Kitchen Cabinet side and back thickness.

[DougDM 1]

Unless I'm missing it, is there a way to specify side, bottom and back thickness of cabinets, I.E. 1/2" or 3/4"  for sides and bottom.  1/4" and 1/2" backs?  Actually for drawers also.   We do a lot of custom in house cabinet building and I'd like to be able to make more material specific shop drawings. At the moment I do them in AutoCad or SketchUp Pro.

 

Thanks for any assistance. 

 

Doug

[MarkMc 532]

1 hour ago, DougDM said:

Unless I'm missing it, is there a way to specify side, bottom and back thickness of cabinets, I.E. 1/2" or 3/4"  for sides and bottom

Sides and back aren't too bad. Bottoms get challenging, drawers are easy.

Plan attached showing 1/2" sides and back a few symbols included. Open symbol to see how originas and stretch zones are set, also open ALL sides of the cabinet box configurations.

Bottom-if you specify it smaller than 3/4 you will get an extra line there.

 

You can cheat the bottom using a custom symbol for a shelf.

 BUT in all of these shelves will not go all the way to the interior side unless you make a custom shelf with a locked width per each cabinet width.

 

Personally for most of these situations, at least for frameless cabinets, I would just specify the desired thickness and put up with the extra lines. Then use a CAD detail from view to clean them up right in Chief-no need to go to ACAD. Framed cabinets I might do as the included (forgot to add the face frame at the bottom or top though

 

Drawers- Just make a custom drawer with the box sides made the width you want. Jut be sure to set stretch planes of zones inside of the drawer sides. I've posted drawers and pull out inserts in the past if you do a search for them. Those should give you an idea how to set the symbols.

Cabinet side thicknesses.zip

[Joe_Carrick 2323]

Doug,

 

Are you using frameless or face frame cabinets?  I don't think you can specify the thicknesses for face frame cabinets.

[GeneDavis 134]

Why don't you download (and learn to use) the freeware eCabinets?  With that software, you can build your cabinets exactly the way you need per all your shop preferences, material preferences, hardware, finishes, edgetape, and more.

 

The software can be set to produce either nested array parts for CNC cutting, or aligned array parts for saw-shop cutting.  Every carcase part gets a label.  The software produces your buy lists for whatever you buy out, whether drawerboxes, fronts, hardware, accessories, and more.

 

Getting Chief to emulate your builds with thicknesses is as far as it's going to get.  With eCabs, you are specifying tenon size, mortise size, mortise and dado clearances, edgetape thickness, back insets, nailer size, nailer placement, nailer fixing (pocket screwing, for example), and more.

 

I attached a screencap of a part of their writeup on nested parts diagrams.

 

 

[DougDM 1]

On 1/14/2021 at 9:30 AM, MarkMc said:

Sides and back aren't too bad. Bottoms get challenging, drawers are easy.

Plan attached showing 1/2" sides and back a few symbols included. Open symbol to see how originas and stretch zones are set, also open ALL sides of the cabinet box configurations.

Bottom-if you specify it smaller than 3/4 you will get an extra line there.

 

You can cheat the bottom using a custom symbol for a shelf.

 BUT in all of these shelves will not go all the way to the interior side unless you make a custom shelf with a locked width per each cabinet width.

 

Personally for most of these situations, at least for frameless cabinets, I would just specify the desired thickness and put up with the extra lines. Then use a CAD detail from view to clean them up right in Chief-no need to go to ACAD. Framed cabinets I might do as the included (forgot to add the face frame at the bottom or top though

 

Drawers- Just make a custom drawer with the box sides made the width you want. Jut be sure to set stretch planes of zones inside of the drawer sides. I've posted drawers and pull out inserts in the past if you do a search for them. Those should give you an idea how to set the symbols.

Cabinet side thicknesses.zip

On 1/14/2021 at 9:30 AM, MarkMc said:

Thanks Marc, I think I'll stick to what I know best, AutoCad and SketchUp Pro, By the sound of it I can draw a cabinet from scratch in the time it takes me to open a symbol. LOL. For clients I like to show materials / thicknesses being used, for actual building in the shop, it's a no brainer.

On 1/14/2021 at 10:36 AM, GeneDavis said:

 

 

[DougDM 1]

I do both, framed and frame-less.

[DougDM 1]

Thanks Gene, I'll take a look at it.