Been building cabinets for a decade and just figured out I was squaring wrong

I was at a job site last Thursday installing some upper cabs for a customer in Nashville and something just clicked. I had always squared my face frames by measuring diagonals, which works fine on paper, but I never stopped to check if my clamps were actually pulling the joint square. The whole time I was fighting racked frames and wondering why my doors were gapping. One of the old timers on another crew walked by and just said "you clamping both directions?" and I stood there like a dummy. Turns out I needed to clamp across the diagonal instead of just side to side. Been doing it the new way for a week now and my frames are actually square on the first try. Anybody else have a basic thing they missed for way too long?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_river2d ago

Diagonal measurement is still the correct standard though.

amymiller2d ago

Go look at a 55 inch tv that's 16:9 aspect ratio and then look at a 55 inch that's a 32:9 ultra wide. The diagonal is the same but the screen real estate is completely different. That's the whole problem right there. The diagonal measurement tells you nothing about how much screen you're actually getting. You could have a square or a skinny rectangle with the same diagonal number. It's kind of a useless stat if you ask me. Your mileage may vary but I'd rather know the width or area for what I'm buying.