That architect in Salem made me question my whole shim approach

Last month I was setting some uppers in a kitchen remodel and the architect walks in, watches me for a minute, and says 'you know those shims are just a crutch, right?' I laughed it off but then he showed me how he has his guys scribe everything and use a laser level for the reference line. It hit different because my old mentor taught me shims are fine if you trim them clean, and I got 20 years of jobs done that way. But now I'm wondering if I've been adding extra steps for no reason, especially on these higher end builds where they want zero gaps. Has anyone else switched to full scribing and actually stuck with it?

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sean_barnes241mo ago

Did the architect actually show you how he scribes those uppers in tight spots, or was it more of a concept thing? I mean, @morgan.jason, I feel like the real test is whether you can get a clean, straight line on a wavy wall without burning an hour per cabinet. Cause I tried full scribe once on a corner cabinet and ended up with a gap you could slide a quarter through, then went right back to shims. So are these guys using some kind of template or are they just that confident with a belt sander?

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morgan.jason1mo ago

That hit hard, man, same thing happened to me last year and I still think about it every job.

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