Building out a face frame

[Jim dePrado]

I have a stupid question that I have been struggling with over the past couple of days. I want to build a cabinet to serve as an outfeed table for my table saw (It will also house my router table). I recently built other cabinets for my shop and they came out OK. All of the cabinets that I have built for the shop have the sides of the cabinets flush with the insides of the face frame. This made drawer installation very easy for me.

I have never built cabinets with a tongue and groove so I have decided to use that method for project to see how it goes. On two side of the cabinets I have some drawers planned. The front would be against the tablesaw. On the back I would like to put a decorative panel, similar to ones I have seen in kitchens (as practice for a potential kitchen cabinet build in the future). If that back panel is flush to the outside of the sides of the faceframe, how do I build up the insides so I can add drawer slides? The same question for internal partitions. I can make the partition flush to one side, but I will have to build up the other side.

I was planning on using 2" rails and stiles (not married to this idea completely but it is what I did on the other shop cabinets). If I do use 2" and flush up the 3/4" partition or outside panel that leaves me with 1.25" to make both flush. Using Marc Sommerfeld's T&G set, I can easily make a plywood runner so that both sides would be flush, but there would be a 1/2" gap between the runner and the partition. How do I fill that gap? A piece of 1/2" Ply? Or can I just attach the runner to the faceframe, with the T&G, and somehow attach it to the back of the cab leaving the 1/2" gap between them?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have started to draw the cabinet out in Sketchup to help me visualize the problem, but haven't come up with anything yet and thought I would ask the experts here at SMC.

Thanks,

Jim

[Jamie Buxton]

I don't see what a T&G set has to do with it. You flush the outside of the face frame with the outside of the plywood casework. Then you glue blocks to the inside faces of the casework. The blocks are the width of the face frame less the thickness of the plywood. That is, the inside face of the block is in line with the inside edge of the face frame. You only need blocking where the slides fasten, but it is often convenient to make the blocking the full height of the cabinet.

[Sam Murdoch]

As you are building shop cabs my suggestion will be different (see below), otherwise I'm kind of in Jamie's camp on this one. I do everything I can to avoid padding out for drawer slides or hinges or pullouts. I just hate the look and find all those pieces to be a nuisance. Normally (nearly always) I just use 2 full sides and flush them with their respective faces to the face frame, whether that is 1-1/2" wide or 6" wide. Since the face frame keeps the spacing at the front I don't add blocking between but at the back I would add a filler just to keep things square. The filler would be machined to the exact width of the space.

For shop cabs I might just gang up a piece of 1/2" and 3/4" ply to set the slides where they need to be. Then again if I had plenty of material I might just add another full inside panel with spacers behind.

[Jim dePrado]

I appreciate the input. I guess I shouldn't skimp on materials and just build quality cabinets whether they are shop cabs or not. I will post some pics when I build the cabinet.

Thanks again for the help,

Jim