- Today I'm gonna build some European inspired
cabinets for the shop, but I really want to keep them in line with my other shop furniture designs. So let's see if we can make
that happen on Timber Biscuit. So I've been doing a ton of shop upgrades the past two months and now it's time to address
some wall cabinet storage. I have a lot of space on
the wall above my joiner, so I want to try to take advantage of that and maximize my efficiency in the shop. Now, because the cabinet is
going to hang above my jointer, I had to get a little
creative with the design. So my plan is to build two
carcasses for the cabinet, one that's gonna be full size and the other that's gonna
be about half the size that will sit higher on the wall. And this, again, is so
that it doesn't interfere with the bed of the jointer. Now, the other cool
thing about this cabinet is it will live right behind my bench, so it will make reaching
things from the bench quite a bit easier than
they are right now. So with all the goals
for the project laid out, let's get into the build. And for this build, I'm gonna be once again
using Baltic birch plywood. Well, mostly. My supplier ran out of
Baltic birch plywood, which honestly is no surprise. So the doors for this cabinet will be made with some maple ply. We had a good run. So what I'm doing here is
breaking down my sheet goods into more manageable sizes. Obviously working with
full sheets of plywood is a little bit challenging in the shop and using a track saw to break them down is a really efficient and easy way to get my cabinet parts down to size. So once I have my initial pieces cut out, I like to use them as a template to mark out my remaining parts. This way I know that everything's
roughly the same size, and if there's any variances I can quickly run them
over to the table saw to even them all up. Here, I try to air on
the side of too large rather than too small. This way I have room to come
back to that final dimension. And that's especially true
when it comes to the sizing for the doors and back panel of the case. I just want to make sure that I have enough space to cut them down at the table saw later on. But I'm definitely not aiming for the perfect dimension right now. In fact, I'd venture to say that doing so is about as terrible
as a joke about paper. All right, so with the sheet
goods are all broken down into more manageable sizes, I can now take them over to the table saw to cut them down to their final dimension. And I feel like it's important to say that the reason I don't cut
them to their final dimension when I'm using the track saw, it's just because I
don't think the track saw is as accurate as my table saw. I can really dial in the
fittings using my fence, whereas with a track saw
I can get like 95% there, but here we're aiming for 100. So another thing I find really helpful when cutting down large
sheet goods like this is using a feather board. It helps keep those long
pieces against the fence. When you have to stand
back far away from the saw, it makes keeping those cuts
straight quite a bit easier. So once I had my really
long pieces ripped down I could swap out my table saw's
fence for a cross cut sled and start cross cutting my shorter pieces. Now, I've gotta say that
using the right size sled makes cutting these parts
out a heck of a lot easier. I made my sled on the
channel a couple of years ago and I can't tell you
how helpful it's been. Plus the dimensions of it allowed me to cut down full size cabinets. So for this project, that
makes it super useful. So back over at the sled, what I'm going to do now
is cut down my shelves. And I'm cutting my shelves down now just to get them to rough size. Since these cabinets
will feature shelf pins, I'm cutting these down to the exact width that they need to be. Which in all likelihood means that these are going to be slightly too wide. But that's okay, I'd rather
be slightly too wide here than slightly too narrow
and have to recut them. (saw cutting) Now, I'm also using the cross cut sled to cut out my side panels and my doors. Now again here, I'm aiming for everything to be slightly oversized
for the panels on the doors but for the sides,
we're trying to nail it. So when you're measuring things like the sides out for cabinets, just remember that 3/4" plywood is actually more like 23/32. So you need to account for that when building the sides of your cabinet. If you don't, your center
vertical partitions may be too short. So always double check your plywood size. Now since my cabinets are going
to have two enclosed spaces I needed four shelves for those areas. So I just set up a quick
stop block to cut those out. Like I've said before, any
time you can create a stop to batch out work like this, don't hesitate to do so. Unlike the creator of 'brella, you know, um-brella. (saw whirring) All right, so next it's time to cut out that upper high cabinet. And because I've incorporated curves into my other shop furniture pieces, I decided to do so here too. So I just used a French curve template to add a subtle curve to
my smaller high cabinet and transition it down
to a shallower depth. Now while I'm showcasing
this little feature, if you guys want plans for this project let me know down in the comments. I'd be happy to put them together if there's enough interest. And if I do, I'll make
sure to post an update to the community, as
well as update this video when they're available. All right, so I decided to use
