Shop Cabinets

[jack duren]

They may have stopped selling it..

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Before the Ukraine war, I used Baltic Birch. Now I have been using American birch and poplar core. It’s not so much the wood as it is the core quality- it needs to be very solid with no voids. Your price on Baltic Birch is pretty good for today’s market.

For sure you want toe kicks- you’ll be standing at the machine.

[Mark Wedel]

When I made mine ~4 years ago, I used 3/4 baltic birch. But at the time, it was only like 20% more expensive than 'furniture' grade at home depot, and given the amount of time I was going to take to actually make the cabinets, spending a bit more on better material seemed a worthwhile trade off.

I only made upper cabinets - beneath them I have a couple of workbenches, or other garage items (washer/dryer, water softener, etc).

I did make my upper cabinets a little deeper (16") than normal. I had been used my old kitchen cabinets (12" depth) before - aside from not many, there were also some odd shapes, but from those, I also learned that things like a circular saw don't fit quite as well in 12" (has to be sideways) where as with 16", it fits front to back. But by workbenches are also 30" wide (normal kitchen counters are ~24"), so 16" depth cabinets still keeps to the width being about half the width of benches underneath. And for other stuff, is of course 25% more storage space.

[mike stenson]

Yes on the to kicks. I really prefer a ledger strip in back and adjustable feet when installing on concrete. Especially if there's there chance of it becoming wet.

[Paul F Franklin]

How are you planning to finish them? Pre-finished ply can save a lot of time if you are ok with natural finish. Around here, Menards has reasonable UV pre-finished birch for around $85 per sheet. Suppliers near you may have something similar.