Cutting the Pantry Cabinet Boxes on Donavan’s CNC

Welcome back to our home renovation! We’re continuing along on the cabinetry journey, but a little bit of a different adventure today. We’re going to be diving into the pantry! 

The pantry will have an L set up, with a cabinet that goes along this wall to the left, and a little countertop cabinet that goes beneath the window. Another difference with the pantry cabinets is that I will be starting with the boxes, and using a CNC. Donavan and I thought it would be a fun way to contrast the different cabinetry making methods. So he is bringing his portable CNC out, and we will be making the cabinets in a more modern, CNC way. Donavan has taken a new job doing sales and support for Yeti, the makers of the Smart Bench CNC, so he will be here to talk about the CNC. 

So here is Donavan at the Yeti Smart Bench! He purchased this about a year and a half ago with plans on incorporating it into his work, but he fell in love with the machine and company. What’s nice about this CNC is that it weighs about 180 pounds, it breaks down easily, can fit in the back of a truck nicely, and it can be set up to working condition in about three minutes. So it’s very portable, easy to bring to a job site, etc. 

We are building the files on the laptop, and as soon as we get our files done, I’ll send my G code directly over to the machine. Another really nice feature of this product is that it has new technology built into it in both its hardware and software, called YetiPilot, which monitors the spindle loads. 50 times a second, it will adjust three times a second in the speed. So for example, if I’m flattening slabs on this, and I hit a knot, it’ll slow down, but as soon as it’s past the knot, it’ll speed back up. 

So let’s take a look at the pantry cabinets. Up top is an open cabinet with three adjustable shelves in there. Below is another open cabinet with a single shelf in it. Along the wall is another open cabinet with a single shelf in it. It will also have a pair of sliding bypass doors. So those are the three cabinets we’re going to do. 

As soon as Donavan has that dialed in on the program, the software automatically pushes it out to an optimizer. That tells us that those three cabinets are going to take three sheets. 

From that you generate the G code. We are going to do two tools with four tool paths. First we’ll do the hole pin drilling, then cut all of our dados, then we cut the parts out, and then it will trim off the tabs that are used to hold the part in place while it’s being cut out. So Donavan just sends that info over in a G code, and we can hit go. 

It has a laser on it, which can be adjusted using the buttons on the touchscreen

Dust collection attaches down here so it’s out of the way. 

Then it’s ready to go! Already on its second pass, cutting the dados. 

After getting all of our cabinet parts cut out, we are moving on to some of the other little detail accessory pieces of these cabinets, like those bypass doors. 

Next up are our back panels, which we are going to chop into two to make it easier to manage. 

Then we are going to assemble one of these cabinets real quickly to demonstrate that the CNC effectively cut the pieces we needed. 

Here is the lower cabinet assembled after cutting it out on the Yeti! This is the cabinet that will have the double bypass door with the V groove MDF. 

That’s going to do it for this one! I’ll be continuing this pantry project through to completion, meaning face frames and paint and all that. And getting these installed into a very oddly shaped space.

Thank you, as always, for joining. I greatly appreciate it. You have any questions or comments about the home renovation, Donavan’s CNC, or whatever you might have a question about, please feel free to leave us a comment in the comments below. I’ll be happy to answer any question you might have. Until next time, happy woodworking!

If you are interested in more information or a demo of Yeti Smartbench
Feel free to contact Donavan
donavan@YetiSmartBench.com
https://www.yetismartbench.com/
651-440-5006