Building tall cabinets..?

[DatacomGuy]

Was looking at Premier Garage's website, and saw this photo..

I'm fairly new to woodworking and cabinet making.. just curious what you guys think would be the difficulty level of making similar products myself?

And do you think it'd be cheaper to make vs buy?

 

[D2002]

Have you made any cabinets? Cabinetry is not especially difficult once you figure out your setups for the joints and you are dead on square with your various cuts.

Working with full sheets is not the easiest thing to do. When i put built the cabinets for my kitchen I bought a large bisemeyer fence and built a table around my saw that could handle full sheets. There are other ways to do it but I would not tackle a cabinetry job without a serious table saw setup. There are lots of books on cabinet making. I prefer the european style of cabinet box making because it just makes a lot more sense. Also, you can make the boxes and you make them in standard sizes, you can get doors no problem at Home Depot. If you go to non-standard sizes, you now have to make everything custom. Something to think about at least.

hth

 

[DatacomGuy]

Great input, thank you!

I've not made any cabinets yet, at all.

I'd like to also make a cabinet to hang above my washer/dryer in the utility room... I think I'm going to tackle that project first.

 

[mb190sl]

One other thing to consider with cabinets this large. Purchase good quality plywood. You don't need anything that does not lay flat. The doors will look funny if they do not shut flush.

 

[DatacomGuy]

Good thoughts!

 

[djjsr]

Just an option. I built this cabinet without a table saw. It's 7'x7'. The top, bottom, sides and shelves are all 1x10. The front frames and shelf supports are 1x4 or 1x2. The doors are a set of bifolds that I surface mounted with cabinet hinges. Everything is glued and screwed, no nails. I'm amazed at how much junk I can put in this one cabinet. It's about 8 years old.

 

[Kirby]

Djjsr is right(and your cabinets look great)...you can do a lot with those hollow core luan (or birch) doors...and they are cheap. I have used them for shelves, doors, made a small knock-down closet for my daughter at University, etc. And ditto to 2002...decent table-saw and out feed table needed to handle full sheets of plywood. It just takes a lot of time to build your own, but I am always happier when I am done. Good luck. Kirby

 

[djjsr]

Yea, I got the doors pretty cheap (on sale) and determined the cabinet dimensions based on the doors. It took me an afternoon to build the cabinet and mount it on the wall. The most time consuming part was routing the grooves in the sides to support the ends of the shelves. Painted the outside and coated the doors a few days later.

 

[dmdalton]

As noted by D2002 the cabinets pictured appear to be of the European design which simply put is a box made of 3/4" cabinet grade plywood with 1/2" back. The doors are mounted on concealed adjustable hinges and cover the full front of the cabinet. There is no face frame in the design giving you full access to the interior.

It is a pretty simple way to make cabinets. I made custom kitchen cabinets that way for a couple of years. There is a book and DVD by a guy named Paul Levine that will take anybody from not having a clue to being able to make a nice looking cabinet.

The video is called "Making Kitchen Cabinets with Paul Levine" and the book is called "Making Kitchen Cabinets: A Foolproof System for the Home Workshop by Paul Levine". Amazon has them $20 each. I have a number of books on cabinet making and they are the best I've found and are what I learned from.

A tip on handling large sheets of plywood: cut the sheet down to workable sizes with a hand circular saw and guide. Then use the table saw to cut to finished size.

Dave

 

[DatacomGuy]

Thanks Dave.. great info.

 

[Kevin54]

Good wood glue, either a brad nailer or finish nails, and a biscuit joiner is your best friend. Build a box, use biscuits for strength and alignment, glue and nail. Build the box to a little larger than purchased doors, or build to fit what you need and make doors to fit the box. Use 1x's for your stiles (face fronts) biscuit join, glue and nail.