Thread: Best material for freestanding dining room cabinet

Hi Mike,
a lot comes down to level of expertise, tools available and budget.
The simplest way it to make it the same way as the piece in the photograph.
Using veneered ply or particle board for the sides shelves drawer front.Use solid wood lippings to the sides and shelf fronts.drawer fronts also especially if particle board is used.

There are various ways to make in solid timber, either all solid boards or a more stable frame and panel construction but much more complicated and expensive to make of course.

Make sure if you decide on the plywood option that you can obtain solid lippings in a matching timber.
Be sure when applying solid lippings to veneered board that it is perfectly flush or with slight overlap.it is easy to sand the lippings back to the veneered board but cannot be done vise versa.

Originally Posted by zoovegroover

Hey all

Still new to the whole wood working thing, but have made a few cool little pieces and am ready for a big challenge. Wanted to get your advice on what material use on a proposed cabinet build, because I just finished a really nice little bathroom cabinet but made the amateur error of using pine for the carcass, and already the humidity is setting it out of alignment.

I want to make the attached cabinet that I found with a Google image search...was thinking birch ply for the carcass, and maybe a solid wood for a face frame, shelves, and drawer faces. Is that the best way to go, do you think? I like the idea of a solid wood carcass, but feel that would be very costly, and also I'm being told that ply is the best for the carcass anyway? Probably for my first big project it might be the right idea in case of mistakes...

Your thoughts? Any general advice on best way to build, or where I could find plans for similar that could help would be awesome. I'm really new to this and loving but my only training is YouTube videos.

Thanks
Mike

My quick look, calling it 1200 wide and about 2100 high and 400-ish deep (check with the plates you want to store!), would guestimate that two sheets of 16-18mm ply should do it, plus a sheet of similar in 7mm for the back.

Can't really see a face frame on it, but I'm assuming that thing at the top to be a tambor door (no endorsement, just the first I found) which will probably be the most expensive part of it.

For the drawers, depends on what you want, but an easy solution would be two Blum metafix drawers (you only need to add a bottom and back, the sides are metal).

Thanks Mark and Splinter. Just to clarify this:

"Using veneered ply or particle board for the sides shelves drawer front.Use solid wood lippings to the sides and shelf fronts.drawer fronts also especially if particle board is used."

By lippings, do you mean a strip of solid wood that covers the end grain of the ply shelf to make it look nicer? Is there a drawback to using solid wood for shelves themselves, or the drawer front? I won't be doing the roller drawer thing at the top. Just some shelves, and two drawers below it.

Hi Mike, to simplify things you could dispense with the face-frame/lippings
If you like the look of the edge of the plywood.

You can use solid timber for the shelves but much simpler to use the ply/particle board as the rest of the carcase.

I like the tambour door but not the way it it rolled at the top as it takes up valauble storage space in the, piece, this should roll round the back of the piece and not be visible when open.

In any case probably best to dispense with the tambour as it is rather involved.

Originally Posted by zoovegroover

Thanks Mark and Splinter. Just to clarify this:

"Using veneered ply or particle board for the sides shelves drawer front.Use solid wood lippings to the sides and shelf fronts.drawer fronts also especially if particle board is used."

By lippings, do you mean a strip of solid wood that covers the end grain of the ply shelf to make it look nicer? Is there a drawback to using solid wood for shelves themselves, or the drawer front? I won't be doing the roller drawer thing at the top. Just some shelves, and two drawers below it.

Hi Mike,

Sorry just to clarify, the lippings are thin strips of solid timber which match the veneer on your ply/particle board so it looks like solid timber construction.

The drawback to solid wood is twofold - firstly, the cost (and the time to glue it up), and secondly the need to get quartersawn timber to minimise movement in the timber as it moisture cycles (or take care how backsawn timber is glued up).

https://nationalvetcontent.edu.au/al...d_movement.htm

That’s interesting about the shelves and the drawbacks to solid timber. I’m a little confused how to do this now, because I really like the look of a shelf that doesn’t come all the way to the front of the frame (using a stopped dado). So I guess if I want to hide the plywood grain I would need to glue a lip to the plywood shelf edge (the part that faces front) at the same thickness of the ply shelf? So to clarify my bad explaining, if I’m using 12mm ply, I cut a 12mm solid wood lip and glue it across the grain? How does that work for the drawer face? If I want to hide the grain on the top edge of the drawer face?


