Shop Cabinet Ideas?

[Matt Meiser]

I'm getting ready to build some upper cabinets for my shop. In order to clear my receptacles and a run of compressed air piping, it works out perfectly for them to be 36" tall and I'm planning to build them 15" deep. I've got 12' of continuous wall space that's been cleared out. I'll probably build 4 36" boxes to make them more manageable.

I'm thinking pretty standard cabinets with adjustable shelves and doors for part. Part will have adjustable shelves sized for Festool/Tanos Systainers for less-frequently used tools (the rest will stay a few steps from my bench.) That area I'm thinking no doors to minimize wasted space lost to faceframes, hinges, etc since obviously the Systainers are a uniform width and already enclosed.

I've got a decent amount of sappy cherry I'm thinking I'll use for faceframes and doors, at least the door frames. Not sure yet what I'll do for the door panels, whether to make solid doors if I have enough stock or use ply. Or maybe even use 1/4" melamine installed so its replaceable and make them dry-erase. Or maybe even polycarbonate panels.

Any other great ideas to consider before I start them?

[Jamie Buxton]

Why use face frames? They make the aperture into the cabinet narrower than the cabinet. If you make the cabinets without face frames, you get more usable space.

You might want to think ahead to how you're going to hang the cabinets. That may reflect back into the cabinet design.

[Sam Murdoch]

I like the idea of using your sappy cheery. 3/4" sided ply cabs ganged together can use a flush 1-1/2" face frame with no compromise to interior space. Ply doors could be real nice especially with solid sappy cherry edges but I'd be inclined to work with 1/2 tall doors if using ply wood. 36" tall is quite a stretch for ply panels even if you lose 4" or so to a toe kick. Each door could land on a fixed mid shelf. Dry erase doors sounds fun but do you really want to see writing on your walls? Speaking of toe kicks - I wouldn't. Just a place to hide lots and lots of dust and dropped screws etc.

[Matt Meiser]

Sam I don't think I'll do toe kicks on my upper cabinets. :D. These go over a combination of counter and some sanders.

I was thinking I'd just do one big face frame so I won't lose much.

[Alan Bienlein]

Sounds like your about to do what I finished doing a few months ago. I used 3/4" marine plywood I got for $11 a sheet and used poplar for the face frames. The doors were made from oak that was destined to be used for pallets and 1/4" luan ply for the panels.

I didn't make separate cabinets as I had a girt to sit them on while I fastened them in place. Mine are 16" clear depth with the doors shut with 1/4" holes for shelving spaced 1-1/2" between holes.

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This is the style of hinge I used so they didn't interfere with getting boxes and tools out of the cabinets. I don't understand why it isn't showing the picture.

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[Sam Murdoch]

Sam I don't think I'll do toe kicks on my upper cabinets. :D.

OOPS, I was thinking too hard (or not at all) :D Silly me.

[Bruce Wrenn]

With 36" wide cabinets, sagging of the shelves comes into play. I would probably do four 32's and a 16. I like melamine boxes with a modified face frame, (Danny Proulx style.) Allows for Euro hardware, but looks like face frame from outside.

[Jim Andrew]

I don't have doors on my shop cabinets. Like to be able to see the stuff so I'm not banging doors looking for something I put in there a year or 2 ago. And I just use face frames to make the box sturdier.

[Matt Meiser]

Now that I'm at a PC, responses to a few comments:

Backs will be 3/4" material. My shop is a pole barn and I followed a local lumber yard's recommendation for insulation and therefore have horizaontal "studs" in the walls between the poles instead of vertical. There's only one I'll hit for these, a little above the middle. Originally I was considering not having backs, just a cleat near the top, until I realized this.

Exact door/ff design will be somewhat driven by what hinges I have on hand. I have a number of different hinges in quanties ranging from 2's to dozens left over from various projects and will be designing to make whatever I have enough of work.

Jim, how do you keep them clean? Just blow them out occasionally?

Sam, I already have a dry erase board which I use all the time to figure stuff out, make notes, make lists, etc so I think it would work for me. If I did 36" cabinets each cabinet would have 2 doors so less than 18x36.

Exact cabinet sizes would be adjusted somewhat to make the open areas for the Systainers fitted neatly.

[Sam Murdoch]

Sam, I already have a dry erase board which I use all the time to figure stuff out, make notes, make lists, etc so I think it would work for me. If I did 36" cabinets each cabinet would have 2 doors so less than 18x36.



Having been proven correct that in this case toe kicks are not a good idea :D I maintain that a 36" tall plywood door might be too tall. Of course it depends on the condition of the ply you intend to use, how many hinges, and if you intend to use a strong door catch. You could be lucky.

[Jamie Buxton]

...3/4" sided ply cabs ganged together can use a flush 1-1/2" face frame with no compromise to interior space..

