Customer Reviews

Quick & Easy Custom Cabinets

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This is an excellent text if you want to build plywood carcased cabinets with a biscuit jointer. The approach is for those with a few basic tools, like a table saw, and a biscuit jointer. Screws are used in the place of clamps in most instances. The book wrings the maximum out of these humble means, and the author's logic in coming up with the system he has, is very keen.

On the other hand, the results while neat enough are not up to current standards. Guidice maintains these methods are the backbone of his professional shop, a claim that is hard to credit either in terms of efficiency, or results. On occasion, throughout the book, methods of low efficiency are suggested, methods that leave a trail of ugly plugholes. Often these methods make sense, because they keep the system described in the book accesible to those with only the basic tools. In fairness, however, when compromises are being made that are not efficient or clean, that fact should be noted and explained

Guidice, a woodworker who has appeared several times on the cover of a national woodworking magazine, has produced here a book with barely a single piece of attractive furniture illustrated in it (and furniture is illustrated). A unique achievement. I am not being picky, nothing here would grace even the amateur gallery of a woodworking magazine.

Nonetheless, the methods described here could form the basis for a home cabinetmaker to make some nice boxes, quickly. That's a worthwhile, moneysaving subject that this book covers well.

This book is in some ways the flip side of Guidice's Seven Essentials. No dovetail saws here, but a solid approach to any panels of plywood you may have lying around

The upside of this book is that the step-by-step instructions are very detailed and leave out very little. If you need to know all of the basic steps to building cabinets then this sharply illustrated book is great. The photographs are excellent quality.

The downside is that the cabinet designs are about as ugly as they can be. The author uses wood plugs all over the place and many of the projects are more clunky looking than a battleship. It would seem that there were be eaiser ways to hide some of the fasteners than to just cover them with plugs.

If you are new to woodworking or are just trying to learn easier methods of constructing cabinets, this book is for you.

The book starts out examining traditional methods of building cabinets and then goes on to show how the biscuit jointer can make that much easier. Then he walks you through building a full cabinet using the techniques he described earlier.

The only thing I didn't like was there are not enough measured drawings, but that is a very minor complaint.

I checked this book out from the local library because I could find few books on biscuit joinery. The author does a great job of explaining how to use a biscuit (plate) joiner.

I am not a big fan of screws and plugs, either, but the author states early in the text that he suggests screws for the cabinet maker who doesn't have a lot of clamps.

Great shop tips, clear instructions. As far as the look of the cabinets goes, I guess everyone has their own taste. If you don't like the look of the author's, then use a design more to your liking. You can still use his time-saving techniques.

I originally found this book in our local library. As an experienced woodworker, at first I was dubious of the simplicity of its cabinet construction. After closer investigation however, I realized with a few modifications to the techniques described, I could get the desired result on the kitchen cabinets I'll be building for our in-progress addition/remodel. The cabinets will have and Arts & Craft look and I plan to fill any plug holes that show, with ebony square pegs which are indicative of this design. The book is well-written, very detailed and the author keeps it uncomplicated. I plan to use it extensively!