Thread: Outdoor Cabinets

Hi Gareth;

I'm in the process of building some outdoor cabinets myself; although mine will be undercover so I won't have rain to worry about.

I'm making two cabinets; one is 900 wide and is just going to be used for storing random outdoor entertaining/living crap like mozzie coils, lanterns, bird seed etc while the other will be around 600 and will be designed to accommodate all my bbq equipment. Both will be made from timber; specifically a pile of decking boards and floating flooring I bought from a timber mill that was closing down a few years ago that has been hanging around waiting for a project.

The bigger cabinet is about 2/3's complete. It is a solid wooden frame made from 35 X 65 (approx) spars dowelled together and the base, sides and back are made from 85mm wide by 12mm thick tongue and groove floorboards simply nailed to the frame with a pair of hot dip gal nails at each end. The lower stretchers are about 6" from the bottom of the frame giving the appearance of short legs, or feet. The top (at the moment) is made from decking boards trimmed down to remove the roundover edges and biscuit joined together. This will be attached to the carcase using some old Pommy plastic fittings nicknamed "chocolate blocks" that for some reason have never been introduce to Australia. In this application they will act as buttons; holding the top down but allowing for movement. The internal shelf will also be made from the same decking boards.

The doors will be panel doors with the decking boards being used for the rails and stiles and the T&G flooring for the panels.

The only truly rigid bit is the frame and any movement will be pretty negligible but the panels can expand and contract without ripping the frame to pieces by virtue of the T&G and nails construction.... I hope! From memory the timbers I'm using (QLD gums) have about a 1% expansion range between bone dry and humid to b*ggery so across the back I have potentially 9mm or so of movement to be concerned about...

To help, the timber will be well soaked in oil inside and out. I'm not a fan of varnishes or similar finishes; I find a hard drying oil works best for reducing moisture absorption from the air but if I had to have it out in the weather I think maybe Ultradeck or similar would be the go.

I'm away from the shed until next month but I'll put some pics up then.

What will I do differently for the smaller cabinet? Probably use dovetailed and tennon joints on the frame stretchers and rails rather than dowel joints but that's about it.

If you make your cabinets from ply use proper Marine ply from a chandler or similar. One way to tell is by the number of veneers used. Despite what the label says if you can't see 4 or 5 iner layers PLUS the (much thinner) face veneers of a piece of 3/8" "marine" ply then all you've got is (potentially) higher quality internal construction ply. And because marine ply is so stable you can attach it to the frame using whatever method you have available without worrying too much about expansion/contraction. However; the cut edges of the ply will suck up moisture so you'll have to glue on thin lippings of hardwood to fix that.

Thanks for that Chief, sounds like an interesting build. Keen to see some photos when you have time. I might go the same route as you have with your doors, T&G panels within a frame.

Do you think good marine grade ply, sealed all-round and fastened with pocket screws would work for the cabinet carcasses?

Admittedly I have a fair way to go before the cabinets get built. Still need to prep the area and lay a concrete slab (never done before!).

Thanks again.

Ply cabinets will be fine; but as I said you need to find a good way to seal the edges and lippings are the traditional way.

See if there are any kitchen construction books in your library; specifically American ones. Where we would use melamine coated particle board they use ply and so will have explored every avenue of construction available. I can't see a problem with pocket hole screws where strength is concerned; however what I have learned in Queensland is that if there is a hole of any shape available there will be an insect which has evolved a need to move into it! If I left something outside with an exposed pocket hole in it a potter wasp would have moved in within a day or two! even if the holes are inside something else you can never hide them from a determined bug. I don't know what you have crawling around in your bit of Kiwiland but insects setting up home somewhere in your cabinetry is something you may need to consider mitigating against.

As for a finish; ply is very stable so a good quality varnish will be fine but put a bit of a roundover on every exposed corner. Sharp corners never take a coating of paint or varnish very well and they are the weakest part of the surface coating; it only takes a slight knock to fracture the coating and then water seeps in. In time (and not very much of that) the water will cause the ply to swell slightly, cracking the coating further, then letting more water into a larger area and so on until all the varnish has flaked off.