What thickness do you usually recommend for the lipping?


Sorry to ask so many questions! The will to build is strong, the skill is not so strong!

Just doing a bit of Googling on lipping. Seems maybe the best way is to cut all the shelves to size (minus the lip additional size), then glue the lip on, and add to the carcass as normal?

There are no hard and fast rules regarding lipping, but would probably make it between 3-6mm thick.
If your ply is 12mm would probably cut the lipping to at least 13mm as it is very hard to be precise when clamping this on so you need a bit of excess to sand back, if you come up short of the edge with veneered board or ply you are in trouble.

Provided your lipping is a good match to the ply or particle board face your lipping would blend in and not look like an add-on.
Remember you are creating the illusion of all solid timber, the same goes for the top of the drawer edge as the treatment is the same.

You could make the shelf come flush to the front if you want, it doesn't do so in the photographed piece as it has to allow the tambour door to pass.

Originally Posted by zoovegroover

That’s interesting about the shelves and the drawbacks to solid timber. I’m a little confused how to do this now, because I really like the look of a shelf that doesn’t come all the way to the front of the frame (using a stopped dado). So I guess if I want to hide the plywood grain I would need to glue a lip to the plywood shelf edge (the part that faces front) at the same thickness of the ply shelf? So to clarify my bad explaining, if I’m using 12mm ply, I cut a 12mm solid wood lip and glue it across the grain? How does that work for the drawer face? If I want to hide the grain on the top edge of the drawer face?


What thickness do you usually recommend for the lipping?


Sorry to ask so many questions! The will to build is strong, the skill is not so strong!

Guys, this advice is so helpful! I was gonna spend a fortune on solid wood and now I have a great plan for building in ply but finishing with solid. Really excited to get moving on it now.

Thanks, again! Any additional advice, feel free to fire away, but this should get me started.

If you're new to it all, maybe do a test run just for the cabinet using $35/sheet 12mm ply from Bunnies. You can always use it for garage storage once you've made all your mistakes on it!

Good idea, Splinter! Wish I'd thought to ask this before I built my bathroom cabinet. It turned out so nice, but I'm just waiting for it to warp now that I used pine for the carcass instead of ply.

Pine is one of the woods that I find either does all its warping in the racks in bunnies, or pretty much never. Look on the bright side - it might settle down, if it doesn't - you can take it apart and rebuild it!

Originally Posted by zoovegroover

if I’m using 12mm ply

Hi Mike,

Just read through your thread, looks like a nice project to get stuck into. Ply can be economical in general but i think you will be surprised just how much wood (of any sort) costs when you start calculating how much goes into a given piece of furniture. It's hard to believe that imported stuff can be sold so cheaply sometimes. Anyway, i digress from what i wanted to say. I think 12mm ply will be far too thin for that size cabinet, especially if you are going to make it 1200 wide. You would need to brace any shelving to stop sag and the vertical pieces wouldn't leave you much meat in the walls to use dado's to house the shelving either. In my opinion you would need to look at 3/4in (19mm) or thereabouts. Alternatively you could glue a couple of thinner panels together....but this is difficult as you need a lot of clamping pressure and it's hard to spread the force evenly, i've had mixed levels of success doing this in the past with a s***load of clamps and braces.

Having said all that i think ply can look quite nice, even with the 'natural' edge exposed, especially if you use good quality ply and not the CD structural stuff they sell at the big B. I've done several pieces of shelving in that style and they look great (in my opinion anyway)... Don't stress too much if you make a mistake, that's all part of learning, just make sure you learn from them for next time.

Keep us posted on you progress and post some pictures of your work in progress.
Cheers
Mat