Noob question on what wood to use for cabinets

[Michael Rutman]

I have a really dumb question with no right answers, so any advise or opinions is appreciated.

After many years of really bad word working I finally learned enough tricks that I made a small cabinet that was actually square and looked nice. Not the greatest achievement but it sure feels good. So now I want to make some cabinets for my shop that actually look nice before trying something for the house that the wife has to look at.

I love working with soft maple, love the color, the weight, the ease of working with it. I started looking at making 3 foot high cabinets out of the maple and quickly hit a question that nobody seems to ask. Do I want to use solid maple for the whole thing? Do I use maple plywood? Do I build it with plywood and put a solid maple face on it? Do I use cheap plywood and put a maple veneer on it?

I know it’s personal preference, but is there a reason why one is better than another? Are there trade offs? When I took a class on making a workbench we used solid maple, but that’s a workbench and meant to weigh a lot.

Thanks in advance.

[John TenEyck]

You'll find shop cabinets are a lot easier to build with plywood. No worries about wood movement, lower cost, less work. You can make the doors out of plywood or solid wood, or a combination of the two (solid wood frames with plywood panels). I recommend you buy a book or two about building cabinets. They will answer most any question you might have.

John

[Bill Dufour]

Location will determine what woods are reasonable cost. Argentina is mainly pine and eucalyptus. Eucalyptus will be harder and stand up to dings in the workshop better then pines.
Bill D

[Michael Schuch]

I would definitely go with plywood too. Like said above the dimensional stability will be much better with plywood and the cabinets will probably end up stronger with plywood.

I would price out prefinished maple plywood. Adding veneer to cheap plywood probably won't save you any money and would be a lot of extra work.

[Tom Bain]

There are countless ways to build cabinets. As someone else suggested, getting a book on basic cabinetry would probably help to understand the various components, styles, and construction methods. For myself, I almost always build face frame cabinets (others may preference frameless or “European” style). I use prefinished maple or birch plywood for the cabinet carcass and then a solid hardwood frame that can either be painted or stained. Doors and drawers vary from project to project, but most often solid wood for smaller drawers and “5-piece” frame and panel for larger drawer fronts and door panels. You can also look into ordering drawers from a third party. The options are endless …

[Michael Rutman]

Thanks. For the maple plywood, what core do I want? Some online vendors have options varying from MDF, veneer and pro core, others don't give me the options.

Would 1/2 inch be strong enough or should I use 3/4?

For a book on carpentry, any recommendations? ebooks preferred.

[John TenEyck]

You want veneer core or composite core plywood for cabinets, not MDF. No clue what pro core is. You can make cabinets from 1/2" material, but everything is easier (except the weight) with 3/4".

Pick any of the popular books on Amazon. You want a book on building cabinets, not carpentry. Danny Proulx, Gregory Paolini, Udo Schmidt, Robert Lang and others all offer well done books, some with DVD's as well.

[Jim Becker]

There was a time when solid wood was used for cabinets...because that's what was available. Most modern cabinetry uses some form of processed material, typically plywood or coated composites. I would suggest you take that route for your project.

For lower cabinets, my preference would be 18mm/.75" sheet goods. For uppers, I personally prefer 12mm/.5" plywood for weight reasons, but the thicker stock is very valid and is what a lot of folks use.

BTW, keep in mind that so-called 3/4" plywood isn't 3/4" thick. Measure what you buy so you can adjust your dimensions for components so that you end up with carcasses that are the correct external size and so your parts all fit square and clean.

[Justin Rapp]

I've used both 3/4 and 1/2 plywood in cabinet construction. Earlier this year I built a vanity for the bathroom and used a decent quality plywood and did it with 1/2" and it's just fine. For furniture, I tend to use 3/4 to help give the item stability since it might be moved around, not so for a built-in, so 1/2" is usable. It also depends on what you plan to store in the cabinets.

Right now I am making some drawers in my new router table stand and just using 1/2" maple ply from the big box store. It's not great quality but it's fine for my shop. You may consider the same unless cost is not much of a concern or you are trying to make your shop a show piece vs a working environment.

[Ron Citerone]

I built my cottage cabinets with Baltic Birch 3/4" plywood and applied 2 coats of water based Polycrylic to the boxes inside and out and was happy with the boxes. With that said, I think if I made them again I would use prefinished plywood to make life simpler.

I used Hickory for the front frames and door. It was my first time using hickory and really liked it's working characteristics, grain and durbabiity. I suggest you consider it for the shop cabinets because it is nicely priced and can take some abuse well.

Have fun with the build.

[ray grundhoefer]

As John said above , stay away from mdf . Years ago when mdf was all the rage I used it to build all the cabinets in my house. Its very heavy and the worst part is any water leaks and it swells up and goes to crap very easily . the area under my kitchen sink is proof of that.

[Michael Schuch]

There was a time when solid wood was used for cabinets...because that's what was available.

When I was growing up Grandma's house had pretty much all solid wood shelving made by Grandpa. Lots of gaps, twisting and cracks showed up over the years. :)

[Jim Becker]

When I was growing up Grandma's house had pretty much all solid wood shelving made by Grandpa. Lots of gaps, twisting and cracks showed up over the years. :)

On the shelves, too?? :D (Sorry...couldn't resist). But yea, "back in the day" folks used what they had available as well as what they actually knew about and had been shown how to work by their own folks and grand folks.

