Product Description

Building instead of buying cabinets means not only cost savings but also better materials and a truly custom kitchen. This book shows anyone how to build a complete set of kitchen cabinets. Professional cabinetmaker Udo Schmidt covers the entire process, from preparing materials and selecting the right tools to finishing and installing hardware. 350 color photos and black-and-white illustrations are included.

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Great cabinet building book!        Rating:

I am an experienced cabinet builder, and this book taught me a few things and gave me some great ideas for new cabinet designs. Probably one of the best how to build cabinet books I have seen. This is for faceframe style cabinet building.

Good but beware of ERRORS!        Rating:

Others have commented on the measurement errors. I'm posting in hopes of saving someone some grief. I built two of his customized 45 degree corners for end panels. I was in the glueing stage when I discovered the dimension error on page 95. The outer dimension of the 45 piece should be 4 1/16" not 5 1/8". I was able to re-cut the pieces but obviously this was a major frustration. This is careless and inexcusable on the part of the author and publisher.

With these errors this book does NOT deserve the 4+ star rating it has. I gave it 3 stars because apart from this glaring problem, I found the book very useful. After viewing a few books of this type I settled on this one for my first cabinet building project. There are many ways to build cabinets. Udo uses pocket screws and plywood boxes. I find this to be a nice compromise to simplify design, speed construction with satisfactory strength. I built a full wall of cabinets in oak for a media room, and another large wall of cabinets for a mudroom using this book as a reference.

Good for ideas but check the math.        Rating:

Overall a very good book to assist in layout and building of cabinets. The basics are covered well along with some important considerations for building and installing cabinets. It should be pointed out that there are many different ways to build cabinets and that this is just one builder's observations when building the style he prefers. I used this book along with another in the Build Like a Pro series titled, "Trim Carpentry and Built-Ins" by Clayton Dekorne which also offered some great tips for the project I was doing at the time. Trim Carpentry and Built-Ins (Build Like A Pro)

The one thing that keeps this book from earning top marks is that there are flawed math formulas and measurements which can cause a great deal of frustration for users that are relying on those numbers. Other reviews have pointed several out. I found one when building a 45 degree corner cabinet and the numbers didn't work out quite right. After drawing it out full-size on the sheet of plywood I was able to build the cabinet to the numbers needed. The design of the cabinet was helpful but the math would have made it impossible to assemble if cut right from the numbers. I saw similar formula errors in about 3 other areas in the book.

As a guide, this book is a good one to have around the shop. It assumes that you have an intermediate level of ability in the shop and will not teach you to use your tools. I would recommend using this book in conjunction with the other mentioned above and other resources to produce your cabinets if doing the first time. As always - measure twice, cut once. (Sometimes it helps to measure more than twice)

Cabinet Newbie        Rating:

I bought this book because a friend,who has built some beautiful cabinets, recommended it as a basic reference on cabinet building.

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