need advice for garage/shop cabinets

[Zahid Naqvi]

Need some advice to build some basic shop cabinets for tool storage. A few questions in that regard.

1. What is a good sturdy and cheap material to use for this. Obviously looks are of trivial importance.
2. I'm wary of butt joints on any manufactured wood, not sure how strong they are, specially in something like MDF..
3. While skimming the local craig's list I frequently see cabinets and bookshelves in need of some finish going for pretty cheap. Problem is most of these are MDF type material. But perhaps I can luck into a cheap wooden one and make some modifications to convert that into tool storage. Mostly I can find these for less than the price of materials.

So what's the advice from the esteemed creekers

[glenn bradley]

I have cabinets of 3/4" MDF that use glued and screwed rabbet joints and dados. No problems. I have 1/2" and 3/4" plywood cabinets using glued locking rabbets and dados. No problems. I used to have butt jointed and pocket screwed drawers in a unit that went down the road. It is still performing fine at its new home but, all my drawers are glued drawer-lock joints now. We all seem to settle on some preferred way of making drawers ;-)

Lessons I have learned about shop cabinets:

Drawered, doored and non doored cabinets are all good
Drawers should be full or over-extension, 3/4 extension leads to frustration
Cabinets (doored or not) deeper than 18" create a tear in the fabric of space, opening a door into another dimension where objects disappear into a useless void

[Joe Angrisani]

Cabinets (doored or not) deeper than 18" create a tear in the fabric of space, opening a door into another dimension where objects disappear into a useless void

I'll second that. Think shallow, not deep, for functional storage.

[Brian Tymchak]

=> Cabinets (doored or not) deeper than 18" create a tear in the fabric of space, opening a door into another dimension where objects disappear into a useless void <=


:eek::eek:....Well, that explains what happened to that box of drill bits last summer... always wondered where they went.. :confused:

[Gregory King]

Yes, I think plywood is the only way to go here. Not as heavy as MDF. My uppers are just 12" deep. Any deeper and you won't reach things at the back anyway. My only regret is that I didn't use more drawer storage at the base rather than the adjustable shelves. Much like our kitchens these days, drawers seem the most practical. And the full extension slides are a must.

[Zahid Naqvi]

what do you guys think about using sheathing boards (the one sold at the local board is OSB sheathing). Is that any good for this application. It's much cheaper and I can easily paint over it for moisture resistance.

[johnny means]

I'm going to kick the hornets nest here and suggest MCP, aka melamine coated particle board. Properly joined, it's plenty strong for shop cabinet use. It stays clean forever, brightens up the shop, and is cheap to boot. Lets not mistake the poor build quality of most cheap cabinets with being the result of the materials. I have refinished particle board cabinets that were older than me and, by the looks of them, will out live me.

[Chip Lindley]

I'm going to kick the hornets nest here and suggest MCP, aka melamine coated particle board. Properly joined, it's plenty strong for shop cabinet use. It stays clean forever, brightens up the shop, and is cheap to boot. Lets not mistake the poor build quality of most cheap cabinets with being the result of the materials. I have refinished particle board cabinets that were older than me and, by the looks of them, will out live me.

Johnny? How does one refinish MPC? Just wondering!

MPC and MDF are both quite H-E-A-V-Y for their load bearing strength--especially shelves. Your 36"wide shelves will soon sag under the weight of a heavy load. If you choose either of these, use them for carcases only. At least use ply for shelving.

A good choice for shop cabinets is 3/4" (23/32") A-C sanded yellow pine plywood. It's about $30 a sheet at my BORG. An enamel finish can be rolled on in minutes, before installation. The strength for shelves, and weight savings when trying to mount cabinets single-handedly, rulez! Especially, if you must install your new shop cabinets alone, choose ply!

[Stew Hagerty]

A good choice for shop cabinets is 3/4" (23/32") A-C sanded yellow pine plywood. It's about $30 a sheet at my BORG. An enamel finish can be rolled on in minutes, before installation. The strength for shelves, and weight savings when trying to mount cabinets single-handedly, rulez! Especially, if you must install your new shop cabinets alone, choose ply!