my band saw to rip this line just because I feel like this cut is a lot easier with the band saw than it would be over at the table saw. And then from there I can
just use a hold-down clamp to hold the piece in place while I use a jigsaw
to cut out the curves. Now, this curve has to be cut two times, one time for the top and
one time for the bottom. So next we'll need to
match those curves up as closely as we can. But one thing that helps when cutting things out with the jigsaw is just to go slow and keep yourself just
outside of your line. This way you can sand back to it, which is exactly how we're
going to match these two up. Now to try to get those curves as even as possible and matching, I just used my random orbit sander to smooth out those plywood edges. Again here, as we covered
in the past video, don't stay in any one place for too long, otherwise you risk
rounding over those edges and we definitely don't want to do that. Then from there, we can check
our parts against our list and make sure we got everything we need. And since we do, we can do a jig. All right, so next we
can mark out the rabbets for my side panels. I designed the cabinet with a back panel that rests in rabbets on the sides while running full length
on the tops and bottoms. And that will make more
sense when we get there, but for now what we need to
do is cut out the rabbets. So to do that I'm going
to set up a dado stack and a sacrificial fence
over at the table saw. So once I have the
sacrificial piece in place, I just set the blade height and width and cut in the rabbets. Now, my first three rabbet joints are pretty straightforward. All I'm going to do is run
those over the dado stack, butting them right up
against the sacrificial fence giving me my perfect width. The only real pointer here I have is to use a push block to make sure that you have consistent
pressure downward, otherwise your rabbet will be uneven and have some waves in
it and that's not ideal. And if you do, don't worry too much. You can always just use a router plane to clean up those rabbets later on. So a moment ago I mentioned that the first three rabbets were pretty straightforward. This fourth rabbet is a little trickier, in that it needs to be a stopped rabbet. So I make a mark on my sacrificial fence to let me know where my dado stack stops. Then from there, I just matched that up with a mark on my board so that I can drop it
down on to the dado stack, stopping before my mark. You can kind of compare this to using the dado stack and table
saw as a router bit in this instance. And while I finish up that cut, if you're enjoying this
video, give it a like. It allows this video to
spread to more people and I really appreciate the support. Thanks. All right, so back over at the bench I need to clean up that stopped rabbet. And to do that I'm just
going to use a marking knife to first scribe in a line. This will give something
for my chisels to bite into. Then from there I just use a chisel to clear out the bulk of the material. Now, since this is
plywood, it's pretty easy to cut through the laminated layers. Here I'm just careful not to go too far. Now even though this joint's gonna be hidden for the most part, I think it's always best
practice to take your time and go slow on this kind of thing. And once I get close to the bottom, I just use my router plane
to even up the groove and make everything consistent. Just like my son when I
tell him to go to bed, he is consistently late. And you'll have to excuse
me, I love telling dad jokes. Sometimes he even laughs. All right, so with all that
done we can test the fit. And yeah, that looks good. All right, so next I marked out the orientation for all of my boards. Then from there, I could
mark out the centers so that I had a reference point to line up my shelf pin jig. Now, again, I'm using shelf
pins on these cabinets because I think in the shop shelf pins make a lot of sense. But I've seen a lot of
people make the argument that once they put shelf pins in they never move the shelves. So let me know down in the comments if you like shelf pins or if you don't. If you're in the pro shelf
pin camp say, "Yes shelf pins" and if not say, "No shelf pins". I'd really love to hear
what you guys think. And while I try to reply to every comment, I'll make sure to reply to the comments that start with yes
and no shelf pins first because I know you guys
are paying attention. All right, so once I have
the shelf pin jig all set up it's pretty easy and
straightforward to plunge them in. All I do is align the marks on the jig with my center line and
then plunge in the holes. And this jig also comes with
these little plastic pieces to keep everything registered and in line. And if you'd like the
link to the one I use here I'll leave it down in the description. All right, so with all
the shelf pins drilled, I can move on to the
joinery for the cabinet. And I'm gonna use, you
guessed it, pocket holes. Now as I've said in
the past couple videos, I do not like pocket holes for furniture, but for shop furniture and cabinets pocket holes are awesome. Now if pocket holes aren't your thing, you could easily make a cabinet using dowels, dominoes or biscuits. But again, I think pocket holes are really fast and efficient
for a build like this, so that's why I went with pocket holes. So here I'm just using my jig to drill in two or three
pocket holes into each board. Now I'm only putting pocket holes in the tops, bottoms
and vertical partitions. The rest of the cabinet structure is primarily going to
