Building cupboards and shelves

Kitchen cupboards will be too high to sit at to work unless you have an office chair that will rise to the appropriate height. Melamine which forms the outer surface of most kitchen cupboards is not good to paint on, easily rubs off.

Richard

Would he not put a worktop over that though? I guess it depends on what the look he was going for was. I'm sure I've seen cupboard units that are shorter out there as flatpacks, but as you say if its going to be painted, the surfaces might not take the paint well. Brian

Ah, 'fancy', I'm out. ;-)

I'm not sure you will. ;-)

As a utilitarian and sharing my life with a practical friend and not someone who 'should be obeyed', we love the flexibility you get from slotted uprights and shelves (for the shelving facet anyway).

If I was fitting out a study type room for me (so not considering what anyone other than us would think of it), I'd start with floor to ceiling slotted uprights anywhere it would be likely to have shelves or a worktop etc.

For the shelves, straight Contiboard for light loads or tongue-n-groove floorboards that can be glued together for wider shelves and with the tongues cut off the front shelf (and glued in the rear groove IYCBA) are very very strong (no sag) and when sanded and not painted, need little in the way of maintenance, no matter how rough you treat them.

Need to fit something a different size, add a shelf or take one away, you can, along with being able to move them up or down. ;-)

Any 'fitted' cupboards I've often just used Contiboard again and even fitted the slotted shelving system inside. This solution has taken both shelves or hanging rails.

Not sure any of the above would be acceptable in the show houses of today though. The houses where people exist and not live. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

That's ok, although the shelves look a little "heavy" (visually) compared to the rest. The shaker style is also about the easiest thing you can make, while being solid with clean lines.

I did a few doors like that for our utility room - made from 3x1 softwood and 9mm MDF:

To be fair I have done both...

From scratch:

This one was similar, but going a bit more light weight (about as light as you can go really for the size). Here the same thickness frames, but only 6mm ply for the panels.

What tooling, space have to got available to build in?

Once things I found with big projects like those, is its easy enough the make the bits, but test assembly and fit can be difficult if workshop space is at a premium.

I have found 1/2" ply for drawer boxes and unit backs is fine. 3/4" ply or MDF for cabinet sides, Softwood "structural" ply is nice to work, but lacks the flatness of traditional WBP ply. MDF raised panels are ok, and dimensionally stable, although take more effort to prime and paint if you want them to look good.

Also worth checking softwood window boards - readily available from most builders merchants etc:

You can get much the same adjustment versatility using those brass/silver inset shelf support strips:

You will also need room for your knees.

Any idea how they compare on price though john. Being 'only' floorboards they seemed to be much cheaper /sq/m than buying the same for any other role. Like buying anything for golf, fishing or disability / medical where they seem to ramp the prices up.

Sure, but that's (the nosing) probably a step too far for most people.

When the horrible (inherited) chipboard cubbyhole unit fell off the wall of my mates PC shop and de-assembled itself on the floor, he called me to help me put it back together and up on the wall again. I refused and long short, we fitted slotted shelving instead and before long we had done the entire shop. He's since retired but the shelving is still there and has taken all sorts of things it was never designed for. ;-)

Well, true, but assumes you have / want a 'unit' to fit them in?

Funnily though, I have a 90cm wide x 140cm high space over a post-formed-edged worktop (on battens on the three sides) that is over the WM and (currently) supporting the TD.

We have a mini freezer ready to replace the TD and want to make use of the extra space above the freezer but ... it has to be easily removable to give access to the roofspace above.

So, given there is some electrical trunking one side and pipes at the other, I was thinking of just using some slotted shelving either side, some of the shortest shelf brackets carrying a couple of battens (per level, like your inserts) and then I could use T+G floorboard screwed to the battens. Easy to cut / make, very flexible, dismountable, strong and cheap.

I would prefer to used some post formed edge worktop but it would be a bit more to handle, cut and fit, especially when doing it all in the kitchen / utility area (as it's bound to be raining every time I try to do it in the back garden).