+1 on the "Sanded Plywood". I'm just finishing my shop and have used it for all of my cabinets. It takes pocket screws well, aligns easily using biscuits, glues up strong, finishes nicely, and is relatively inexpensive. I've used a combination of 3/4", 1/2", and 1/4".

[John TenEyck]

I can't argue about the superior strength of plywood, but I also agree with the poster who voted for melamine coated particle board. It is prefinished white, or grey, or whatever color you buy, very stable, and goes together beautifully with bisquits (and screws where they won't show). The resultant joints are very strong. It's cheap and when they are together they're done. No finishing required. Boxes, doors and drawers are all good with melamine. Shelves are fine, too, if you put a reinforcement strip of hardwood about 1-1/2" wide under the back edge, or both the front and back if you really think necessary. If you build them well, you can put hundreds of pounds in them. If you want to put them someplace where the edges are likely to get banged you can put plastic T-molding on the edges. Very easy to install. Just route a slot on the edge and press the edging in place. If you radius the corners the molding will go right around, if you cut a few kerfs in that area, giving you a very pro look. I've built several cabinets for a laboratory this way, some holding 500 lb machines on top and 30 lbs or more in a drawer, and they are rock solid. The only downside with particle board is that if it gets wet it's done, so any base cabinets that are going to be in a garage need to sit up off the floor on a separate base.

[Russell Smallwood]

A couple years ago I built the now famous "Best-Ever Outfeed Table"

FWW Best Ever Outfeed Table project (http://www.finewoodworking.com/PlansAndProjects/PlansAndProjectsPDF.aspx?id=31716)

which uses plywood and butt joints. It's held together very well, despite being dragged around the shop on more than one occasion.

Now drawers are another matter entirely. Since you tend to keep pretty heavy things in shop drawers, they really need to be solidly built. I've had a couple 1/2" rabbet joined plywood drawers some apart. Of course they were holding 50 lbs worth of routers and accessories but ...

[Tom Ewell]

Particle/strand boards should be OK if one carefully designs the cabinets for the inherent limitations of these products. Fastener and technique for joining case parts need to be considered as well as sag/span for unsupported elements (shelves)
http://www.pbmdf.com/CPA30/files/ccLibraryFiles/Filename/000000000734/TB%20Shelving.pdf

As others have mentioned, this type of material is heavy in comparison to plywood and dimensionals of the same thickness.

Creative use of thinner particles/plys and inexpensive furring strips can also be used. IE. Glue+tacking furring to the perimeter of sheathing to make your case panels/shelves/doors. This combination allows for fastener/hinge attachment and stiffens the sheet goods. Could also take this a bit further and use 1/4" luan or similar to create stressed skin elements.

I've repurposed wood bookcases, adding face frames with flat paneled doors using local pine and underlayment. I've also used arauco ply for my cases/shelves on others cabs with similar doors.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Drawers should be full or over-extension, 3/4 extension leads to frustration
Cabinets (doored or not) deeper than 18" create a tear in the fabric of space, opening a door into another dimension where objects disappear into a useless void

Corrolaries to Glenn's Theorems of Shop Cabinets:

1] No one ever bought drawer slides that were too heavy-duty, or extended too far. If you have a row of drawers on [roughly] the same plane, you can open a couple up, and set long boards, ply sheets, whatever across them. There are also groups of metals interconnected by string theory that combine to produce a greater load than 2 x the sum of the mass of the individual items - belt sanders, drills, and circular saws, for example.
2] The useless void in the too-deep cabinets is connected via worm holes to the useless void at the bottom of too-deep drawers. Both of these are the souce of biennial archeological expeditions that result in 90% of all items appearing in Classifieds posts titled "Shop Cleanout Part 7".

Which reminds me - that one 14" deep drawer.... I wonder what in the heck has been at the bottom of it since I moved 7 years ago.....hmmmmmm.........

EDIT: Oh - BTW - The first thing I did when I fell into this "woodworking" black hole was to put in place some basics needed to run a shop. Storage cabinets came early, as I'd guess they did for lotsa folks. I didn't view them as shop storage so much as I did as a learning lab for techniques I needed to get a handle on, in an environment where I didn't really care what the end result looked like, as long as it was functional. That meant I tried stuff I wouldn't do today in the shop, but it was very beneficial in the bigger picture. So, I guess the point is, don't pass up a great opportunity - pick designs and materials where you can make your mistakes early and often, where it doesn't really matter.

