Video Transcript
Chapter 1: Introduction
It's a glorious day here at Cabinet Joint. I'm Justin, and in today's video I'm going to be showing you how to install your knobs and your pulls for your cabinets. We are going to be working with these two types here today in this office. You want to find one that fits you, your look, and the look of your kitchen. A big part of it is ergonomics, and the other big part is look and style. So, those are the two things you want to keep in mind.
Ergonomics: how it's going to feel, how it's going to look, and how practical it's going to be for you. Then, the other side is style. You want it to look good in the end.
In this video, we're only going to be installing pulls because that is what the design calls for for this office, but I will also be showing you what you would be doing if you were installing knobs.
With all that being said, let's get into the tools that you're going to need.
Chapter 2: Tools & Supplies
The tools you'll need to install your knobs and pulls are going to be a drill.
I have an ¹¹⁄₆₄" bit. The drill bit size doesn't need to be super specific, but it does need to be just ever so slightly larger than your screw. Then I have painter's tape, a pencil, a tape measure, and a Phillips head screwdriver. I also have a jig here to help me. You can create your own jig. There's a thousand different jig options out there on the market.
Then we also have our pulls here. We have longer ones and shorter ones. When you buy your knobs or your pulls, they should come with the screws themselves. That's all you need.
Let's get into the install.
For this cabinet here, we have a garage door that's happening. So, instead of having the pull here from the side, I'm going to be putting it on the bottom.
Chapter 3: Preparation / Spacing Out Knobs or Pulls
This is where it really comes down to your choice. I have been playing around with it. You could put it up here, or you can even stick it up here. But I think I am going to have it in the center of that bottom rail.
Once you have the location where you want it, you're going to use this jig to basically set up a repeatable process for all of your pulls or your knobs for the rest of your kitchen.
Let's get into what it looks like to adjust this. Even if you have a different one, chances are the overall process for adjusting your jig is going to look pretty similar.
Chapter 4: Setting Up & Adjusting Our Jig
You have three ways of adjustment.
The first is that you can adjust the center of your jig, but I would recommend always keeping it in reference to zero. It will make your life easier as you measure out for other items.
Then you have this gauge here that will adjust how deep into your cabinet door or drawer front that will go. In our case, we want to have it dead center in the middle of that rail. The rail is 2¼", so we want to set this—and it has both inches and millimeters on the other side—at 1⅛". That way, we get center.
The other adjustment you'll see is these two wings over here. This is for your pulls. If you were just installing knobs, you could simply use this center hole because everything would then be centered and aligned.
But since we have pulls, we need to set these up. We have 6" light, so we want to set these up on either side just under 3", like we have here.
Then, just to double-check to make sure we have it all set up right, you can take your pull and line up the holes with your jig and make sure everything lines up correctly, which it does. So, we know we at least have this part set up right, and we have the depth and everything set up.
Now we can take it over to the door, and I'm going to put up some tape and just make a couple measurements. I'm going to measure to the center, and then we will get drilling.
Chapter 5: Installing Our Pulls
Double-checking my measurements here, I have 23¾". So that means halfway will be 11⅞".
I'll check that by measuring here from the other side. 11⅞". Perfect.
I'm going to use this almost as a square. Then I am going to line everything up, and just to make sure, since this is the first one I'm doing, I'm going to verify that I set up my jig correctly. I need to adjust it a little bit. No worries.
I can't stress enough, especially as you're setting it up, to make sure before you start drilling every single one that you have that jig dialed in.
Here we go. I like where it's sitting. I make sure all my knobs are tight, and I'll drill. You can drill all the way through.
Now that we have that drilled out, I'm going to go ahead, take that tape off, erase my mark, and grab the two screws that were provided.
I'll get those hand-tight, and they don't need to go overkill.
I'll close that up. Now it looks really nice.
The great part about using a jig is that this is now a repeatable process. I can go in on all of the other cabinet doors that have this pull, and it will be the exact same location every time. So, whether you have a different jig or you've made your own, just make sure that it's reliable and repeatable.
You'll see that here as I now do two of these bottom drawers. Since I'm using the longer pull, I just have to adjust these sides here left to right to get that fit. Then I'm going to play with how low I want it on the drawer face, and I'll adjust it here as well.
We'll get right back and start drilling this out.
My first inclination here would be to go to the center of the opening, which would be right about here. But some things you have to consider are, one, ergonomics. If it's at the bottom, I have to reach a little bit lower, which isn't too big of a deal.
The other thing is the angle from which you're going to be seeing this. Most of the time, I'm not going to be looking at it straight on. I'm going to be standing up or sitting at my chair at my desk.
As I'm looking at this, I'm playing around and seeing, okay, here's what it looks like centered, and here's what it looks like raised a little bit. Honestly, I think I like the look of it raised.
I am going to be doing this on the bottom as well, so I want to make sure that look applies to both of these, which I think it does. It will be about ⅔ of the way up.
Now I'm going to go and adjust the jig, and that will give us the same drill points for both of these fronts.
Chapter 6: The Finished Product & Summary
The installation process is really straightforward. The big thing to remember is before you start drilling and measuring, just put your knobs on there. Maybe put some tape down, mark it out, and make sure that you like where it's going to look.
Then, as you're drilling, make sure you are drilling straight. Also, make sure you're using a reliable, repeatable jig.
I'm going to be installing the exact same pulls over here on the other side. Because of that jig, we know that they're going to have the exact same measurements and land in the exact same spots.
You can see the reliability of a jig just by looking at these two bottom drawers and seeing that the pulls ended up in the exact same locations.
So, if you have any other questions about knobs or pulls, you can reach out to your cabinet coach, or you can call us at 888-211-6482.
Thank you for watching. Have a great day.
