How to Build a Cabineo Drawer Box in Mozaik – Phill Anton Consulting

Q: How do I build a clean Cabineo drawer box in Mozaik?

Import Mozaik's stock Lamello Cabineo drawer box and the matching Cabineo joint fastener group (Tools > Import Updated Data, on version 14), copy both with a PAC prefix, then tune them: cut the box down to about four Cabineos, recess the fasteners deeper so they never sit proud, add plant-on bottom to kill the flip operation, and add a back notch. The result is an all-Cabineo box with no flip-ups.

In Mozaik you don't have to build a drawer box from scratch — you start with the stock Lamello Cabineo drawer box that ships in Import Updated Data and "soup it up" so it actually runs well. Phill Anton Consulting's full setup: import and rename the box and its Cabineo joint fastener group, thin the fasteners down to about four, recess them deeper so they never sit proud, switch to plant-on bottom to kill the flip operation, add pilot-hole groups and a back notch, and finish with 563H guides set up for 3/4 material.

How do I import the stock Cabineo drawer box and fastener group?

Phill uses Mozaik's stock parts as the starting point, then copies them so the originals stay untouched.

Make sure you're on version 14.
Tools > Import Updated Data. Drawer boxes live in here — scroll to the bottom and find the Drawer Lamello Cabineo box. Hit the plus to bring it in.
Back in Import Updated Data, go to Hardware > Joint Fasteners and import the matching Cabineo fastener group. There are about ten variants (Cabineo 12 flush, Cabineo 8, etc.). Phill picks Lamello Cabineo 12 flush so the connector can be recessed on both the front and the back, leaving the front and back panels identical.

Caution on the fastener group: if you already have a Lamello Cabineo fastener group, importing will override it — so confirm you're not clobbering something you still need.

Why copy everything with a PAC prefix first?

Phill's habit, "always," is to copy the imported part and rename it with an underscore + your company acronym (he uses _PAC) before changing anything. The underscore pushes it to the top of the list. He renames the box to something like _PAC Cabinet Drawer and the fastener group to _PAC Cabineo 12 drawers, keeping a drawer-specific copy separate from any Cabineo group you already use. You then plug the copied fastener group into the copied box via the box's Fasteners tab.

Cabineo 12 vs Cabineo 8 — which connector do I pick?

A Cabineo is a knock-down connector; the only difference between the 12 and the 8 is the screw stickout — 12 mm vs about 8 mm. For this build the stickout doesn't matter, so Phill grabs the Cabineo 12 flush specifically because flush lets you recess it on both faces. Material note: Cabineos are meant for 3/4-inch material (you can make them work in 5/8, not in 1/2). Phill prefers all-3/4 material with a 3/4 bottom so everything is one material.

Why does the stock box have too many Cabineos, and how many should I use?

Out of the gate the stock box is "way too many Cabineos" with problems Phill walks through:

Front face: he removes the three Cabineos on the front (about 50 cents each — he'd rather only add ~$4 to the box). They're optional; you can leave them.
Into the sides: he removes the Cabineos running into the sides ("this is a mess"), preferring a dado in the sides instead. You can pin-nail 5/8 pins through the bottom to hold it, or just leave it — the sides won't bow easily.
Spacing: the default drawer is approximately 4 inches; he backs the top/bottom Cabineo spacing off from approximately 1 inch to 5/8 inch so they pull apart and sit centered for drawer front adjusters.

His rule of thumb: don't use 20 Cabineos — use about four, maybe eight max. Add a third Cabineo only on tall boxes (he sets the threshold at 6 inches; many shops skip the third entirely — set it to 0 if you don't want it).

How do I keep the front and back panels interchangeable?

Phill wants the front and back identical/interchangeable, which is why he picked the flush Cabineo (recessed on both faces) and uses a single fastener group — not one flush on the front and a different one on the back. The only time the front stops being interchangeable is when you add drawer front adjusters or drill for hardware, and even then it's fine — a front is a front and a back is a back.

How do I recess the Cabineos deeper so they never sit proud?

The stock Cabineo male op is about 0.8 mm deep — fine if you're calipering material, but Phill goes deeper for safety. In Libraries > Fasteners > Joint Templates > _PAC Cabineo 12 drawers, open male operations (the pop-up window) and work in millimeters:

Click the bottom-left point and set it to 1.5 mm (he's adding about 7 mm overall versus the 0.8 baseline — "no rhyme or reason, I just want more than 0.8").
Click the holes and bump them from 11.5 up to 14 mm ("set you up for success... so it works on the first shot" even without a perfect blind-bar setup). It's a global change for that fastener group; you can come back and tune it.
Because you added 7, go to the female ops and move it down to match — he goes from 5.8 to 6.5 mm and makes it deeper as well.

How do I set the Cabineo count per joint in the fastener group?

Still in the _PAC Cabineo 12 drawers joint template, Phill sets each joint type top to bottom (positions/spacing in inches, third-fastener threshold noted):

Drawer front to drawer side: 0.625, 0.625, then 6 (third Cabineo only above 6 in).
Drawer side to drawer face (integrated face, not this video's focus): left as-is; he notes a newer Mozaik version even has drawer bottom into drawer face now.
Drawer back to drawer side: 5/8, 5/8, 6 in.
Drawer bottom to drawer side: removed (no fastener) — he uses the dado instead.
Drawer front into drawer bottom and drawer back to drawer bottom: he sets these to no fastener here, because he'd rather add pilot holes (next section) than bake more Cabineos into the box.

