• Building your own cabinets can save you a lot of money.kitchen image by Rich Johnson from Fotolia.com
  
  Good tools are a must for building good cabinets. A skilled cabinetmaker could probably make something with inferior tools, but the work would be a hassle rather than a joy. When it comes to tools, you get what you pay for. High quality, durable, and accurate tools don't come cheap, unless you get very lucky at a yard sale.
  
  

Table Saw

• A good table saw is a necessity for any serious cabinetry shop. A table saw with a durable and true fence allows you to cut straight cuts for gluing up panels and attaching face frames. In addition, with a crosscut sled, you can use a table saw to cut cabinet elements to length. With accessories such as dado blades and profiled cutting heads, you can cut notches, rabbets, and dados, and even crown molding and decorative trim using a table saw. A serious cabinetmaker should have several dedicated blades for specialty cutting of items such as melamine, veneered plywood and other sheet goods.
  
  

Router

• A router is a versatile hand-held power tool that allows you to perform a number of tasks that would take far longer by hand. A router can round edges, cut dados and rabbets and incise plate grooves into shelves. A router installed in a router table becomes even more versatile, as you can use it to put profiles into long pieces of wood for crown moldings and base trim. With the proper jigs, you can also use them to make mortises and tenons and to cut circular holes into backs and counter tops.
  
  

Biscuit Joiner

• A biscuit joiner is a relatively new invention in the world of tools, but it has proved itself to be a very handy and labor-saving device. This tool is basically a hand-held circular saw blade set into a flat face. The cabinetmaker presses the face against a piece of wood and presses the blade through, leaving a semicircular cut. When this is done into the faces of two pieces of wood that you are joining, you can then glue a prefabricated biscuit into both notches, thus making the joint both more accurate and stronger. Use biscuit joiners to make panels, attach face frames to case goods, and add hardwood edging to the edges of medium-density fiberboard, plywood or pressboard.