My first try at cabinets

[dennis thompson]

I plan to make two cabinets ,an upper and a lower , for our laundry room. They will be painted white. I have done some research and am wondering what the pros and cons of face frame vs frameless cabinets
are. Any help/ hints on building these cabinets will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

[Lee Schierer]

Face frame will give you a more sturdy carcase.

[Ray Newman]

I prefer a face frame as I feel its adds some additional rigidity to the cabinet..

[David Eisenhauer]

The addition of a face frame plus an inset (into a 360 deg rabbet) cabinet back will ensure that the cabinets remain square (no sag) basically forever. Face frames is an area where biscuit joiners excel due to the slight lateral movement availability for ease of lineup.

[Rich Riddle]

I also prefer the extra support a face frame cabinet offers over frameless cabinets.

[Mark W Pugh]

I am not a cabinet builder, but I have built both. I think it depends on what "look" you want. Do you want more traditional look, or more Euro look? If the cabinets are to be anchored to the wall, I see no difference in rigidity. Euro cabinets, frameless, are easier/quicker to build, IMHO. The door/drawer fronts are all the same to build.

[lowell holmes]

I knew a cabinet maker(RIP) that sometimes made cabinet fronts with solid plywood, cutting the door and drawer openings with a circular saw. He would cut close to the corners and finish the cuts with a handsaw.
He would put lip mold on the doors and drawer fronts. It is a solid construction. I've done it myself. You use more material though. I have a 4" Porter Cable circular saw that does the job quite well.

[Jim Becker]

I'm with Mark on this...they are both great methods, but the "look" is what normally determines which are used. I'm a "face frame kinda guy" and that's pretty much the only thing I build for our home. (I also only do inset doors)

[Wayne Lomman]

Dennis, go with your preference. You never see face frames in Australia and hear about them all the time in USA. It is tradition more than structural integrity. Cheers

[Bob Cooper]

I've migrated to kind of a hybrid approach now. If I'm building a lower cabinet full of drawers I used to build a face frame that had rails and stiles around the perimeter and 1" rails between each drawer. Now I skip the the rails between the drawers and just let the drawer fronts separate themselves by only 1/8 of an inch. So a cabinet with doors and drawers are pretty similar until you add the drawers.

The other thing I started doing was moving noting the drawer slides with rear brackets vs attaching them to the sides of the cabinet. Just made adjusting them so much easier if something got out of square...which should never happen but it sure happens to me at times.

[Dave Cav]

For a novice, I think hinges on face frame cabinets can be easier to install and will be cheaper. The first time or two with eurostyle hinges can be challenging if you've never done it before. And yeah, I'm a face frame guy, too.

[Brian W Smith]

For clarity....

Wall to wall(dead ends)?

Or,live ends(space on ends,you can see the end of cabinet)?

It has to do with install,door clearance,and a cpl others...which effects the total build's convenience.

[dennis thompson]

For clarity....

Wall to wall(dead ends)?

Or,live ends(space on ends,you can see the end of cabine

It has to do with install,door clearance,and a cpl others...which effects the total build's convenience.

they will be live ends