Cabinet with center divider - double up the 3/4" ply?

[Dave Rosner]

I'm making a series of cabinets with fixed shelving that will be dado'ed or domino'ed. Some of the cabinets are 48" wide and i'll need to cut this span in half for the weight. In the past when i've made shop cabinets i'd just make 2 24" wide cabinet boxes out of 3/4" ply and screw them together. This time i'm doing this for a pantry and will have a face frame and i'm trying to minimize the width of the face frame to 1-1.5" if i can. If i use a 1/4" deep dado on both sides of the center divider that only gives me 1/4" of wood in between the shelves which feels kinda sketchy. If i use domino's in guess i could go straight through since it will only be a few across the width of the board and once glued up the dominos would be integral to the ply.

Any professional cabinet makers out there that can explain how you usually do a cabinet with fixed shelves that requires a center divider?

[Lee Schierer]

If these are cabinets sitting on the floor, the center divider will be under compression load; therefore, the double dado should be fine for weight bearing. If you are worried, you could add cleats under the shelves attached to the center divider.