Tech Tip #4 - Installing Light Rail Moldings

Light rail molding can dress up the bottom of a cabinet run and is great for concealing under-cabinet-lights. It is typically cut from ¾” stock and is 1 ½” high with a decorative profile on one long side that matches the outside edge of the door style. In this post, we’ll give you a default position and method for installing light rail.

Profile: A profile is the shape or contour of a decorative finished edge or surface.

Reveal: The visible portion of a surface that is exposed between the edges of a molding and the adjacent surfaces. It is essentially the space or gap that remains visible after the molding is installed.

The default front and side reveals for light rail are typically 1/8”. This slight offset makes the seam where the molding meets the bottom of the cabinet virtually disappear and creates a slight notch for caulking.

For face frame cabinets, we can add a ¾” x ¾” solid stock cleat even with the bottom of the face frame. This is what the light rail is going to be attached to when it is installed. A cleat will also be added to the back of the light rail at the top and 3/16” pilot holes drilled into the cleat for the 1 ¼” wood screws that will be used to secure the molding.

For full access cabinets, we will add a ¾” x ¾” cleat to the top of the light rail and then install it directly to the flat bottom of the cabinet as per the photo below.

In these examples, we used cleats instead of drilling directly into the bottom of the light rail molding which is something we've seen other installers do. Using cleats is a best practice. The cleats are hidden and many homeowners and buyers don’t want to see screws directly in the bottom of the molding. So be sure to avoid screwing light rail directly into the cabinets themselves.

Keep Building,

The Cabinet Talk Team