Cheers, T i m

I've used 100x20cm timberboard in alcoves, support only at the edges, from Wickes for bookshelves. Been up several years and no signs of sagging.

Cheers, Rob

I built my kitchen unit and cupboard doors which look a little like those in the picture, 9mm MDF with 9mm for the "frame" just glued on. I mostly used "off the shelf" base units but had to build a few units to fit the space neatly. I used 18 mm plywood for that, biscuit jointed. One thing you *must* make first if you are building from sheet is a sawboard, or even better a pair of them, 4 foot and 8 foot. I made mine from 9mm plywood. These save an unbelievable amount of time because you can cut everything straight to size with accuracy better than 1mm. Next to no post-cut fettling. You need a reasonable blade on your circular saw. I only have a cheap biscuit cutter, if I'd known how useful it would be I would probably have bought a more expensive one but I'm managing fine.

While MDF is fine for doors, I prefer plywood for more structural stuff although I do have a fitted bookcase which is all 18mm MDF (but designed for paperbacks, so relatively shallow shelves, and not too much distance between "uprights).

If you want the the extra thickness and depth you get with a windows board (they are usually a nominal 9x1" before planing) then they are not dissimilar in price per unit volume when compared to floorboards.

(scaffold boards can also be another good cheap source of "heavy" timber)

Depends on how much you like the visible edge of ply... If painting you could probably cover it. The win with nosing is that it can then be routed for a more attractive edge, and also can be made deeper than the shelf if going for a heavier looking shelf.

The "worktop" on this is only 19mm MDF - but the nosing is deeper, and also wide enough to allow the 50mm radius on the corners.

It's not difficult to buy a strip of software trim to glue on (or in my case I rip a bit off a wider board, glue and pin and then router flush and profile)

Yup the spur clone stuff is very sturdy and I quite like it for some applications. I would not usually use it in furniture though.

Well it is what the OP was suggesting...

snip

Thanks very much all. Unfortunately in the Google groups UI I can't reply to individual threads so thought I would consolidate my reply to all the points made together - hope this is readable.

1. Regarding kitchen cupboards being too high. I believe the standard carcass is 720mm so was thinking of putting it on say a 2" x 2" on the floor to give a small "plinth"

1. Thanks re comments on painting on melamine. We have done this successfully once before but it didn't get much wear so might not be a good reflection.

2. Thanks John for your various links - I can only hope mine are half as good as these :). Couple of questions if I may a. Did you create the shaker doors by using 3" x 1" to make the surround and then router a groove in the back to then put the 9mm MDF? I was thinking of using (say) 18mm ply for the door and then pin/ glue some thin ply/ MDF to the front to make the shaker surround. Did this for a bath surround but would appreciate thoughts on this for doors. Any top tips newshound (e.g. finishing the edges so you don't see the 2 pieces) as seems like you have done a similar thing although my "add on" bits were more like 3mm b. The drawers on the media centre look amazing. Not sure my skills are good enough for this and I don't have the tools. Any simpler methods to make them? The slide out section for the AV gear is inspired :)

1. In terms of tools I have....

- Track saw (i.e. one of those circular saws that run on a metal track for doing straight cuts)

- Router (although haven't managed to get it to do anything useful yet)

- A table gadget which enables you to make a table saw/ router by fixing a normal router/ circular saw to it. Not very professional but seems to work (ish)

- Regular circular saw

- Chop saw

- Drills

- air compressor and nail gun

- biscuit cutter although never used it!

- good selection of hand tools etc.

1. John - you mention "It's not difficult to buy a strip of software trim to glue on". Assume the word software is a typo? What trim are you referring to?

Thanks again for all your thoughts/ suggestions

Lee.

