"Leon" wrote in message

Mike G" wrote in mess

I cut and dry fit the rails and stiles making one stile is slightly over
sized in width. I cut biscuits for the joints in the face frame then I
glue and clamp one of the stiles in place on the carcass. That one I
flush too the side of the carcass. When the glue has set up I apply glue
and insert the biscuits and fit the rails glue and clamp them down to
the carcass. Since each is hand laid they are easily placed flush with
the shelves. When that glue is set up I apply the second over sized
stile in the same manner and when the glue has dried I use a flush cut
bit to trim it flush to the carcass.

Due to clamp time it takes a couple of hours longer to do it that way
but the result is a perfectly fitting face frame every time with no rush
to fix things if I find I happened to maybe cut a rail a tad shy or
proud or something thing isn't exactly square, it happens to all of us.

Note, I use the second stile with clamps but without glue to close the
joints between the first stile and the rails.

Wow, so are your face frames not a rigid assembly? Will they hold the
cabinet square?

Heh heh .. different strokes. As long as his casework is perfectly square
by itself, this works, but I have never been that lucky.

Being one of those that if something can go wrong, it will, my preferred
method is to always make the FF first and take great pains in their assembly
and squareness, batch cutting all rails and stiles, and checking, and double
checking, "square".

Any FF that is not dead-on perfect is scrapped.

The cabinet sides, floor, and top on a wall cabinet, are then assembled _on_
the perfectly square face frame.

From then on out the cabinet is absolutely "square", they butt up to
similarly built cabinets with no gaps, and MOST importantly, the 36 doors
and umpteen drawers are guaranteed to fit right ... the first time.

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Last update: 11/06/04