Wood for cabinetry

[Tai Fu]

I want to start building a few cabinets such as entertainment centers and things like that, but somehow I don't think using solid wood for all the panels is a good idea.. what wood do you generally use for this?

In Taiwan I have not seen anyone sell veneer backed plywood, the only ones available are ones with two very splintery veneers, and a core of some very light balsa-like wood, and plastic laminate over that. Can't find plywood with anything nicer unless I veneer it myself... on that subject what tool is needed to glue veneer to ply?

Also just about all the plywood available here are about the lowest grade you can imagine... very soft splintery lauan with about 5 layers (for 3/4" ply), baltic birch does not exist in any way shape or form except to import them from the US at very expensive prices. I don't feel right making nice cabinets with cheap low grade ply but it seems that's all they have.

I haven't really done cabinetry before and there aren't really any examples of good stuff to look at (almost all cabinetry here are done in particleboard). So does anyone just resaw maple/oak into 3/4" thickness and use them to build cabinets, or do you use ply for the cabinet and solid wood for the door?

[Rick Potter]

My stuff is almost always red oak, and I use ply for the cabinet sides (plain slice if you can get it, rather than rotary slice). For the face frames, if you use them, it's solid wood. For raised panel doors solid wood. For flat panel doors solid rails and stiles and ply panel.

My stuff is usually traditional or Shaker style. Others will certainly vary.

Rick Potter

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Much depends on what you will do with the cabinets and the look that you desire. I assume from your question, that you are not interested in using some sort of melamine for the cabinet.

For my construction, I am inclined to use furniture grade plywood, but you claim that this is not easily (or cheaply) available where you are, and I will not attempt to persuade you in that direction. If you are looking for something in between, have you considered something like using hardwood for the corners and MDF with a nice veneer as panels between the plywood? The primary difficulty is probably the veneering process, more specifically, you need a veneer press. I would probably use a vacuum system.

I considered this for something I am building now, just so that I could have really interesting panels.

[Montgomery Scott]

Depends on the cabinet I make. Very large cabinets are easier with high grade plywood, but can also easily be done with solid wood. If you don't have access to good quality ply then solid wood is a better choice. veneering large panels for your first time probably won't end very well and to be successful either requires skill with hammer veneering, or lots of tooling with vacuum or clamp systems.

[Tai Fu]

The fear is that using solid wood will really cause the cost to jump exponentially... Is it acceptable to use cheaper woods such as pine or cedar as cabinet sides?

[bobby milam]

Where you normally shop for your wood, be it some type of lumber yard or home improvement type store, have you tried asking them if they can order it for you? Even here in the USA, the stores that I frequent for lumber, don't carry much of it either but they can order it for you and the prices aren't anything bad. It's possible that wherever they get their lumber from, that it is available but they don't sell enough to stock it. I'd try asking if you haven't already. Maybe if you contact local cabinet shops or carpenters, they will have a source for you or can sell you some.

[David Weaver]

You could certainly add veneer to a lumber core. Having never done that (only vaccuum applied veneer to cheaper hardwood ply), I'm not sure if you'd need to be careful about shrink rates of the base wood vs. the veneer, maybe not if the glue was uniformly applied.

The one GREAT thing about putting your own veneer on any substrate is that you will have a quality surface that works and finishes like real wood, and not like some knifed-apart split-apart obliterated telegraphing mess.

[Julie Moriarty]

Cabinet grade plywood is certainly helpful when building things like an entertainment center. You could use solid wood and build a rail-stile-panel type carcase. It would certainly look better than plywood.

If you are unable to find quality plywood, maybe you can find a company that does boat building and see where they get their wood from. A lot of boats are built in Taiwan and, based on what I've seen, the quality of the wood is excellent, as is their joinery. There can be a lot of cabinet grade plywood in a boat. So maybe they could help. Ta Chiao builds a lot of sailboats. They are in Taipei.

As for doing the laminating yourself, this could be tough. In manufacturing plywood, they use presses that exert tons of pressure. You can't duplicate that unless you have the right equipment, which is very expensive. You may be able to veneer smaller pieces in a vacuum press though.

[Tai Fu]

I had not much luck sourcing wood because construction and "big box" type stores only stock construction grade woods, and home improvement types (which isn't involved with boatbuilding at all) use construction grade ply for cabinetry, or the melamine laminated stuff that I mentioned before.

I tried asking about special orders but unless I wanted many many sheets, they wouldn't even entertain the idea.

I'm not sure about boatbuilding companies either because as far as I know they treat their source like a trade secret... basically you'd have to sweep the floor for them for 5 years before they'd let you in on it.

[david brum]

Is it acceptable to use cheaper woods such as pine or cedar as cabinet sides?

No reason you can't build the boxes out of solid wood. I imagine that there have been more than a few pine cabinets built over the years. The trick would be finding boards which are both straight enough and clear of enough knots for your liking. Then you'd just have to build the cabinets so all the expansion is in the same direction.

At big box prices, that still wouldn't be cheap (unless Pine is a lot cheaper there) but at least you could do it.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

The fear is that using solid wood will really cause the cost to jump exponentially... Is it acceptable to use cheaper woods such as pine or cedar as cabinet sides?

