What wood to make cabinets out of?

[Darrell Jones]

Sorry, another new guy question. I recently purchased a Kreg pocket hole joiner system. Wow, it's fun. Even a no talent like me can now make joints!! The guy at Home Depot says the best is 3/4" plywood. These are just going to be for my garage and painted. I was playing around with this new joiner and the screws seem to strip very easily in plywood vs solid pine, etc. Should I try particle board or MDF? MDF seems to be very heavy. I was hoping for 15" deep cabinets. Should I scale back to 12" and just use solid pine? Thanks for all the help. You guys are GREAT.

[Lee Koepke]

plywood before mdf. IMO.

since its shop cabinets, I try different skills and that way when i invariably mess up, 'its shop cabinets'.

if you use solid wood face frames to use the pocket joinery thru plywood, you should be ok.

the carcasses I make are dado'd or rabbeted.

[glenn bradley]

If you are stripping the screws, reduce the clutch setting on your drill/screwdriver. There is no need to crush the joint, just make it good and tight. I prefer Baltic birch plywood but the price doubled awhile back due to a shortage and has not gone back down that I know of.

For MDF the preferred screw is the Confirmat screw which is not used in a pocket. I have pocket holed in MDF with success but prefer ply or solids. I have shop cabinets built from both and both have survived much abuse without failure. I do use glue with my pocket holes, some do not.

For a 'here's what I'd do' answer; use 3/4" BB ply or Apple ply (13 plys in a 3/4" sheet as opposed to 7 plys in shop-grade ply). Use glue along with your screws. 1/2" BB ply or the like for drawer sides. 1/4" for bottoms. These are off the cuff statements but basically encompass how I do shop cabs.

Price always being a factor, I have used shop grade and MDF as well depending on what the cabinet is to be used for. Wall mounted or floor standing cabinets do not get as much stress as say a rolling storage cabinet/assembly table and so could be made with lesser material. Don't like the word lesser per say but you get my drift.

[Bob DiGiacomo]

Darrell,
Usually the face frames of cabinets are made out of real wood like popular, pine, oak. That way they don't split with pocket joints. For the insides of the cabinets you might want to use MDF because it does take paint well. Also, melamine works well because you do not need to paint it. Cabinet grade plywood works real well for the insides of the cabinet as well. Good luck with your project.

[Andrew Close]

you can get pocket hole screws that work well with MDF and other sheet goods. i believe they have courser threading on them than the 'real' wood pocket hole screws. the store you purchased your Kreg jig at should have what you're looking for...

[Matt Mutus]

Plywood should hold the screws OK. I agree with Glenn and suspect you might be tightening down too much. Once they stop under light torque, that's enough they're good. For plywood I set my torque around 4-5 (out of 16). Low speed.

Try to set a few by hand to get the feel of it.

[Jim O'Dell]

What Matt said, and make sure you are using the coarse threads for soft woods when using ply. Rule of thumb, if the threads end up in soft wood, coarse threads. If the threads end up in hard wood, us fine threads. Jim.

[Norman Pyles]

If you get the New Yankee Workshop, Norm is making cabinets this weekend.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Hello,

I was playing around with this new joiner and the screws seem to strip very easily in plywood vs solid pine,

Yep - I had that same problem using a cordless drill.

I switched over to a lower torque AA battery powered screwdriver, used coarser thread screws and just drove the screws tight enough to hold things while the glue dried.

Opps - edited to add what type of wood.

I've used mostly B/C 3/4" and 1/2" plywood.
Lowes did run a special on some ~ 3/4" Birch last summer and I picked up 4 sheets. I'm going mix using that and B/C and some MDF for the remainder of the shop/garage.

[frank shic]

consider melamine and confirmat screws. skip the pocket holes and use a corded drill.

[Sue Wise]

I built my first shop cabinet with cheap Lowes Birch 3/4 plywood and pocket screws. I think for practice shop cabinets the cheap stuff is ok, but I would not want to use this plywood for my kitchen cabinets. It has too many voids.

-Sue

[Rob Blaustein]

There is a bit of learning curve with the Kreg. I like using 3/4" ply and as others have said, use the correct length, use coarse, and use a pretty low torque setting--on my drill it ends being around 3-4. Try some by hand. But in spite of doing all these things I still also get around 1 in 5 stripping. I sometimes adjust the collar on the bit so that I drill slightly deeper thereby going a bit further into the second piece of wood (maybe by about 1/32" or so).

[Jon Bonham]

If the screws are stripping, you're either using cheap hardware or bad bits. It makes a difference, especially the bit.

[Rob Blaustein]

If the screws are stripping, you're either using cheap hardware or bad bits. It makes a difference, especially the bit.

Although you may run into trouble with those issues too, I doubt that's what's going on here. This can happen with a brand new sharp bit from Kreg and with their screws--which are quite good. He's using a new jig, and I'd bet the Kreg screws. In my experience with this setup it is more a function of the combination of plywood and applying too much torque.

[Randal Stevenson]

consider melamine and confirmat screws. skip the pocket holes and use a corded drill.

I would at least consider that option for the floors/shelves of the cabinets that contain liquids.