation. There is also a bottom shelf.

I start by marking the approximate locations of the rails so that I put them in the right place. The sides are of course mirror images of each other and it is important to keep them straight.

x marks the rail spots

Accurate Mortise Placement
To use two methods for placing the mortises. The mortises for the “drawer rail” and “Bottom Shelf” are referenced off the bottom of the machine. I ripped guide rails that place the mortise in the correct location.

I set the rail with a square and held it with some clamps.

I carefully register the base of the Domino against the rail.

Since I am using 5 mm x 30 mm tenons had to set the depth to 12 mm on the panels and 20 mm on the rails. This prevents the mortise from cutting all the way trough the panels, but allows the full length of the tenon.
I cut the mortises to exact width. You can see the settings in the above photo.

The middle panel on one of the cabinets receives through mortises.

For the bottom shelf I created a marked guide rail that allows me cut matching parts by marking quickly. It is a basic story stick.

I only use the three center marks and then register the first and last cuts using the built in guide pin.

A short video showing how quick and dust free it is to use this tool as I cut 5 mortises in a minute.

Ten Mortises

For the remaining cuts I rerenced off of the Domino’s fence. In order to support the cuts on narrow boards I attached the aux base.

Cutting the ply:

Here is the panel with all of its 15 mortises.

The rail mortises are cut with the boards clamped to the table and the mortiser set at 20mm depth and an oversized slot.

I cut the larger cabinet first in about 3 hours or so(105 Mortises). This included a lot of thinking and inefficient moves along with making the spacers. The second cabinet only too 1 hour(60 mortises). Cool tools.

Preview
I dry assembled the cabinets to check the fit and see how they looked with face frames. I set a piece of fir on the top to simulate a cab top.



The solid panel is looking good.

Next Time
Cabinet Backs

Tags:

This entry was posted by Gizmodyne on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 6:45 pm and is filed under Cabinetry, Kitchen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.