The perfectionist in me is really struggling with cabinets. I think I’m probably doing an OK job considering that I never do this sort of work but I’m slow as molasses and a 64th out here and there which just grates on my nerves. Now that my tools are dialed in and having gone through the whole process I could build these twice as fast with half the errors, which doesn’t help much now that we are done!.
Today we glued end caps on to the last chunk of leftover countertop. I tried to do this surgically to avoid having to refinish the whole thing but I still ended up with a tiny ledge on one side so I’ll have to decide if I can live with it tomorrow. We also did the assembly of yesterday’s coffee table parts, which went ok, and could have gone better.
I will say that taking the time to dado the pieces makes the assembly so much easier even when using pocket screws. When I first got a pocket screw jig I thought it would save me from having to dado but I realized pretty quickly that if you’re not at the very least pinning your joints with a brad nailer first the screws, (even when clamped), have a tendency to misalign the pieces. What I came to realize is that it’s faster to cut dados than to deal with all the fussing to get butt jointed pocket screws to set perfectly. It’s also just kind of satisfying to click all the pieces together and see them line up (hopefully!).
-Brian
