Wood cabinet building question

[dansmurf]

I am planning on building some cabinets for my basement garage and had 2 questions. I have done some basic woodworking but this will be my biggest project so far.

1. I see allot of people using wood cabinets for their garage and have not seen anyone mention putting something between the wood and the cement floor. I was thinking about cutting a self sticking vinyl tile into strips and sticking them to the bottom of the cabinet. Do I need to put something there and would the vinyl tiles work? Or should I build the base out of pressure treated wood?

2. I do not have a dado blade but I do have a dado bit for my router. Can you use a router bit on plywood? For some reason I can picture a lot of chipping because of the different layers.

Thanks for the help.

 

[southpier]

pressure treated is good. you want air to circulate under the cabinet.

router will work just fine. pay attention to the direction you're cutting (and the router bit is turning) and use a straight-edge clamped to your carcase. the fuzz will come up on the exit side of the dado, so just set it up so that the cutting direction makes that the bottom of the shelf. it goes away with a piece of 120 grit sandpaper wrapped around a block of 1" x 2" wood.

 

[onewaydave]

If there is a chance that the floor will get wet, PT wood should go down. But PT wood is wet and will not dry for a long time. Need to plan how that will affect your carcase and face wood.

 

[Solid Rock]

If the floor has a tendency to get wet you could also set them on some patio blocks. That is what I would do in wet or even damp conditions. Good Luck!

 

[MOPARINMYCAR]

Why dont you make your cupboards so that they have platic adjustabls legs like fitted to kicthen cupboards

 

[magnusk750]

If your concrete floor tend to get moist or wet, build your cabinet with some distance between floor and wood. Plastic legs is a good choice if they are sturdy enough. If the floor is so wet that wood will rot if you dont have pressure treated in the base, it means probably that pressure treated wood will at least catch fungi.

 

[ddawg16]

Or you can build them so they are off the ground a few inches. I anchored mine to the wall using lag bolts. More than strong enough to stand on and gives me about 8" of space underneath.....you can wash down the floor and the cabinets do not get wet.

Side benifit....storarge space for odd items....I keep things like drive shafts, axle parts, etc under there.

 

[garage_man]

i would build the cabinets without toekicks so they are about 4" off the ground and if you can, depending on what you are putting in them, mount them to the walls and let them hang, or if you are putting something very heavy in or on them, put adjustable legs on the fronts. you should be able to find those at rockler.com, make sure you make the cabinet backs out of 3/4 plywood if you will be hanging them from the walls to make sure they are strong enough

 

[56nash]

Sounds crazy, but IKEA has some great metal adjustable legs in their cabinet parts area. I don't know how they make that stuff so cheap.

 

[djd99]

When I built my shop cabinets I used pressure treated on the bottom.

 

[kywildcat]

I love this forum!!!!!

 

[BillGalbraith]

Or you can build them so they are off the ground a few inches. I anchored mine to the wall using lag bolts. More than strong enough to stand on and gives me about 8" of space underneath.....you can wash down the floor and the cabinets do not get wet.

Side benifit....storarge space for odd items....I keep things like drive shafts, axle parts, etc under there.

I like the idea of having stoage udner there for odd-shaped pieces, but wouldn't things tend to roll under there and get lost forever? I have expoxy/poly floors, and was planning on doing a toe kick to kepp that from happening, and some vinyl toe kick material (I don't know what it's called) to seal it to the floor. I guess water can still get under it, so I guess elevating the wood off of the floor is a good idea. At minimum, I guess priming and painting under there would be a good idea. There's always old house paint laying around.

 

[dansmurf]

Thank you everyone for the replies. I have decided to hang the cabinets. I started to work on them today but it may be a while before I have any pics. I am not a woodworker so its going slow.