Last Updated on April 17, 2017

Ever tried to build your own kitchen cupboards but failed miserably? Here are 2 tips for templates you can use to make this process much easier.

Make templates for drilling

What are templates and what are they used for? Let’s say you want to drill holes in the side panel of the kitchen unit to assemble it to the top and bottom and need to drill the hole exactly 8mm away so that it goes into the middle of the top and bottom panel. You can use a 45mm x 45mm aluminium equal angle  to do that. You will have to measure 8mm away from the corner of the equal angle minus 2.5mm which would be half of the 5mm drill bit you’re going to use to do that. Once you’re done you will be able to drill a hole 8mm away very easily without having to worry about making mistakes.

Templates for fitting drawer runners

Before I explain how to make a template for your drawer runners let’s first establish which runners to use. I personally believe in heavy duty ball bearing runners as they are far superior to wheel runners. They are easier to install, carry much more weight and slide out much smoother. Now for the making of the templates. Assuming we are building a four drawer that is 720mm high and with drawers that are spaced evenly. If your drawers are 80mm high this will work better as I use these sizes to make my own templates. Cut three pieces of chipboard to the following sizes. 242mm, 380mm and 575mm. the width can be the depth of your kitchen cupboard. The first runner will be placed on the bottom of the cupboard so you won’t need a template for that but don’t fit it yet as we are going to start with the top runner.

Please the 575mm template on the bottom of the kitchen cupboard. Draw a line on top of the template against the side. Follow this step with the 242mm template as well as the 380mm template. Once you have three lines on each side of the kitchen cupboard fit the runners on the lines and on the bottom for the cupboard. Make sure that you fit the runner 3mm back so that the drawer front doesn’t stick out in front.

Using these templates will help you save time when building kitchen cupboards and will help you not to get so frustrated. The time spent making the templates will be well worth it in the long run.

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Guest Author: Julian Venter and he specializes in bedroom and kitchen cupboards and is based in Cape Town (South Africa)