Customer Reviews

Making Kitchen Cabinets: A Foolproof System for the Home Workshop

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After checking out all of the kitchen cabinet making books I could find from local libraries, I found this one to give me the simplest foolproof way of making cabinets. I am planning to use this book to make my kitchen cabinets. It is based on the Euro style cabinets, ones without face frames. He also has an accompianing video which is also very good.

If you are new to cabinet making, this is the one book you should have to learn how to make frameless cabinets.

Levine has a system which may not be for everyone, but it is easy to understand, and he explains things with a clarity that is hard to find in the woodworking world. Here is what I like:

1) He explains basic dimensions and layouts for kitchen cabinets. There are no plans, but there are lots of photos and illustrations.

2) His coverage of European hinges (Grass) and Accuride drawer slides will be invaluable if are just learning how to install this hardware.

3) Ditto for plastic laminate.

4) In the field of woodworking, I think Levine is just about unparalleled at taking complex information and explaining it with great clarity.

[...]

I found the book to be very outdated and full of useless information. The book does not even give you any useable plans for constructing your own cabinets. The material choices and assembly procedures are so out dated that an extreamly large amout of wood and money would be wasted. I would not recomend this book to anyone.

There are some great ideas and techniques in this video. It took me a while to get past Levine's heavy use of plastic laminate, although the information on selecting and applying it was a good review. Levine illustrates great ideas for strong european case construction. The previous reviewer must have watched a different video. While Levine illustrated a face frame cabinet first, he used that only as a comparison to the european style cabinet, which he built during the video. Admittedly, the final product does look very 80's with the laminate and all. Any viewer can take the ideas and, utilizing more aesthetically pleasing materials, create a beautiful and strong cabinet. If by chance you are looking for techniques for raised panel doors, you will not find any in this video (I wasn't, so it didn't bother me).

I enjoyed this video because I'm a woodworking junkie. But this video is 20 years old and seems very dated. I picked up a few useful hints from it. Norm Abrams would not like the non-floating drawer bottoms. If I had known it was this old and found something more modern and comparable, I would not have gotten this. It was a Christmas gift so I can't say whether it was worth the money or not.

This is a good video to walk you through making cabinets of any type. Paul's design method is solid, and will probably last for many years if followed correctly. Face-frames and doors are not terribly aesthetic, unless you're in with the retro 80's look. However, if you're at the skill level to build kitchen cabinets, you should probably be able to alter the door design with little effort.

The quality of this DVD is overall good.

The method of construction described is a little old fashion and not necessarly the easiest one.

There are however couple good ideas exposed in this video which make it worse buying.

This book was not at all what it is described as. It is not how to make standard American kitchen cabinets. It is about making everything but! Not happy with purchase and in my opinion it is a deceptive promotional listing by Amazon and the publisher.

This video is great... if you want to create cheap looking 70's cabinets. The use of plastic laminate on cabinets is archaic to say the least. While his woodworking tips are somewhat useful I found this video otherwise useless for building anything resembling quality cabinets. My wife would have my head if I built what he shows.