[Dave Cav]

I'll have to go with sanded A/C plywood as well. It's generally pretty flat, will take edging OK and will finish OK. I have used CDX; it looks terrible and isn't flat, and is full of voids. Particle board is too heavy and sags, and doesn't take screws very well. I haven't used a lot of MDF but it's heavy, too, although it does finish well. I pretty much use A/C for everything in the shop any more, unless I have some extra hardwood ply left over from a cabinet project. I can also sometimes get imported birch paint grade ply for $30-35 a sheet from my local plywood guy; that's best.

[Victor Robinson]

I'll take it one step further past MCPB. If time is an important consideration, just get the MCPB from Ikea (Akurum kitchen system). Boxes are $30 each and go together darn fast. Then do as you please for hardware and fronts.

Of course, I'll probably get voted off SMC for advocating this approach but it has worked very well for me.

[David Hawxhurst]

i used pre finished ply and pocket holes. 3/4" for the carcass, shelf and face frames, shelfs reinforced w/ a 1.5" wide strip of you guessed it plywood. the back is 1/4 ply pin nailed in place. used ply as i'm use the cabinets for a lot of liquid storage. for general storage i have nothing against the melamine stuff for making cabinets. i just wanted something that appeals to me so i used the pre finished ply. mdf and particle board are fine if the correct fasteners are used, so something off craig's list might be worth a try.

[johnny means]

Johnny? How does one refinish MPC? Just wondering!

MPC and MDF are both quite H-E-A-V-Y for their load bearing strength--especially shelves. Your 36"wide shelves will soon sag under the weight of a heavy load. If you choose either of these, use them for carcases only. At least use ply for shelving.



The refinishing and refacing (done for updating) were done on the portions (faces) that were not MCP. The melamine inards were wiped clean with denatured alcohol and looked brand new.

Any 3/4 material will sag under a heavy load.

BTW, one job I am thinking of in particular consisted of several 12' tall x 4' wide cabinets that weighed a few hundred pounds each. Each cabinet was mounted on hinges and swung out to reveal elctricals behind it. After forty plus years of swinging back and forth supported on one corner, these particle board behemoths still maintained a 1/16" reveal within their surround and between each other. Most of us have a hard time getting doors to fit that tight and maintain it. I dare say they may have been the most structurally sound cabinets I have ever seen. On top of that, close inspection told me that they were built on site using a circular saw and other rudimentary tools.

My point is any material can build a fine cabinet when done right. I just happen to believe that MCP is the ideal material for shop cabinets and one shouldn't judge it by the crap they sell at the borgs.

[keith ouellette]

I built some for a friend. The cases were all 5/8 sheathing. Plywood sheathing. All put together with dados and screws. I made face frames, the doors and drawer fronts out of 2x4 material. It was all 2x4's that he had for about 8 months so it was a little drier than fresh store bought. We bought a bunch of 18" full extension drawer slides pretty cheap at a cabinet supply place.

Look for a cabinet supply business or maybe even a cabinet manufacturer in your area and ask if they have any 3/4 shop grade birch. It wasn't around when I built the cabinets I'm talking about but the cabinet supply place near me has it for $25 a sheet. That would be your ideal case material.

I would stay away from mdf and particle board if it were me. one thing I will suggest is Drawers, drawers drawers and then maybe add a few deep drawers on the lower cabinets.

5 years and still in great shape.

[Sean Nagle]

+1 for MCP. Be sure to buy the 3/4" stuff from your hardwood/sheetgoods supplier. This is superior to what you get at the Borg. The melamine coating is nearly is hard and tough as plastic laminate. I've built many cabinet projects with MCP, frameless and face-frame. Use biscuits and Roo glue for the carcass. Roo glue works with melamine coating.

[Roger Frey]

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Made this a few months ago with leftover 3/4" birch plywood for the garage. All butt joints with the exception of the back which was set with dado's 3/4" in so I had room to do a french cleat. it's 12" deep and 32" wide and holds all the heavy items I can fit in it without any problems.