Yes, that approach would give you no compromise on interior width. However, the installation procedure is that first you hang 12' worth of boxes on the wall, then you install the 12'-long face frame on them, while everything is up in the air. If instead you edgeband each box while you're building it, the installation is much easier. (You can edgeband with 1/8"-thick wood and real wood glue, or you can use veneer tape with hot melt. Me, I like the former.)

[Kurt Cady]

Now that I'm at a PC, responses to a few comments:

Backs will be 3/4" material. My shop is a pole barn and I followed a local lumber yard's recommendation for insulation and therefore have horizaontal "studs" in the walls between the poles instead of vertical. There's only one I'll hit for these, a little above the middle. Originally I was considering not having backs, just a cleat near the top, until I realized this..

A single horizontal "stud"? How far between poles? What size? And in which direction is the stud oriented?! A large bank of cabinet that you're talking about can easily overwhelm a 2x8 or 10 in the strong direction depending on span.

[Matt Meiser]

Ugh, hadn't really thought about that. Its a 2x4 oriented with the wide face down. Poles are 8' on center. Walls are sheeted in 7/16" OSB. And there's a pole right in the middle of where I'd be putting these

[Todd Burch]

I have 36" tall ply cabinets out in my shop. Just over 6' wide, with 3 doors. Baltic Birch 3/4" ply with 1/2 ply back. I use a chinese cleat to hang the cabinet, so the 1/2" ply back is inset 3/4". Cabinet is 16" deep (measured at the sides). It's heavy, but I can hang it myself this way.

[Justin Jump]

Just wanna chime in here, Im thinking I am going to start a run of cabinets, similar to the cabinets in the background of Woodsmith Shop. Standard plywwod cabinet with some shelves, but then peg board in the rear for hanging stuff. Dont know about door yet, I like seeing stuff. If there are doors, I'll probably forget where I put everything.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Matt, the smartest thing I did was listen to my FIL who suggested that I put a French Cleat up in the shop to hang my cabinets from.

Brilliant, and if I want to move a cabinet or change it to a clamp rack, pick it up off the cleat and put the new one on.............Rod.

[Matt Meiser]

Yeah, I should have done that when I finished the inside of the shop. I even have trim around the shop at the 8' mark to hide the joint between the upper and lower OSB panels and that could have been a french cleat too. Now along that wall there's compressed air piping, dust collection piping, etc that would interfere with continuous runs from pole-pole. I could still do it at the 6' mark (horizontal "studs" are at 2' intervals) but not pole-pole.

[Phil Thien]

So all that would be supporting these cabinets would be a single horizontal 2x4 running 8' between poles, and the OSB sheathing?

[Matt Meiser]

And a 4x6 post at about the middle. Doesn't sound like enough.

[Michael W. Clark]

Matt,
Would you be able to run a cleat between three of the posts? The one post is in the middle of your run, can you run an 8 foot cleat from it to the two on the outside of your cabinet run? If so, you could attach it to the outer two 4x6s, the middle 4x6, and the 2x4 in the horizontal. The deeper you make the cleat (wider), the stronger it will be.

Mike

[Matt Meiser]

Not easily at all as the next pole one way has a partition wall butted against it.

[Michael W. Clark]

Not easily at all as the next pole one way has a partition wall butted against it.

Then a continuous cleat is not going to work. I suspect you will "probably" be OK going into the 2x4 and 4x6, but that is not neccessarily sound advice. If all of your cabinets are attached together solidly, and the middle one is attached securely to the center post, that will help. Can you put a ledger board under the bottom of the cabinets, preferrably wide enough to catch the next 2x4 below? Maybe make it look like a backsplash above your bench?:) Most of the load is vertical, not a momemt pulling the cabinets out from the wall. The ledger may also be helpful when installing the uppers.

Mike

[Matt Meiser]

I'll have to do some measuring. I'm probably not too far above the next one down--would be 4' off the floor. I think the receptacles might be just above that.

[Jim Laumann]

Matt

I've got a pole shed style shop, w/ the horizantal framing. Big pain in the backside, and a mistake when I framed it - but I listened to the contractor who built my shed, and that was his recommendation - I should have gone vertical :(.

That being said, when I went to hang some cabinets which we took out of the kitchen, what I did was to run 3/4" ply in to the spaces between the ribs in the steel panels (my shop has a steel interior). I attached the ply so it crossed multiple horizantal 2x4s, using 3 3" wood screws on each 2x4 crossed by the plywood. Then I went with a french cleat system for the top of the cabinet.

The cleat allowed me to hang the cabinets by my lonesome. Being paranoid, I went back and run some 1.5" wood screws thru the cabinet back into the cleat & plywood. I know that "defeats" the re-arrangeability factor of the cleat, but I didn't want the cabinets coming down.

I did something similar for attaching the base units to the wall.

Jim

[Darryl Konsmo]

Call me silly but, if your not putting doors on cabinet boxes, why not just build shelving. Less material and more shelves. Adjustable too!:confused: