Garage Cabinet Questions

[Bart Standefer]

I am getting ready to make a set of garage cabinets all the way down one wall. I was planning on making the cabinets out of 3/4 oak plywood but debating since they are in the garage and I am in a humid area, maybe BC sanded would be a better choice? The lower cabinets will be 6.75in off the floor so I can clean with a water hose and sweep underneath the cabinets.

Also, I wasn't planning on putting hardware on the cabinet doors. I was going to router the back size so you can just open the cabinets with your fingers. Do you use a cove router bit or v-groove?

[Salem Ganzhorn]

If the cabinets go all the way to the ground then is there a need to clean? Also not sure I would spray water under a cabinet to clean up... seems the splash could be bad. Air could work right?

As for ply choice it is probably a good idea to seal it with a finish so I am not sure if the ply type really matters.

For shop cabinets I would do frameless but this will not leave enough reveal/room for you to get your fingers between the doors. The hardware can be very cheap ~1.50 a door/drawer should not be too hard to find.

Good luck!
Salem

[Cory Hoehn]

I don't think the material will matter nearly as much as your finish. If you use a high quality finish you'll have plenty of water resistance. You could use a spar varnish or just layer on a bunch of poly. It's not going to stand up to constant direct water, but a little bit of splashing shouldn't bother it at all.

I would go frameless, too, and buy some cheap knobs. I've got face frame cabinets in my garage and just about every time I open one up I curse the center piece. I've actually cut them out on a couple of cabinets so that it's easier to put in and remove bigger stuff.

Good luck!

[sean m. titmas]

Any type of VC core plywood is better than particle board or MDF for carcasses in relation to moisture. apply veneer tape to the exposed edges and shoot a coat of anything to seal them, especially the bottoms.

keeping the cabinets only 6" off the floor will create a catch-all for dust and debris. i suggest making a toe kick ladder from 1x6 PT pine. it will do fine against the harsh elements in the garage.

there is a specific router bit for making euro finger pull recess on the top or bottom of the inside face of the door. you can also use a large cove bit to do the same.

face frame cabinets are fine for beaded inset doors but for a garage using Euro style cabinets will save on time and material and give you more storage space(if only 5%).

[Bart Standefer]

[QUOTE

I would go frameless, too, and buy some cheap knobs. I've got face frame cabinets in my garage and just about every time I open one up I curse the center piece. I've actually cut them out on a couple of cabinets so that it's easier to put in and remove bigger stuff.

Good luck![/QUOTE]

A friend of mine was telling me he was really soiled his cabinets by not having hardware, so will go with the cheap hardware route.

It would be $100-120 more to go with oak vs. bc sanded.

[bill mullin]

Just for a different idea for some cheap, fast garage cabinets...
here is something I did last summer. These started out as open shelves, but after I got the wall cleats and vert. dividers up, the customer decided he wanted doors. Rather than tear our what I had done, and build individual boxes, I continued on, and just added 1x2 face frames and MDF doors.
Not having backs and doubled up sides saved a lot on materials, and the whole thing took just over a day and less than a couple hundred bucks for about 24 feet. Plywood would be better, of course.
Just an idea for you.

[Ethan Vos]

Why would edge banded melamine be a bad idea if you kept it off the ground?

[Michael Drew]

I build my garage cabinets out of MDF about 10 years ago. I use a garden hose to clean the floor, plus I live where rain and snow is just life. (350” of snow per year). I refuse to use any sort of plywood for construction or where it can come in contact with water any more after having to pull close to half of it off my roof when I built my house because it warped to hell after being rained on. The plywood you get nowadays, well, it just sucks….. Unless I absolutely need the screw holding strength of plywood, I’ll use OSB. The plywood just starts to delaminate and warp where I live. None of the builders use it for this reason. I actually did an experiment with CDX, AC, MDF and OSB a few years ago. I cut a piece of each and threw them out in the back yard before the fist snow. In the spring after the snow melted and I could find them, the piece that held its original form the best was the OSB, followed surprisingly closely by the MDF, then the CDX. The AC just fell apart.

At any rate, I built the garage cabinets with ¾ MDF without face frames, painted them with some good water based kitchen and bath semi gloss enamel and then faced them with red oak to keep the leading edges from getting destroyed shoving ‘stuff’ into the cabinets or onto the shelves. I used MDF for the doors too, and mounted them with Euro hinges. I built the counters out of a double layer of ¾ MDF for strength, with a ¼” layer of hard board that I can replace as needed. I trimmed the counter with red oak as well. They are holding up very well. All the drawers are made out of ½ oak ply. I used a rabbit joint and epoxy glue.

If interested, I can take a couple pics in a day or two.