I'm about to build a kitchen cabinet with shelves above to display kitchen items in our store. The base cabinet will be made out of 5/4" old deck boards. I'll plane them and cut them to size then glue up into panels. The top will be old 1" oak boards that I'll sand a little and coat with poly acrylic. The base will be painted with a poly acrylic topcoat. It will be 26dx36tx75l. I'm using old windows for the doors. I've posted some builds after the fact but this will be my first as I'm building.
So this is what I'm starting with:
jointed face and one side, then through the planer on the other face, then the table saw. All pretty and ready to be glued up. Started off 1"-5/4" x5 1-2" now 3/4" x5".
I use a silicone basting brush to spread my glue works great and clean up is amazing. The glue doesn't stick to it. So if you don't get it cleaned out you just peal the globs of dried glue out of the brush.
I know a lot of people buy the fancy glue bottles and maybe someone can tell me why they're great. I've never used one so I can't say. But the bottle the titebond comes in has always worked fine for me. I just refill it. When it gets in bad shape I buy a new bottle (and it comes full of glue!👍)
four panels glued up. These will be the two sides, bottom and shelf. I'll glue the back up tomorrow morning. I'll also start painting these panels and making the top. I think I'll be jointing it but leaving the faces rough and glueing it into a panel. Done for tonight.
. Getting ready to take this apart and pick out the best two for doors. Doing this while the back panel dries. I'll also get the other panels sanded a little and ready for paint.
The windows are 1 3/4" thick so I'll use 2x4's milled down for my face frame.
The boards on the left are the old oak. They'll get cleaned up just a little and get edge jointed to be glued into a panel and that'll be the top. Coat them in poly acrylic and they'll pop.
. About to glue up the top. Jointed to get rid of bows and to get a nice glue edge. Then they went through the planer to get them all the same size. Then the table saw for the other edge. The thickest was 1/4" bigger than the thinnest one. As you can see in the pic the oak planed down is awesome. But that's not the look I'm going for.
My wife got a coat of paint on all the panels. We'll get one more coat on them then flip and repeat After that dries we'll put a coat or two of polyurethane to make them rich looking inside and out. Then I get to start assembly. Tomorrow while the wife paints the panels I'll build the face frame.
Built the face frame yesterday. I ended up using 4x4's. They're 1 5/8" wide and 1 3/4" deep to match the windows. A lot of waste but couldn't get that out of a 2x4. I cut some feet out of the bottom piece. One of the sides will be cut the same. The other will be against a wall.
Just put the last coat of poly on the panels this morning. These will all be inside the cabinet so doing the finish before assembly makes it much easier.
Skipped a few steps. It's all assembled and I just finished putting the second coat of paint on the outside. Tomorrow I'll put the poly on the outside. Countertop is done and the hole is cut for the old cast iron sink we're putting in it. Coming along nicely.
I like the detail of the project and the "narrative" that goes with it. Thanks. Your detailed plans are something that I would do. Quicker than firing up the computer plus you can do it on the job site. I may get brave one day or one week and try to see if I can conquer Sketch Up. Wondering if I need to get out my slide rule.
My plans always seem to change a little as I'm building based off material and some probably from lack of detailed plans 😳. Maybe if I got into sketchup I wouldn't have to wing it so much as I go...
Got the last coat of poly on the outside of the cabinet last night. Glued up four panels this morning that I prepped yesterday. These will be shelves above the base cabinet.
P.S. Don't lean 4 shelves with heavy pipe clamps attached against a small table
I have some old spindles that I'm going to cut down to attach my shelves with. I think I'm going to drill in the ends and drill holes through the shelves and attach with dowels. I'll also have a cleat on the top and bottom shelves that'll be screwed to the wall. The shelves are 72" long so I'll have two spindles on each end and two in the middle.
. Not sure how well that all makes sense but you'll see the pics as I get it together.
I put three coats of polyurethane on the spindles and got them cut to size today
Got the last coat of poly on the shelves today also,they'll be dry tomorrow and ready for assembly.
I predrilled holes in all the shelves for dowels to connect shelf to spindle to shelf etc.
As I was drilling holes in the end of the spindles today I wished I would've clamped the shelves to the spindles then drilled through the shelf so my holes would be lined up perfect. I'm a little worried that is going to be a problem. I'll find out in the morning how that works out. Or I could've made a jig to go over the end of the spindle so every hole was in the same spot. We'll see. Might have to fill my holes with dowels and start over.
So my wife and I were setting the base cabinet into its home today and I was unconsciously pushing on it with my knee...and broke a pane in one of the window/doors.
Luckily I had another window that already had some broken panes. I stole a good one out of it and was back in business.
Shelves are together. Went pretty well. Some of the spindles didn't line up exactly because of my poor hole drilling plan but if I build something like this again I now have a better plan. I'll make a jig next time so all my holes are in the same spot. Wish I would've thought of it before I did this one....
. Here are some pics of the cabinet in place. Shelves will hang above. Floor hasn't been done yet so please ignore it
View attachment 266994
Shelves are together. Went pretty well. Some of the spindles didn't line up exactly because of my poor hole drilling plan but if I build something like this again I now have a better plan. I'll make a jig next time so all my holes are in the same spot. Wish I would've thought of it before I did this one.... View attachment 267002View attachment 267010
. Here are some pics of the cabinet in place. Shelves will hang above. Floor hasn't been done yet so please ignore it
If we all had $100 for every time we said something like that maybe we could buy some kind of universal jig that covers all those"if I had to do it againers"yea,a get it right the first time jig.lol.That would be cool.
I decided to put these heavy angle brackets under the bottom shelf for added support. I made covers for them out of some scrap 5/4. Put a dado on the back to hide the bracket and routered the edge.
Well it's done. I put cable and eyebolts in the top to the joists above to support the front of the shelves. And a bracket below.
. Still need to clean up. Windows need to be cleaned and the inside cleaned out but we'll wait to do that after the floors are done.
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