[Bill Conerly]

Your approach is good. Make shop stuff until it's good enough for your den. Then try for the bedroom. Maybe then you're ready for the living room. Good luck.

[Mike Nardini]

I will second the book by Greg Paolini who also has an excellent video on YouTube. I was fortunate enough to take both the router class and cabinet class with Greg and he is an excellent teacher.

[Mel Fulks]

Never liked having to make anything for kitchen cabinets. Everybody wants something unique ….that is in the current popular style.
How about some symmetry, like nice rooms have, the kitchen doesn’t have to look like a restaurant thing. Punched tin doors,or punched copper. Copper screening in doors. Inlaid laminate. Reeded projecting stiles. Linoleum counter tops. Always make the kitchen the way YOU
want, because just as a dog will not live in the old former dog’s house, people will seldom like to use a used kitchen.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Although I have worked with solid wood for cabinets and such, it is significantly more work than using plywood.

I found that using a Kreg Jig (or similar) is very fast and strong. That said, there are many ways to make a strong cabinet out of plywood, but the first time I used a Kreg jig I was sold.

You need to understand how you will take care of those plywood edges. For cabinets I usually just use a face frame from solid wood. I have used many different methods...

https://www.woodcraft.com/blog_entries/getting-the-edge-plywood-edge-treatments?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1fz4vfDH9AIVKcmUCR0EE Aj3EAAYASAAEgJkpPD_BwE

I built a nice desk and I used a veneer (both iron on and the already sticky stuff. I used the veneer on a desk and one of the edges is always hit by a chair. It is still holding but I can tell that it is a veneer (not that anyone else has noticed or knows).

Now, when I know there will be abuse on the edge, I just glue a piece of wood on from 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. This holds up very well to abuse since it is solid wood. I will admit that I have an interesting setup that very quickly trims the wood flush to the plywood using my festool router, but there are so many ways to do this I won't bore you with the details (but it has attachments to the router with a flush trim bit so that I can take the router to the wood).

Also depending on what you want to do, I really like prefinished plywood, but, then you are left with the need to finish the other bits to match. For example, if you have edging, which is more of a problem than face frames.

[Jim Dwight]

I would make the boxes of plywood but if you like the look of face frame cabinets I would add a solid wood face frame of the material of your choice. I would make the doors of solid wood, possibly with a plywood panel. You could have a maple face frame and maple flat panel doors, for instance, with 1/4 maple plywood panels. That would look nice and is quite easy. You could switch to raised panels of solid maple if you want to dress the basic cabinet up some.

An advantage of 3/4 plywood for uppers is it lets you go without a face frame and just make overlay doors.

I usually just glue and screw particularly shop cabinets together. Usually with through screws that get covered by plugs if they show. I use pocket screws sometimes too but I consider them uglier and harder to hide than through screws. But pocket screws are a good way to make a simple face frame. The screws won't show in that case.

[Thomas Colson]

If there was a downvote button, this would get downvoted, but I'm in the middle of a shop cabinet build using melamine 3/4 for the caraccas, oak face frames. Considering the quantity that I'm doing, 2 walls of base and uppers, there was (is) zero chance of me affording that much plywood. The entire stack of melamine I got, which took two truck loads, was less than 4 sheets of plywood. In hind sight, probably should have done the uppers in 1/2, regardless of cost, they're heavy! But they're shop cabinets, as long as they hold stuff I really don't care what they look like, they're all going to get covered with every single glue, solvent, finish, and motor oil product I use.

[Michael Rutman]

Thanks everyone for the information. I was able to realize my real question was furniture vs cabinets. I had not realized there was such a large difference between the two.

now I have to go read up on that topic

[Rich Engelhardt]

I'll toss this out for you also.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klv0jzWD26w

It's the Marc Sommerfeld cabinet making videos - the link is for #1 - there are 3 of them.

I found it extremely easy to make a whole kitchen using his method & tools.

As far as shop storage and jigs go for that matter, I used to just bang out whatever from the cheapest junk I could find - sometimes even OSB.
After seeing some pictures of other people's shops, I took the hint that the shop is the best place to practice everything - up to including how you finish the wood.
The laundry room is another excellent place to practice things like cabinets, crown molding and counter tops.

[Bruce King]

I used to live 45 minutes from Shelby NC and just remembered The Roundup Store has cabinet ply from 1/4 thick to 1 1/4 thick. Limited species sometimes but good prices.
https://www.roundupshelby.com/buildingmaterials

I used the 1 inch thick on a few projects and it’s much more flat than 3/4.

[andrew whicker]

I took a half semester class for cabinetmaking and learned a lot / became comfortable enough with cabinetry to go off on my own.

It's a completely different world with it's own language, materials, tools, etc. It's overwhelming. If you have the time / resources, taking a class could be a really good way to become familiar. If you aren't able to take a class, I'm sure you can still reach out to the "professors" and ask them questions / meet with them. They are a public resource.

After reading, studying, etc., go to a big box store and look at their cabinets with a more keen eye. See what is really going on and you'll have your "ah ha" moment soon enough.

I'm still new to the world so it's still a bit overwhelming to me. But you find that mostly everything is standardized one way or another. People have been doing this for years and years and have pretty slick methods of getting it done.

Cheers,