Cabinet Design Software Works in the Corner

Cabinet design software sometimes gets stuck in corners…..

Custom cabinet design software should be flexible enough to allow the creation of a cabinet beyond standard rectangular boxes.  A SketchList 3D Professional user sent in an email asking for some advice on how to make such a project.

The corner television unit was just part of a more complex wall unit his client wanted – but an important part.  He had figured out how to make the case but was puzzled a bit on how to best fit the face frame.  The task is to “cut” and fit the rails and stiles so they fit flush on the 45 cabinet front.  Actually because his cabinet had side of tdifferent legs the front was less than 45 degrees.  That’s not a problem because with SketchList 3D you can rotate objects in one degree increments.

We met online and worked on the design.  At first I suggested the front of the cabinet face forward and the back ‘legs’ would angle backward.  It sort of worked but sort of not.  After our meeting ended I tried putting the ‘legs’ of the box at 90 degrees – to the left and the back – and using a door as a container for the frame.  The door was made to the size to fit corner to corner of the ‘legs’.  I used the blue dot alignment method to line the door up in the corner and rotated the door back 45 degrees.  You’ll see in the video I made one key mistake that kept things from fitting together – but the fix wasn’t that bad.

Once I had the door sized and placed it was extremely easy to make a frame inside the door.  Two stiles and two rails later -perfection.

An option would be to have made the frame in another assembly, sizing it and rotating it as you would the door.  In this case you can merge assemblies in our cabinet design software so all boards are int he same container.  There are some small advantages when all the boards are in the same container.  But I’m not sure they are worth the effort.

Watch the video.  And please — subscribe to my YouTube channel for direct access.

I spent about 90 minutes online doing this design / training.  In the end the user had better knowledge of the tools and techniques of SketchList 3D.  Not only that but his project file was there as well.

So if you have a question or problem send me an email and we can work together to get you moving again.