| Building a Cabinet |
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Here I'm building a kitchen cabinet for a stove, ice box and storage.. This is simple construction and can be built with cordless drill, skill saw, jig saw, tape measure and staple gun or nails. |
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The first thing to do is build a frame for the front. Use 1/2" plywood and map out how you want it to be. Measure your appliances for your openings. Leave 1-1/2" space on the sides and between holes for bracing. Draw your lines on the face for your cuts. Then using a circular saw, cut the holes. Use a skill saw to cut the long cuts and a skill saw to trim the corners. As you can see I've cut holes for the stove, ice box and drawers. |
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Next, screw 1x2 bracing on to the back of the face. This pictures shows a different cabinet, but you'll screw through the face into the bracing with 1" grabbers. |
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Next, you'll attach your facing veneer to the frame with 3/4" staples. I'm using Luan Mohagany plywood for my facing. You want to cut it about 3/8" large on the ends as you'll use your router to trim it to fit. |
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Next, I like to cut out the wood in the openings with a cicular saw leaving a 1/4" to be trimmed with the router. You can also just drill a whole for the router bit to fit through if your router is heavy duty enough. |
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Next, use your router with a trim bit to trim the edges tight and smooth. The router follows the plywood frame and trims the veneer. DON'T DO THE SIDES. |
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Next, attach the sides. Simply using 3/4" staples, staple it to the 1x2 braces you attached to the face frame. Then attach a support for the stove. |
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You'll want to make a dry fit at this point to make sure your appliances fit. You don't want to get too deep just to find out you've made a mistake. |
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Now you can trim the sides of the front veneer.
It leaves a very nice edge. |
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For the doors, I glued and stapled 2 pieces of the Luan together. The inside piece is 1" smaller than the hole and the outside is 1" larger than the hole. |
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The 2 pieces gives the door strength. The inside piece recesses into the hole and the outside covers the hole.
The edge with the hinge needs a 1/2"lip. This is the only part that is crucial.
This is a simple yet ellegant design.
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The drawers are just boxes with veneer stapled to the front.
Cut a piece of 1/2" plywood
the width and depth of the hole.
Then cut the sides and staple them to the bottom.
Do the same with the back and front.
Then staple the veneer to the front overlapping the opening by 1/2" or so.
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I then finished it with 2 coats on laquer. See Formica for directions on making the top.
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