What material for garage cabinets?

I’d avoid MDF in a Florida garage. Way too humid.

-- Galootish log blog, http://www.timberframe-tools.com

Greetings,
If you want to see what plywood cabinets look like in a woodshop, just go to my home, and look under my shop pixs. I build all of my cabinets out of 3/4” birch, put about 2 coats of a mixture of tung oil and mineral spirits on, and they look good…. It’s well worth it in the end to use good plywood… Not only looks nice, but will hold up a lot better than MDF for cabinets…...I think you’ll be a lot happier with the results….....

-- " Don't ever wrestle a pig in a mudhole....he'll be having more fun than you..!!

i have actually made mdf cabinets, with pine face frames in my projects.
and i recently finished a wall tool cabinet with pine door frames and mdf raised panels and i am verry happy with the result. but with mdf it is important that that you threat the surface, preferably with acrylic laquer. or it can swell over the years. there also exists bathroom mdf that is green, only slightly more expensive but it resists humidity.

i don’t like to use plywood, it’s expensive, it splinters, it has a grain direction wich looks silly when the grain goes across the length. and i find it’s more easy to make solid screwed glued joints in mdf than with ply.

but mdf does look quite bland, you got to like it.

Hey Rick, those cabinets do look good. Bit confused though…why do you have two table saws with an outfeed table between them??? Looks like the setup for some kind of “I can cut wood faster than you” game. Heh.

I’d would use the birch plywood; however it would be nice if you can get some that is good and flat. You might do better getting some from a cabinet shop supplier than from the big box people.

-- If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. Henry David Thoreau

Definitely go with the birch ply. However, depending on ow you plan to construct them, you could save some money by using 1/2” for the sides. Using 3/4 for wall cabinet boxes is really overkill.

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

I used 3/4” birch ply and French cleats for the cabinets in my garage … thought about MDF, but I avoid that stuff like the plague for anything that needs to take hard use and abuse.

-- Gerry -- "I don't plan to ever really grow up ... I'm just going to learn how to act in public!"

Greetings again, Vrtigo,

Thanks for looking at the shop..thought it might give you some ideas of what the birch would look like.. The reason I have 2 tablesaws back to back is two-fold…The old Craftsman was my very first saw that
bought in about 1985-86(?). I used it all those years in my shops, and being a contractor saw, it was a 3 hp. But I always wanted a cabinet saw (and Delta).. I bought a new Delta X5, 5 hp. last year, and this sucker is a
beast…I now use it for all my main cutting of material, and decided to keep the old saw for dados and rabbits.
A few months ago I built a new cabinet system for it(you can check it out on my blog( a new look for an old workhorse)moved it to the other side of the outfeed table I built for the new one, and have them back to back…Plus

it gives me more outfeed using one saw or the other….. It does speed up the process… That’s why I have it like that….I just couldn’t part with an old friend…. Check out the blog, and you’ll see why…....That saw is dead-on accurate, too with the fence I put on many years ago…....

-- " Don't ever wrestle a pig in a mudhole....he'll be having more fun than you..!!

Makes sense, Rick. I bet it’s nice not having to change out the stacked dado set.

Everyone else, thanks for the replies. I think I will go with 3/4 birch for the backs and make the rest out of 1/2” birch.

Industry standard is 3/4 or 5/8 materials for the case, 1/4 for the back. I don’t think you’d get a good joint between the face frame and the case if you used 1/2 material for the case. Further, you’d likely have issues with whatever shelf support system you chose for the inside.

Melamine products are a natural for this project. No painting, as has been noted, and the light colors will really contribute to the overall brightness in your garage, something that becomes more important as we age. Another beauty of MM and MDF is the lack of grain—it makes for more effiicient use of the material.

The best way to deal with the exposed edges is edgebanding, which can be done low-tech with your basic thrift store Mary Proctor iron. Good matching paint is an option.

If you apply the 1/4 back without a rabbet in the case, you have covered that edge; the faceframe covers the front, so all you need to edgeband is the top and bottom edges of the sides.

I’d suggest you look for an alternative to the pine for faceframes. It doesn’t like to stay straight and is not fond of holding hinge screws. I am not sure what would be the right choice in your part of the country.

Regarding the comments about particle board and mdf holding screws, the answer to that is don’t use them. Biscuits are a great way to joint the case pieces. (If you don’t have that facility, rabbet the sides (1/3 deep) and use pin nails.) Use Extend glue, slather the four pieces together, clamp, and then apply the already-built faceframe and clamp it. (You can also biscuit the ff on, but it’s not really necessary. If you do, cut just the bottom rail and one stile—let the rest land where they may and just glue them.) The 2 1/4 nailers go inside the back, top and bottom for uppers, and the 1/4 back (any material—you’ll never see it) over that. Done!

My apologies for the windiness of this reply.

-- "...in his brain, which is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd with observation, the which he vents in mangled forms." --Shakespeare, "As You Like It"

I have had VERY bad experiences with MDF in coastal Texas. Florida can’t be much better. I know good quality plywood is a bit on the spendy side, but it is well worth it. Cheap plywood however, will have you cursing the day you walked into the lumber yard!

Not sure if they are in Florida, but I have found Sutherlands to have good birch and oak cabinet grade plywood.

-- Manufacturer of fine quality sawdust since 1984. Comments and advice on my shop welcome. Check it out at http://lumberjocks.com/dbhost/workshop. Gladly accepting shop build donations!