The question is really, how visible is the wood where you will use it. I created a cabinet for my wife. I used nice stuff for the sides, and some junk ply on the back that will never be seen unless you pull the cabinet from the wall or remove the drawers and peer inside. Now, I am assuming that the "junk" plywood is good enough to not cause problems in its use (of course).

If your pine wood is highly visible, it might look funny next to other wood, but, you could simply build the entire cabinet from pine if that is the look that you desire. I built some shelves into a pine bunk-bed for my daughter; it looks nice. Pine sides with Oak, well, you can easily tell. If you are looking for a contrast that you find aesthetically pleasing, it might not be a problem.

[Chris Padilla]

Take your junky plywood that you can get and apply some quality veneers over it and you might be okay.

Go to http://www.veneersupplies.com/ and start reading up and learning about veneering. I don't think the cost to start veneering is that bad. The vacuum pump, if you make it with his kits, is quite reasonable and spend money on a good polyurethane (not vinyl...cheaper but won't last long and more easily punctured) bag and get the 30 mil one: nice and thick...can stand abuse and the mistakes of a newbie like yourself. Again, all this is on that site: read read read. Feel free to search more here at SMC on veneering...lots of experience here.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?92396-Tansu Here is something I built using veneers. Now for these veneers, I cut them myself on my bandsaw and applied them to a thick MDF "sandwich" of 2 pieces of 5/8" MDF. I did everything in a vacuum bag. It was a lot of work but a ton of fun and I learned a lot.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Take your junky plywood that you can get and apply some quality veneers over it and you might be okay.

Depends on the quality of the ply... Most of the poor plywood that I have is just too bad to veneer.... really bad stuff. So, this would work well if the surface is sufficiently smooth, or if you made it sufficiently smooth I suppose (say something like wood filler or auto-body filler).

I should provide a disclaimer that Chris probably knows more much more about veneering than I.


http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?92396-Tansu Here is something I built using veneers. Now for these veneers, I cut them myself on my bandsaw and applied them to a thick MDF "sandwich" of 2 pieces of 5/8" MDF. I did everything in a vacuum bag. It was a lot of work but a ton of fun and I learned a lot.

And the thicker veneers will not telegraph problems from underneath as strongly.

[Chris Padilla]

Depends on the quality of the ply... Most of the poor plywood that I have is just too bad to veneer.... really bad stuff. So, this would work well if the surface is sufficiently smooth, or if you made it sufficiently smooth I suppose (say something like wood filler or auto-body filler).

Yes, very good point. The core is pretty important but I guess I'd have to see it to decide for myself. Do you have MDF in Taiwain, Tai? MDF is just about the best core for veneering to that we have. It is flat, stable, and smooth. The only bad thing, perhaps, is its weight and it used to be cheap but no longer. I think I paid around $14 for a 4x8 sheet of 5/8" MDF (3/4" MDF was around $18) and now those prices are easily doubled today.


I should provide a disclaimer that Chris probably knows more much more about veneering than I.

And the thicker veneers will not telegraph problems from underneath as strongly.

Also a good point. My shop-cut veneers all were 1/16". That is THICK for a veneer but so much easier to work with than the commercial veneers that are 1/32" or 1/40" thick. Those, for sure, are more challenging to deal with in terms of joining together and taping, handling, and telegraphing issues. This is also where MDF shines...no telegraphing problems...there are no dark knots or defects that might show through.

[Lee Schierer]

I generally build my cabinets using solid hardwood,. I do use poplar for internal frames that won't be visible.

Several times I have priced making cabinets from glued up hardwood to make the large panels versus using veneer grade plywood. What I have found each time is that due to the waste associated with cutting parts from plywood sheets, the cost is about the same or in many cases more using plywood than what solid hardwood would cost. If you are making a cabinet that is 18" deep you can get two panels from the 48" width of a sheet of ply; however, you end up with an 11-3/4" piece of waste which may or may not fit into your design. If it doesn't then you've paid for wood that is wasted. Planning your glue ups using 4", 5" or 6" stock you can virtually eliminate waste. An 18" wide panel can easily be glued up using 4 pieces of 1 x 5 stock with no wasted wood on the width.

[Tai Fu]

Someone does sell baltic birch, it's not cheap though, at 80 dollars for a 1.5M x 1.5M piece (which I think is about 5' x 5') 3/4" thick. Even low grade construction plywood is 30 dollars for a 4' x 8' piece. I'm pricing wood at around 15 dollars per board foot (a gross overestimation I hope) and while pine may be a little expensive, it's also a LOT better compared to some of the construction plywood I have seen. Yes I can get MDF, in fact it's about all they have but I rather not use it... the stuff is basically compressed cardboard. Taiwan's humidity is also unkind to wood like MDF.

[Richard Coers]

I believe you are forgetting that your ancestors, for hundreds and hundreds of years, had no sheet goods at all. I imagine they built some fantastic pieces, and some very simple things. I do build some storage pieces that are temporary, but every piece of furniture I build, even my shop cabinets and workbench, will be used for generations. The material may be expensive now, but compared to the weeks it will take you to build, it will be a minor part. Consider that in 150 years from now, it will still honor you and your work. A cheap veneered cabinet or piece of furniture (with bondo filled panels, covered with veneer, that mirrors the plywood panel imperfections, as mentioned in one of the posts) will just be thrown away latter. I prefer to build heirloom work once, not over and over because it does not last.