Short but sturdy laboratory cabinet

[John TenEyck]

A former colleague contacted me if I was interested in making a cabinet to sit under a new universal test machine in the laboratory. Sure. So I designed this cabinet, shown with a general view of the test machine on top.

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Here is the finished cabinet.

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I made it from 8/4 hard maple joined with 1/2" loose tenons and 1/2" plywood panels glued into the sides and back. The drawer fronts are hard maple, also, while the drawer boxes are 1/2" BB plywood with 1/2" bottoms, and they slide on K&V soft close, side mounted slides.

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The top was two layers of 3/4" plywood covered with Formica.

The finish is Sealcoat shellac on the drawer boxes, followed by GF's EnduroVar. The cabinet was finished with 2 coats of BIN white shellac primer then two coats of GF's Enduro White Poly. It was the first time I've used the Enduro White Poly. I sprayed it with a pressure feed HVLP gun and it came out great. Heavy duty leveling feet and SS pulls completed the cabinet.

John

[Mike Ontko]

Nice and clean, John. Perfect for a lab, and the EnduroVar should make it near bullet proof. Are those finger joints for on the front of the drawer case? Did you use a custom jig for that?

[John TenEyck]

Hi Mike,

Thanks. Yes, those are finger joints. I use them a lot when I make drawers out of Baltic birch ply. I cut them on my TS with a simple sled I made and a stacked dado.

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They are fast to make and very strong. One great advantage to them is you cut the parts to the width and length of the drawer box (plus maybe 1/32") and not have to worry about doing any calculations.

John