Two videos in one week. I’m starting to feel like Steven Spielberg, sans the ability and talent. Although let’s be honest, my scripts are WAY better than the Star Wars prequels. Am I right?
If you’ve been following this build along, so far you’ve seen us come up with the concept design and do the dimension work. Next we made our cut sheets and bought the wood. We started the construction process by building the face frame with pocket screws. In our last post and video, I demonstrated how to use a table saw and hand held circular saw to cut out the plywood pieces. Now it’s time to prep our plywood box for assembly. In today’s video, I’m demonstrating how to make dado cuts.
Whenever I build cabinets, I almost always use grooves and dados for the box portion of the build. I do use pocket screws, but I save those for things like the face frame and attaching the countertop to the cabinet. Why don’t I use pocket screws for the cabinet box instead? Well, I actually think it would be HARDER to use pocket screws for the box. Pocket screws are great when you’re joining the edge of one board to the edge of another, which is why I love them for face frames. All you have to do is make sure the edges are flush together and you’re set. Now think about using pocket screws to attach one piece of plywood to the middle of another. How do you guarantee the pieces will be where they need to be when they come together? Well, you could draw a line on the one piece and line up the second piece over it as you join them. Doesn’t mean they won’t slip or move while you’re doing that though. What if they’re big pieces too? How will you support the weight of the pieces while you join them. Since the answers to these questions seemed to be a bit more work than they’re worth, I skip pocket screws for cabinet boxes.
Instead, I’m using dados and grooves. (I explain what the difference is between a dado and a groove in the video. They are essentially the same thing.) A dado does two things for me. It provides a means of alignment and it serves as a glue joint. If you put a 3/4″ wide groove into a piece of plywood 5″ from the bottom, the plywood piece that gets inserted into it isn’t going anywhere. What I mean by that is it won’t slip down to 4.5″ or up to 6″. It is literally stuck in a groove. If I use wood glue in those joints and throw in a couple of brad nails, I have a pretty strong joint that’s much easier to work with than a pocket screw.
Hope that makes sense. Let me know if you have any questions. In the video, I use a router and a 3/4″ cutting bit. Routers are versatile additions to the workshop and you can pick up a quality model for around $100 new. Dado blades come in kits that start around $90. Dado kits are totally worth it if you’re even building one cabinet. You just have to make sure your table saw can handle them.
Happy watching!
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