Tool Cabinet #2: Respect to all cabinet builders...

For all of you cabinet builders on this site, my hat is off to you! I never fully realized the work that is involved in making a cabinet and how even the smallest mistakes can compound so very quickly…

Right before Christmas I posted this blog asking for input on plans for a tool cabinet. Well, I took all the advice I received and have been furiously building over the holidays.

Here is where I stand—I have completed the actual “cabinet” portion of the project. The project isn’t really close to complete however, if you look at my plans from my last blog, there is still a lot for me to do. But, I wanted to get the base cabinet done so I could start utilizing it and free up some workbench space in my ever so cramped garage. I am pleased with the results so far and have already loaded this sucker up. It is working as I envisioned, and I can now see the entire top of my bench for the first time in many months…

Below is a picture story of the trials and tribulations that this project has bestowed upon me. (Pictures will be cropped from this site, you can click on them to see the full picture.) I ran into one problem (err, learning experience) after another. Most I was able to overcome, some I just covered up as best I could. The end result though is a new, extremely useful addition to my workshop.

I didn’t start taking pictures until the initial cabinet glue-up. In this first picture you can see the basic cabinet box being assembled. I went with 3/4” cabinet grade oak ply for this part.

In this picture you can see how I re-enforced the inside corners with blocks. This helped during glue-up and will also hopefully help prevent some of the twisting forces this cabinet will be subject to.

Here I decided to attach the wheels early on so I could move the project around and out of the way as I built it. I reinforced the bottom with 2×4 studs to attach the wheels to.

Reinforcing the cabinet box and trying my damnest to ensure it is all square. I also added the apron to the bottom to cover most of wheels. At this point I also used oak veneer on all the exposed edges of the plywood.

Here is a picture of me making sure all my drawers fit. Obviously this is a huge gap in the pictures. This is because I was spending so much time cussing, banging my head against the wall, and kicking my power tools that I didn’t have time to devote to the picture taking. These drawers were hell on earth to get right, and I’m still not even close to right (as you will see in later pictures). I screwed and unscrewed, and then screwed again all of the drawer slides so many times trying to get everything to line up, unsuccessfully. The best I can tell, the cabinet box wasn’t quite square, or my drawers weren’t very square, or probably a combination of the two.

Here I have all the drawer fronts attached. Thank goodness for drawer fronts, as they can cover a multitude of mistakes. I had to shim 4 out of my 5 drawers on one side or the other to get the drawer fronts to sit flush on the cabinet box. 2 of my shims were 1/2” thick if that gives you any idea of how out of whack my drawers were. The drawer fronts were made from ceder and I used and ogee bit around the edges. I chose the ceder for the drawer fronts just to add some visual interest to the cabinet…

Finally, the finished cabinet. I used minwax polyshades (polyurethane mixed with pecan stain) for all the oak. I used amber tinted shellac for the ceder drawer fronts.

Here is a picture of the cabinet fully functional and in use.

And finally, a picture of my biggest “oops”. This is one of the shims I was talking about between the drawer and the front.

And that is where I am at for now. Again, if you look at my previous blog, you will see that I still have a whole lot of work to do before this project is finished. But, at lease the hardest part is done and I have something I can use right now!

A couple of lessons I learned so far:

1. I am not a cabinet maker, nor could I even play one on TV.
2. If things are even slightly out of square, it all adds up.
3. Not square drawers will never fit perfectly in a not square cabinet no matter how many times you move the slides.
4. Kicking your table saw does nothing except possibly spraining your big toe. The table saw doesn’t feel a thing…

-- Sgt_Lobo -- Montgomery, AL