AmericanWoodworker-ShopCabinets.pdf

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Shop Solution Special
COPYRIGHT 2001 HOME SERVICE PUBLICATIONS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Shop
Cabinets
SIMPLE,
ALL-PURPOSE
A m e r i c a n Wo o d w o r k e
1
SIMPLE, ALL-PURPOSE
Organize your shop in a
weekend, for less than
$20 per cabinet!
By Jean Bartholome
W
alk into a typical small cabinet
shop, and you’re likely to find
simple, functional cabinets made of
inexpensive sheet goods. Not that these
pros couldn’t make furniture-grade cab-
inets for their shop if they wanted, but
when there are customers waiting and
bills to pay, shop cabinets get built fast,
cheap and solid.
These cabinets are right out of this
tradition. They’re fast to build, so you
can move on to building real furniture
for your home. They’re sturdy and flex-
ible, so you can adapt them to all sorts of
storage needs, even heavy tools and
hardware.And best of all, they’re cheap.
We built eight of them for $17 each,
including the hardware. The drawer
units, complete with all their drawers,
cost $28 when built in pairs. All the
material and hardware should be avail-
able at your local home center.
MULTI-PURPOSE CABINETS
ROLLING SHOP CARTS
are
always handy.This one uses two
cabinets, and is the same height as
our tablesaw.You could also use four
or six cabinets for a larger rolling
assembly table or an outfeed table.
BRACE
These basic cabinets can be used on the
wall, on the floor, on wheels, back-to-
back—any way you want. As you can
see, we used them as the foundation for
several basic pieces of shop furniture.
The drawers range in size from a bit
more than 1-in. deep, for small tools, to
almost 6-in. deep for heavy stuff. The
drawer design is so simple you can eas-
ily modify the dimensions and cus-
tomize the sizes.
You can also use these cabinets as
outfeed support for your tablesaw.With
a 3/4-in. top and casters or a base under-
neath, the total height of the cabinet will
be 34 in., a common height for tablesaws.
A ROLLING TOOL CHEST
is
made from two drawer units, with a
top and casters. Because this chest
will carry a lot of weight, reinforce
the bottom with braces.
P L I NT H
SUPPORT A WORKBENCH
with two or three
cabinets.This bench has a plinth to raise the cabinets up
off the floor, and a top of MDF edged with hardwood.
2
A m e r i c a n Wo o d w o r k e r
SHOP CABINETS
A WIDE CABINET
is easily
made from one of the basic
cabinets. Flip the cabinet sideways,
cut a new, longer nailer, and use
double doors in front.
MAKE EXTRAS
for the laundry room,
garage, or wherever you need utility storage.
FENCE
SHORT
B OX
BASE
A MITER SAW STAND
is built from four or six cabinets with
a shorter box in the middle to support the saw.A narrower base
ties all the units together and provides a toe space.
These cabinets
are flexible!
You can adapt
them for all
sorts of uses.
A m e r i c a n Wo o d w o r k e r
3
SHOP CABINETS
1
2
SUPPORT
3
N AIL ER
STOP
RIP THE SHEET MATERIAL FIRST, to
get it to a manageable size.The MDF
is heavy and produces tons of fine
dust when cut, so have a helper and
some dust control handy.
CROSSCUT THE STRIPS OF MDF.
A simple shop-made sled makes it
easier to get accurate cuts on these
large pieces, although you’ll need to
support the far end.A hinged stop
on the sled allows you to flip the
stop up for the first cut, then flip it
down for the final cut.The result:
every piece is accurate and identical.
JOIN THE TOP AND THE
NAILER with utility (drywall-
type) screws and no glue. Clamp
the pieces to get the alignment
perfect, then drill the pilot hole
and countersink.A quick-change
unit and combination bit makes
this operation go quickly.
FIG. A SHOP CABINET
QU IC K -C H AN GE
DRIVER
C OU N TER SI N K/
C LE AR AN CE
HOLE DRILL
P IL O T DR I L L
FIG. B SCREW HOLES
4
A m e r i c a n Wo o d w o r k e r
SHOP CABINETS
4
5
6
DOOR
JOIN THE REST OF THE BOX the
same way, using clamps to get parts
aligned.These joints are plenty
strong with just screws, so no messy
glue cleanup is required. Plus, if you
ever want to modify the cabinet, it
will come apart neatly.
ATTACH CLEATS FOR THE
SHELVES, using a piece of scrap to
align them.This may not be the
prettiest shelf support in the world,
but it’s strong, cheap and completely
adjustable.
HANG THE DOOR from inside the
cabinet.This is a pretty weird-
looking way to do it, but it works
great! Simply attach the hinges to
the door, then clamp the door to the
cabinet box so it’s aligned all the way
around, and then screw the hinges to
the inside of the cabinet. Finally,
screw on the back of the cabinet.
MATERIALS
MODIFYING THE DESIGN
We made our cabinets out of
medium-density fiberboard (MDF)
because it’s strong and inexpensive.
MDF paints like a dream, but you
could also use a clear finish or no
finish at all on these cabinets.
Although MDF comes in 49-in. x
97-in. sheets, the cabinets are
designed so you could also use fir or
birch plywood in normal 4x8 sheets
without changing any dimensions.
MDF is not a perfect material,
however. It’s heavy, for one thing, so
get help if you’re going to install these
cabinets on a wall. Attach them very
securely to studs using 3-in. drywall
screws. The drawer unit should not be
hung from a wall at all. It’s simply too
heavy.
The other drawback to MDF is
that it only holds screws well when
they are correctly installed. The
screws can’t be too close to an edge, or
they’ll split the material (see Oops!, at
right.) You must drill good pilot and
clearance holes (Fig. B) or the screws
will snap or fail to hold. And finally,
coarse-thread utility or deck screws
will hold better than fine-thread dry-
wall screws.
We have designed these cabinets so
you get the most number of cabinets
from the least amount of material.
However, it is easy to modify the
dimensions to suit your needs. You
can put more shelves in the cabinets,
more drawers in the drawer unit, or
turn the drawers into trays. Don’t
make the cabinets more than about
32-in. wide, however, because MDF
sags under its own weight.
You may want to use a different
material altogether. You could go
upscale by choosing birch plywood
with solid-wood edging. Or make the
cabinets white and easy to clean with
melamine-covered particleboard.
TOOLS AND SUPPLIES
OUCH!
We’ve come up with a building
process for these cabinets that makes
handling the sheet material as easy as
possible. The first step, whether you’re
making one cabinet or a dozen, with
drawers or without, is to rip each
full sheet into three long pieces (see
Cutting Diagrams, page 42) These
more manageable pieces can then be
crosscut and ripped narrower, as
needed.
FIBERBOARD is so dense that it can split if
you screw too close to the edge, even with
a pilot hole. If this happens, push some glue
into the split, withdraw the screw, and
clamp. Redrill the pilot hole and you’re back
in business.
A m e r i c a n Wo o d w o r k e r
5

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