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  • Thanks for that, just sharing my professional experience! In fairness I have a few advantages that I use to help my projects along. Although they're not really affordable for diy.

    Festool domino - use it to join boards, it's a type of biscuit joiner where the biscuits are more like tenons. The furniture stands up on it's own before you glue it.

    Spray shop quality sander. You can polish the edges of mdf boards to 400 grit through 4 grits. The edge then takes paint as well as the face. Spray painters have huge machines that can swallow a whole board just to do this one job to it. They usually put a small radius on the edges too. You should consider a radius on the edges of your mdf boards as they hold the paint better, there are aesthetic reasons you wouldn't do that from time to time.

    Rafix/minifix connectors - like Ikea connectors, it's a pin screwed in one board/ ratchet thing in the other. You tighten the boards together and it saves gluing up on site which requires clamping or you can make furniture that can be dismantled and moved/sprayed. I've moved one of my freestanding pieces 3 times for the owner, it's huge and fills a transit broken down but it's been able to travel with them. Also no screws to split the mdf or require filling. Can also be used for shelves you want fixed in place.

    18 gauge air powered nail gun, invisible nailing for trim. The nail heads are tiny and basically disappear.

    Plastic screw caps. It's not invisible but if you need 2 or 4 screws on the inside of a cabinet to fasten it to the walls then at least the next guy can find them and remove them easily! With filler on top of these nails a change in loading/tension on the outer walls can make the filler pop. Also useful for bath boards and panels that should be removable in bathrooms and battening under shelves. They can be painted and virtually disappear.

    32mm system plastic jig. Its a little plate that shows you where to drill the holes for mounting plates and holes of the hinges. It's affordable if you can find them outside of trade suppliers.

    A bag of plastic wedges, you will probably need more than one wedge size every day you work on these types of projects. Saves improvising them from wood stock.

    These sort of tools can save having to use filler, fill screw holes or use clamps and screws and make the preparation easier. Also useful when you are working with veneered mdf and can't use filler.

  • Is there a way to add some sort of sound dampener material to the back side of the cupboard (the rear panel that sits close to the wall)? Like glueing in rubber stoppers so the board is attached at half a dozen spots but with with the stoppers? Would it help reduce transmission of sound?

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