Building Cabinets Out Of Plywood

Plywood won t shrink and expand like regular solid wood making it ideal for not only the cabinet carcass itself but the shelving within.

Building cabinets out of plywood.

You ll find many door makers online search for buy cabinet doors. Plywood or a solid wood panel for the door panels. Plywood makes great shelves because it s very sturdy and stable. The upper cabinets provide deep enclosed storage space and tie the upright cabinets together so they can t twist away from the wall.

Overlaps on the sides let you fine tune the cabinet width during installation. Material lists for cabinets can vary from cabinet to cabinet depending on size and style but for a generic list you will need the following. Birch purebond plywood full sheets are best but 2 8 2 4 or 4 4 sheets would work as well. Hickory 2 4 purebond plywood panels.

Plywood for the side panels bottoms and any other structural piece that won t be seen. Cabinet doors can be ordered in a variety of styles and in increments as small as 1 16 in. To frame out the cabinets secure 8 foot 2x4s perpendicular at 36 across and 60 across. These doors won t win style points but will keep out the dust and clean up the overall look of the shop.

The 3 4 plywood case eliminates panel jointing planing and glue ups. Face frames cover plywood edges. Build the upper cabinets with the same techniques and materials used for the uprights. Unless you have unlimited free time consider building your cabinets but buying your doors.

In the interest of cost i m building my shop doors out of plywood with a decorative pine frame over them for strength and rigidity. Frameless cabinet construction favors a cabinet box that uses a thicker stiffer plywood to make up for the lack. What you will need to build your own diy kitchen cabinets. You can build these using cheaper sanded pine plywood expensive pre finished hardwood plywood or anything in between.

Begin with the right cabinet dimensions. Build the front of the frame in the same pattern as the back 8 feet wide and 8 feet tall. Instead of installing upper cabinets you could simply run a long shelf across the tops of the upright cabinets. It s always nice to be able to see and touch so check out your local cabinet shop as.

The sample base and wall cabinets shown below have these features to make building them as simple as possible. Solid wood of choice for the face frame door frame and drawer. This will give you two 3 feet wide cabinets on the ends and a 2 foot wide cabinet in the middle. As the trend toward european style frameless cabinets continues to grow many cabinet builders are discovering that the composite plywood they ve been using to build framed cabinets isn t quite doing the job as well as it should.