2 methods for building shop cabinets - which one?

[Matt Day]

I spent some time after the past day or so designing my shop cabinets in Sketchup. I decided to build 2 assemblies/units (though ideally I'd like to have a 3rd unit) that are about 60" wide x 29" deep, one having an interchangeable section for my mortiser, grinder, etc. There are three compartments, the ends are simply shelves and the inner one will have 4 drawers. These are built to the same height as my RAS and will flank it for material support.

After I drew it all up using 3/4" ply, I priced it out and it came to about $110 per assembly for materials (sans drawer slides). And this is using cheap imported birch ply for $32/sheet, the cheapest I could find after calling about 8 places around my new hometown. I could easily spend $60 per sheet for good stuff that I know some of you recommend.

After that sticker shock, I thought of alternative construction means and came up with the second picture which is mainly 2x material and 1/4" OSB. Those came out to be 1/2 the price at $55 per unit. I don't care about looks on these since they're for the shop, and I thought having the 1/4" OSB glued in the panels would add quite a bit of structural strength and resistance to racking.

I'm not interested at this point in buying used cabinets from Restore or anything, as I'd like to build them.

What do you all think of my designs? Any comments or suggestions?

[Don Wacker]

Id stick with the plywood. Hd carries what they call cabinet ply for 22 per sheet. Don

[Alan Schaffter]

Without knowing your goals other than doing it on the cheap, it is hard to make a recommendation. Obviously you want them strong enough, but how strong must it be- will you do any hammering on the tops, etc. Do you have any other goals- appearance, learn new or fine cabinet techniques? Will the cabinets have face frames?

Frankly whatever meets your goals and budget, as long as it is strong enough and you have the tools to make it. IMHO the top on neither is thick enough or supported well enough also, without face frames, the ply boxes may warp.

[Matt Day]

I didn't see anything online for $22/sheet, but I'll be there tomorrow and check for sure.

I would like to learn more about cabinet building, but not at the cost of $60/sheet. Thanks for the tip on the face frames. I was planning on leaving it unfinished without doors or anything so I can focus on getting them up and working first, but if I go with ply I'll use face frames to keep them sound and add doors and non-ply drawer fronts later.

I don't plan on doing any major heavy work on these - no planing, hammering, etc. Mainly tool setup space, work support for the RAS, parts, misc, and just a place to set stuff rather than on my TS!

What would you recommend for a top instead of what I show? It's hard to see but there are also three 1/2 or 3/4 pieces on the top holding the vertical panels together, and the vertical panels occur about every 18". Double up on the MDF? Wrap it with hardwood?

[Jim Becker]

Either way works...frame and panel executed well can be pretty strong. I don't think I'd use the thin OSB, however. I'd opt for MDF, hardboard or thin plywood were it me...and if you used 3/4" plywood to create you frames, you could glue everything for a stronger assembly. You need to let the panels float if you use the solid 2x stock for your frames.

[Chris Harper]

For what it is worth, I just got done building some upper cabinets for the non-shop side of our garage. For the boxes I used any sort of scrap sheet good I had in my shop. Some premium cherry plywood that had been scratched up, some inexpensive bullnosed melamine shelving, regular melamine, Chinese White Birch plywood in the $24 per sheet range and some birch ply from Lowes in the $45 price range. I think I even used some Russian birch. All of it was 3/4".

Based on that limited sample, I'd rather use melamine for cabinet boxes than either the Lowes Birch or Chinese White Birch. Ten years ago I'm not sure I would have felt the same way. I think the imported plywoods have really gone downhill. I think you should at least price melamine for these cabinets. Personally I don't like looking at the unfinished edge of melamine so if you're not doing face frames then you might want to factor in edge banding.

One other thought is the shop cabinet design that was in American Woodworker a few years ago. The design used strips of plywood and had plastic bus boy trays that slid on cleats. I toyed with this design and even found some trays that were larger than the ones in the article and even came in various depths ranging from 3" to 15", IIRC. This might be something to consider if you want to get these together quick and combine the advantage of drawers below waist height.

I ultimately ruled this design out because I wanted to use my shop cabinets as a way of practicing techniques I wasn't familiar with. If you're interested I can see if I can find the article and the brand of plastic trays I found.

[Dale Probst]

Chris,
Definitely interested in your source of trays and article.
Thanks,
DP

[Chris Harper]

Chris,
Definitely interested in your source of trays and article.
Thanks,
DP

The article is online. I'll take a look and see if I can find the hard copy tomorrow and see how much more indepth it is. But for now:

http://americanwoodworker.com/blogs/...e-cabinet.aspx

Both Cambro and Rubbermaid make nearly identical food boxes. Both companies make them in white polyethylene and clear polycarbonate. I don't recall which company was cheaper but am pretty sure polyethylene was cheaper than polycarbonate. Worth shopping around online.
Here is a link to the Cambro site with the available sizes.

http://cool.cambro.com/Poly_Boxes_Fo...s_Storage.ashx

I liked these boxes because they were sturdy and because they were pretty big. Also liked all the sizes so you could have a mix of shallow storage and deeper storage. I also like the greater depth (front to back) as I like a deeper work surface anyways.

What I didn't like about them was how little floor area they had for their 26" x 18" footprint. The rim you carry these boxes with is really wide and they're tapered so they can stack inside each other so the floor area is quite a bit smaller, maybe 23" x 15". You lose a lot less space with 3/4" plywood drawers and slides.

One last thing. If I built these I was going to put them behind doors for both dust prevention and so I wouldn't have to look at them. That would have meant opening a door and sliding out a tray every time I needed something. One extra step to grab a tool that I really didn't want to take.

[Rick Potter]

Particle board with face frames, and double thickness top. Cheap, and plenty strong enough. Paint it whatever color you want. MDF would also work, but I prefer Part board. Doors can be frames with hardboard or 1/4" MDF.

I have had a drawer unit I built for a bench drill press for 15 years, and it hasn't deteriorated.

Rick Potter

[Jerome Hanby]

There is another recent thread floating around that talks about Tom Clark's book about building shop cabinets. It's a little annoying to find specific information in it, but it's a good read if you go through it front to back. I'd recommend getting the book (it's about $10) and a note pad and jot down dimensions and page numbers as you find useful information. That same thread has information about finding a good price on hinges and drawer slides. My initial plans would have resulted in a lot more work and cost than Tom's methods. A little Goggling reveals that either his notions are spot on or there is an enormous conspiracy to make everyone think that <g>.

If you are using shop cabinet projects to work on various building techniques, then don't bother with Tom's stuff. If you want a lot of bullet proof storage that will last a lot longer than you will and be as inexpensive as possible, then spend the $10 for Tom's book.