How the corner is joined decides how the cabinet arrives
A cabinet's carcass (the structural box a door hangs on) is joined in one of two ways, and the join decides how the cabinet reaches your kitchen and what happens if it ever comes apart.
Glued and dowelled
The panels are glued and doweled together at the factory, so the carcass leaves as one fixed box. This is what people mean by a rigid build. It cannot be flat-packed, because taking it apart again is not something the joint is designed to allow. It arrives assembled, which changes how it is carried into the house and how much space it takes up on delivery day.
Cam and dowel
Cam and dowel is the knock-down fitting used in flat-pack carcasses: a dowel peg on one panel locates into a hole, and a turning cam pulls the joint tight from inside the cabinet. The panels travel flat and are assembled on site, either by the fitter or, in a self-build range, by whoever is putting the kitchen up. The joint can be undone and retightened, which is what makes flat-pack possible in the first place.
The practical difference shows up at two points: what the fitter is doing on day one, and what happens years later if a corner works loose. A cam and dowel joint can usually be tightened with the fitting still in place. A glued joint cannot be adjusted; if it fails, the panel is normally replaced.
See how the two builds compare for delivery, fitting time and guarantee terms on how a kitchen cabinet is built, and check what each maker's guarantee actually covers on kitchen guarantees compared.
Rigid versus flat-pack: how the two builds compare
Both methods produce a finished carcass, the structural box a cabinet is built from. The difference is where and how the joints are made, and that changes what turns up at the door and what the fitter does before the units go in.
| Build method | Suits | What to check | Fitting on the day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rigid (assembled) carcassThe carcass arrives built at the factory, glued and dowelled, so its joints are fixed before it reaches the house | Kitchens where cabinet size or an awkward access route is not a constraint | Delivery access, since assembled carcasses take up more van and doorway space than flat panels | Cabinets arrive assembled, so the fitter positions and fixes carcasses without building them first |
| Flat-pack (cam and dowel) carcassThe carcass arrives as flat panels with cam and dowel fittings, the knock-down hardware used to join them on site | Tighter budgets and rooms reached through narrow doorways or staircases | Whether the panels and fittings match what was ordered, since a missing dowel or panel stops the build | The fitter builds each carcass from its panels on site before it goes into position |
This sets out the general difference between the two build methods. Board thickness, back panel construction and guarantee terms vary by maker: check /kitchen-cabinet-construction.html for how a carcass is built and /guarantees-compared.html for what a guarantee covers before deciding between them.
Once you know which build you're getting, check it fits your appliances
Carcass height, leg height and worktop thickness stack up differently depending on the range, so it's worth checking the finished height against your appliance's instructions before you order.