What to do when cabinets are slightly out of square
I was trying my hand at making some kitchen cabinets. I glued and screwed the sides and the bottom with butt joints and 1 5/8 inch dry wall screws. I dadoed grooves for the back panel figuring it would help keep everything square (and it appeared to).
I finished up my face frames and checked for square. All was well.
Today, I went to attach my face frames and the boxes seemed to be about 3/32 – 1/8 inch out of square (one diagonal longer than the other).
I can’t start over, so I figured I would take my best shot at attaching the face frames to the boxes. I took a square and made sure the frames over hung the boxes by about 1/4 of an inch on the sides like I had intended. Unfortunately my frames now extend above the top of the box (which I guess I can clean up with a flush trim bit).
My question: Am I totally sunk? I was doing inset doors (and I think that is fine as long as the frames are square). But, what about the drawers? I was going with some under mount slides so now I’m wondering if I’m going to have to account for some off-square in the box? Any advice, would be well received!
Replies
Pull out all of the screws and see if you can rack the glued box back to square. If the back panel was not glued in you might be able to resquare the box with clamps and force glue into the dados at the back to use the panel to help hold it there. Drill new screw holes, wait for the glue to dry and hope for the best. If the panel was glued in you will likely have to cut it out to resquare the box.
All of the above is a 50/50 operation.
That’s what I was afraid of. To be honest, I’m at a point where I think I’m just going to “go for it” and attempt to figure out a way to make it work. I have the frames attached and everything is glued up and dried. I guess I can just hope for the best with the drawers and pad them out as necessary if they are slightly out of alignment. I have to imagine, there is some way to make it all work.
Drawers will slide fine as long as the sides are parallel - check by cutting a thin board the perfect width and check near front, middle, and back - if it is not you can shim the slides out from the sides and just make the drawer slightly narrower (ie don't make the drawer until you know!)
Doors are no big deal in a slightly out of square "box". Hopefully your sides and top/bottom are parallel even though out of square. Just make the doors oversized, then trim them to match the slightly out of square box. (ie make them a little oversized, then cut the side to side dimension so it barely fits into the box, slide it towards the top and see how it fits at the top. Cut that top edge at the slight angle so it fits, then cut the bottom parallel. Start so it barely fits to give yourself some "play" then trim a small bit at time to get the reveals you want.)
Thanks RAL3. It looks like the box is about 1/32 of an inch wider at the back of the box and maybe 1/16 at the middle (when compared to the front). I’m assuming this has something to do with the tightness of the stretcher I have across the top holding the sides tighter than the back and middle. That seems shim-able to me (I hope).
Why I don't glue cab boxes :-)
Generally things like this are going to follow you through the project - doors, drawer fronts, drawer mounting.
I guess everyone has to learn their lesson at least once :)
I am a beginner and most of my things are a bit out of square. You should be able to work around it. At least that is what I would try and do. I find that little by little, things get better on each project. Don't give up. You can do this.
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