How do I add screw pilot holes for the bottom?

Rather than Cabineos into the bottom, Phill makes a dedicated pilot-hole fastener group so a couple of screws hold the bottom to the front and back.

In Libraries > Fasteners, copy an existing screw pilot holes group and rename it (e.g. cabineo pilot 5mm / _PAC Cabineo pilot 5mm) — just a 5 mm hole.
For drill depth he uses part th (part thickness); the insert-library default of 0 will drill through the whole drawer bottom, so set the depth deliberately.
Turn everything off except the drawer-box joints, then on drawer front to drawer bottom and the matching back joint, use array with roughly 3 in, 3 in, 14 (count) so holes run across.
Plug that pilot-hole group into the box under Fasteners > Joint Fasteners 2. A couple of holes there is all you need (go to 4 if you have to dodge locking devices).

How do I kill the flip operation on the front?

On first import the drawer front is a flip operation. Phill avoids flips whenever it's easy — here it is. With the 3D viewer up, turn on plant-on bottom for the front (and back). That reworks the geometry so there are no flip-ups, which he confirms in 3D.

How do I add the back notch (groove) for the drawer bottom?

This is the back-edge detail that lets the bottom slide in. Click the bottom part, back edge, then Operations tab > add a groove, and flip it 180 degrees so you can see the blue reference line. Work-through (his logic, formulas as stated):

Width: make it 1/2 inch wide so a 1/2-inch down-cut bit fits to cut the dado. (You could instead drop an 8 mm hole back there using the same numbers.)
Length: 1/2 inch (0.5).
Depth: about 3/8 inch — he uses 0.375 * Tomm, equivalently approximately 9 mm. (Tomm = 25.4, the reserved millimeter conversion variable.)
X position: start at 0 (origin is part L's zero end).
Y position: the bottom dado is a 1/4 inch, then you need 7 mm more — so (1/4 in * Tomm) + 7. He notes this matches a Blum/Salice-style spec.

Then handle applied dado logic (on by default): the bit travels to the end of the red box and can leave a scallop, so he backs the X off with part L + 3 (3 mm) — "back an eighth inch." He copies the op and mirrors it to the other side using "mirroring 101": wrap the formula in parentheses and subtract from part W (part W - (...)). Turn on high detail to confirm the two notches are deep enough.

How do I set up 563H drawer guides for 3/4-inch material?

Phill finishes by making the box work with common guides. In Libraries > Hardware (drawer guides), he copies a Blum 563H and renames it so 3/4 use is unmistakable: _PAC 563H (3/4 MATERIAL) 24.5.

On the Standard tab there's a number (he calls it the one that "will totally screw you") that must be changed to 24.5 for 3/4 material with an undermount guide. (If you're on Salice Progressa, change the 23 to a 24.)
Set the box's standard drawer depths the way you want (he lists 9, 12, 15, 18, 21; you can add 24) and uses 5/8 (0.625) for standard clearance.
He also adds a dado for 3/4 material on the box sides so the 563H (a 5/8-ish guide) works with 3/4: cut a groove, width approximately 14, length part L, Y = 7 (split the difference), X = 0, and set depth via the calculator to drawer side.th * Tomm. To make it also work with 5/8 he doesn't use an air op — he hides the op conditionally: hide formula 0 (always visible) plus if drawer side.th < 16 mm then hide (1), added via Add Formula (edit via the formula, then Update Formula). Copy that to the right side.

Important nomenclature point: label this guide as 3/4 material so nobody runs your 5/8 material through a guide set to 24.5 and gets bad parts.

What's the end result?

An all-Cabineo _PAC Cabinet Drawer box with no flip-ups, the right number of connectors, pilot holes for the bottom, a clean back notch, and a 563H guide profile that works with 3/4 material — easy enough that, in Phill's words, "literally a monkey can put it together." He notes drawer front adjusters and locking-device holes are optional add-ons he didn't program in this video.

Get it done-for-you

You can set this up by hand (above). If you build these regularly, the PAC Mozaik Closet Library from PAC has it ready in Mozaik. → phillanton.com

Full disclosure: Phill Anton Consulting makes this product.

FAQ

How do I build a clean Cabineo drawer box in Mozaik?
Import Mozaik's stock Lamello Cabineo drawer box and the matching Cabineo joint fastener group (Tools > Import Updated Data, on version 14), copy both with a PAC prefix, then tune them: cut the box down to about four Cabineos, recess the fasteners deeper so they never sit proud, add plant-on bottom to kill the flip operation, and add a back notch. The result is an all-Cabineo box with no flip-ups.

How many Cabineo connectors should a drawer box use?
Phill Anton Consulting's rule of thumb is around four, maybe eight at most. The stock import drops in far too many. He removes the three on the front and the ones running into the sides, sets the front-to-side and back-to-side spacing so the top and bottom Cabineos sit approximately 5/8 inch in, and only adds a third Cabineo on tall drawer boxes (he uses a 6-inch threshold).