How do I create working cabinet drawings?

[David J. Potter]

Commonly cabinet makers already know how to build cabinets and do not need others drawings to build them by.
What is necessary are accurate measurements as to height, depth and width and then text annotations as to the attributes of the special cabinets (slide-out shelves etc).

You do this in both plan view with dimensions and text and also a wall elevation per cabinet wall with dimensions and text.

You would do the same on a drawing board or using any CAD software available.

In my experience when cabinets are custom made my drawings are merely conceptual and the cabinet maker comes to the job site after framing has been completed and does his own measurements and drawings which he then goes over with the client to finalize.
Of course not everyone does as I do and cabinet guys vary in their operating basis.

Big-Box commercial cabinet outfits use spacers and modules to fit their prefab cabinets into the postulated spaces, the spacers designed to make up for discrepancies of design provided these are kept to as close to zero as is possible.

The above has worked for me for over thirty years; anything can be made harder or more complicated by anyone.
It is up to you and the people with whom you work with and associate.

DJP

[geno742]

Cabinet drawings are a separate field and have a certain format that needs to be followed if you expect a professional shop to be able to use your drawings. If you have never done carcass detailing.... you might cause more problems than you have now.

Listen to David. He is giving you the straight skinny as how it is done out there on the job site.

[adamjedgar]

i understand your question adam. as an design and technology teacher by training, and since i thought this forum section was for education purposes, i appreciate your need to produce accurate cabinet drawings. as a teacher i would expect my student, wanting to design and make a cabinet for a school or college project, to be able to produce a detail set of drawings. my answer to you...don't use an architectural drawing program to create details drawings for furniture, cabinets and the like. like david has said above, chief is meant for concept drawings when inserting such objects into a plan and not detailed engineering drawings of items inside buildings. this in no way suggests that the blocks inserted into chief drawings aren't accurate, quite the opposite is the case. however, to create the blocks accurately, you really need a CAD program like vectorworks, turbocad, or autocad (to name a couple of well known ones here in Australian secondary schools).

having said that, i note that vectorworks architect is also a full blown CAD and architectural drawing program in the one. that makes it an incredibly powerful option to chief...i wonder when chief programmers will consider going down that pathway as it is a big failling of an otherwise awesome program? i cant fail chiefs way of thinking and doing. it really does tend to allow the operator to create in the same way he thinks...that really does save time.

kind regards
adam

[Allen Brown]

OK Adam, after a comment like that, I would like to hear why you feel that Chief is not a "full blown CAD program".

[Max]

OK Adam, after a comment like that, I would like to hear why you feel that Chief is not a "full blown CAD program".

Caught your question and wanted to add my own input here. "Full Blown" CAD program can mean many things to many people. In my opinion there are several short comings but the most obvious and glaring falls to accuracy. Yes, the need for anything less than 1/8th's in home construction (in the field) is nuts. The lumber alone has so many variations that the need for rounding is obvious.

On the flip side, a "Full Blown" CAD program would offer accuracy into the thousandths and better. Enough so that cumulative rounding isn't a problem. When dealing with the needed accuracy for millwork and custom cabinetry, especially in areas such as radius corners and curved surfaces, Chief does not have it. Chief was never intended for such in the first place, at least not up to my current version of the software that is.