LR 32 System

[tvgordon]

Last weekend I bought the LR32 system and guide rail because I am building a cabinet with 2 rows of drawers and I thought this would be a great way to keep everything aligned.

The problem is that the center divider is not the same length as the sides of the cabinet.  So if I reference the rail off the bottom of the boards then the holes won't line up right.  Would the best way to avoid the problem be to draw a line where the first hole should be and clamp the rail down there or to reference the rail from the bottom of the board and then cut the board to length being careful that the holes start at the right distance from the edge?  It seems there is room for error with either solution.

Like I said, I just bought the tool and while I have watched a few videos on it's use I have no experience with it.  Those are the two ways I thought of to solve the problem but I'm sure you guys know of better ways.

Thanks,
Tom

 

[JeromeM]

Last weekend I bought the LR32 system and guide rail because I am building a cabinet with 2 rows of drawers and I thought this would be a great way to keep everything aligned.

The problem is that the center divider is not the same length as the sides of the cabinet.  So if I reference the rail off the bottom of the boards then the holes won't line up right.  Would the best way to avoid the problem be to draw a line where the first hole should be and clamp the rail down there or to reference the rail from the bottom of the board and then cut the board to length being careful that the holes start at the right distance from the edge?   It seems there is room for error with either solution.

Like I said, I just bought the tool and while I have watched a few videos on it's use I have no experience with it.  Those are the two ways I thought of to solve the problem but I'm sure you guys know of better ways.
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Thanks,
Tom

The LR32 does make things easy.what you should have done was to make sure that the centre divider was shorter my a multiple of 16mm as the systemhas stops for 16mm and 32mm.

However if you haven't used that spacing then all you need to do is add a temporary spacer to the bottom centre divider to  make it into a multiple of 16mm shorter

As has been said buy your hardware before designing your cabenet

 

[fshanno]

Do the sides extend to the floor?  If so why not have the partition extend to the floor too?  You'd get extra support because that center partition will be carrying twice the load as either side.  Or make two identical cases and screw them together and then you don't even have to think about it.

If the sides aren't going to extend to the floor how about using a small piece of the plywood that you will use for the deck as your spacer.  If the bottom of the sides and the bottom of the deck are flush after assembly then the holes in the partition should align perfectly.

 

[tvgordon]

Jerome, I haven't cut the dado for the divider yet so I still could make it 16mm.

Fishanno, using a spacer is a great idea too. The sides go to the floor while the divider is in dados cut in the top and bottom of the cabinet.

Tom

 

[ccarrolladams]

LR32 is a system of design, not just the name for hole drilling devices.

Festool has done an outstanding job of providing guide rails to reduce frustration. The LR32 Guide Rail connector (cat 496 938), which is used to ensure holes are 32mm apart when one rail is connected to another using conventional rail connectors, also serves well as an end stop to ensure holes are referenced. Thus the cat 498 938 replaces the original end stop cat 485 760 which did not also help space the holes.

A principle of LR32 design is that the height of parts are in 32mm increments. If there is a reason to make cabinet sides which are not an increment of 32mm, then the convention is to use a filler strip while drilling the hole to bring the side to 32mm increment.

Also there is a popular school of LR32 thinking in which the reference end of cabinet sides is always the one which will not be scribed. Normally the top of base cabinets and the bottom of upper cabinets are not scribed. Therefore many people use those as the reference edges.

My own practice is to always reference the holes on a set of cabinets from the same end: the top of base cabinets and the bottom of upper cabinets. I have never used a technique in which the rail is flopped just for the convenience of always having the bulk of the rail supported by the work. I have always found it more convenient to reference the same end and simply use a filler of thickness equal to the work material to support the rail during the drilling.

I must say I do not recall designing or building any cabinets in which a center divider did not run the full length of the sides. After reading the OP's questions and the responses, I certainly can see valid reasons why the center divider could be shorter or even longer.

The Festool USA End User trainers, Steve Bace and Brian Sedgeley, advocate the use of layout lines and marks, even for jobs such as Dominoes, where the tool does not always need such layout lines. In a special case of cabinets in which both sides are not the same length, then it is vital to use a layout line to set a reference for the hole drilling.

A word of caution: Commonly the drilled surfaces of cabinets are pre-finished, because it is so difficult to do the finishing after the holes are drilled. Removing layout lines made directly onto the pre-finished surfaces is very difficult. So, I strongly suggest applying tape, proven to not damage the pre-finish, onto which the layout lines are drawn. An alternative would be to draw the layout line in a place which will be hidden following final assembly of the cabinet.

When people new to LR32 cabinet fabrication come to me for coaching, I encourage then to practice on unfinished shop-grade sheet material. On that they can freely draw as many layout lines as they think necessary. Trust me, it is never acceptable for the holes on opposite sides of a cabinet to be out of level. Thus it is worth the effort to practice on relatively inexpensive material before attempting to build actual cabinets with delicate material.

 

[tbellemare]

Thanks, Carroll

Your points resonate, as usual...

Tom

 

[tvgordon]

Yes, thanks Carroll, your reply was very helpful.  I am actually making some shop cabinets out of melamine so, besides being inexpensive, it will be easy to remove any layout marks. 

I figured this would be a good first project to learn how to use the LR32.  My plan is to drill the holes in all the sides then adjust the rail to drill the holes in the dividers.

Tom

 

[clisbyclark]

What I've done is to cut the divider the same height as the side pieces, bore your holes, then cut off the thickness of bottom piece from the bottom of the divider.