Ah -

That's only a saw guide though, and only metric 4 feet long. The cutting line is offset from the edge of the guide. A sawboard is like this, but with a "base-plate", when you make it you make this over-size and then trim it, with your circular saw, so that it exactly matches the saw. So, to use it you mark out the *exact* position where you want the cut on your work. And you clamp the sawboard on the required material, not on the offcut. So you get a straight cut exactly where you need it. The baseplate also helps to prevent splitting/delamination of plywood on the emerging side of the cut. Oh, and when making a sawboard use one of the as-sawn edges for your saw guide, that way the final cut will be dead straight. If you are working with full 8x4 sheets you really need an 8 foot board as well. (On the rare occasions when you are making a diagonal cut more than 8 feet long I have always found you can still get a near-perfect result by cutting twice with a repositioned board).

Hi Rob,

Haven't see those before but look very handy. The track saw I have is one of these

Lee.

OK that looks as though the saw cuts right to the edge of the table.

That pic seems to have gone - but the saw/track idea looks to be a better solution all round.

Thanks, yes, I did make one, but had an incursion accident and ruined it. For my purposes/skill level keeping the blade away from the guide/board is the way to go . . .

Nowadays I just use a 2m length of timber for longer cuts and clamp it to whatever I'm cutting. Trimmed 2mm off a door recently - perfect cut.

I take your points on the limitations of the Lidl guide. All I can say is it's done me fine. If it was my livelihood I'd invest in a proper track/saw arrangement.

'SoftWOOD'. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

That would work, but it s not actually how I did those particular ones.

I did those on the table saw as a "cope and stick" construction using a dado blade (a stack of two ordinary blades and a pass from each side would also work well). That put the panel in the middle of the door, set back from both sides:

Then I cut the rails to be final length + 2 x Depth of slot, and cut a full width tenon on the end (few passes over the blade with the cross cut guide in the table slot) - just the right size to fit the slot.

The whole door could then be assembled. Since the panel was MDF and all the lengths were long grain, the whole thing could be glued.

If going for a real wood panel, then I would cut that a little under full width, and leave it floating - with just the rails and stiles glued[1]. Looking at the top of the door you can get a glimpse of the construction, like on this real wood version:

The really simple way is as you say a panel the size of the door, and then "planted on" rails and stiles. All from MDF.

The youtube master of the MDF door must be Peter Millard. He has loads of videos on these done using a number of techniques. e.g.

Well the fronts can be any panel assembly method you like - including planted on rails and stiles.

The boxes are in most cases not that critical. I used finger joints since I can do lots of drawers in a single operation, and they are very strong) 90 odd CDs are quite heavy! Having said that, there are plenty of easy ways that work just fine. Simple gluing and screwing but joints at the 4 corners of the boxes will be fine. You can then plant on a base, glued and pinned, or better still just route a rebate round the whole of the bottom of the drawer box, and drop the draw base into it - that looks better and adds more resistance to "racking" in the base.

Another option that works well are the drawer mitre lock router bits:

It was "ok" in the form you see there. In reality I went back and changed it a bit (must do so extra photos for it). Later I fitted a much heavier AV amp (15kg), and found I needed to add a third drawer runner under the middle of the base. I also realised that when seated you could not actually see the top of the box much beyond the leading edge. I was also always a bit annoyed by the slight variation in margin around the edges caused by an earlier "out of square" cutting error. So I modified the box to fix the "square issue" and also remove the entire top of the thing apart from a 6" deep strip at the front. That made access for wiring up *much* better. I also made a slotted vertical divider to go in the front - that allowed me better control of the margin spacing, and looked a bit more appealing.

In which case you already have more than enough kit to go about these in a number of ways :-)

Yup, sorry my bad - softwood!

Most DIY shops have a stock of all kinds of beads and profiles including dowels, coves, quarter rounds etc, but also usually just plain old strips of something rectangular you can trim to length and stick on.

However given the tools you have at your disposal, simply ripping strips of the side of a suitable thickness of plank will give you plenty of shelf or door edge lipping material.