come from the rear panel. And again, if that sounds confusing, just hang with me, it will all make sense when it comes time to assemble. Again, the only downside
about using a pocket hole jig is that it gets sawdust everywhere. But as one commenter
said on a previous video, sawdust is just man glitter so I guess it's time to party. But really, where does all the glitter go? All right, so once I clean up the shop from all the festivities I can start laying out
the vertical partitions. And to do that I'm just going
to use a combination of rules. What I like to do is
lay out all my markings on one board first and
then align my boards and carry those marks
on to the next board. This way if I'm off one way
or another by a small factor, it will be the same on both boards and I don't have to worry
about fixing both sides. Then it's always a good idea to go back and use a piece of scrap to make sure that your measurements are close. Speaking of great ideas, if
you haven't yet, hit subscribe. I make new videos all the time
about woodworking projects, tips, tricks and furniture builds. So if you're enjoying this video, you'll probably like those too. So hit subscribe so you
don't miss the next one. And as always, thank you
guys for your support. All right, so now that I've dialed in the final heights for my cabinets, we can go ahead and cut
down the back panels to their final dimension. Smooth. So again, the reason I waited to cut the panels down till now is because I didn't actually know what the back panel full
height was going to be. And that's because of the variances that plywood brings to the table. Since I have all that dialed in now, it's easy enough to cut these down. Another option would be to wait until the actual outside of
the cabinet was assembled and then take the measurement off that. But I'm fairly confident
in my measurements, so I decided to go ahead and do these now. And I probably could have
mentioned this earlier but my back panels are
going to be comprised of 1/2" plywood. And this is both to cut down the weight as well as give me more
space inside the cabinet. If I'd gone with something
like a 1/4" sheet it wouldn't give me as much
structure as a 1/2" sheet so I think the 1/2" plywood
is just a happy compromise. Plus we'll be using this rear panel to actually mount the cabinet to the walls so we want that added
strength and structure. So once I had the final
length all marked out I could just use the track
saw again to cut these down. And this is just gonna
go exactly like it did in the beginning, using a square to make sure
that my marking was straight and then the track saw to make the cut. (saw cutting) So with the rear panels all cut down it was finally time to start assembly. And so I'll first start with the bottom of my larger cabinet. And this is definitely one of those times where labeling the parts really helps. Here I want to make sure that those pocket holes face the ground so they're not on the
interior of the cabinet. The cabinet will sit
low enough on the wall where these pocket holes
won't actually be seen. Unfortunately with the upper
cabinet they will be seen but I think that's one of those things I just have to live with. So when assembling cabinets, it's really important to keep
things as square as possible. And using these clamping squares makes it a heck of a lot easier. Because another issue I
have when using pocket holes is that pieces want to slide around when driving in the screw. Using clamps like this
locks pieces in place and doesn't allow them to move. So with the carcass of
the cabinet complete I could flip everything up and work on those vertical partitions. And again I'm gonna use
those clamping squares to keep things square while I apply glue and drive in those screws. This is where marking out
those partitions earlier really comes in handy. Because I can reference
the outside of my boards to the line and then
clamp everything in place. Which makes assembling a case like this a little less stressful, but only a little. If you're running into issues
with assembly like this, I recommend using a slower setting glue. This will both give you
a little bit more working and open time, and make
things a little smoother. But luckily this case came
together without any problems. All right, so next it's time
to attach the rear panel. And first I'm going to mark out where those vertical partitions exist on the back of my back panel. As well as a couple of lines to know where the center of the
tops and bottom boards are. From there I'll just apply some glue and then drop on the back panel. And again, the top and
bottom is going to be flush with the top and bottom shelves. From there I add in a couple
of brad nails into my sides before drilling a couple pilot holes and driving in some screws
into those overlapping pieces. And I get asked quite a bit
about this countersink bit, so I'll make sure to leave a link down in the description of this video. All right, so with screws driven
in about every six inches, I can go ahead and flip up the case and check it for square. Now honestly, there's not
a whole lot I could do if this case wasn't square at this point but it's good to know that
everything came together the way it should. Next I'm gonna repeat those same steps with the smaller upper cabinet. Only this time I'm not going
to attach the end piece. I'm gonna keep these two cabinets separate and then attach them once they're
actually hung on the wall. This way I can cut down on the weight of trying to hang these two
cabinets on the wall together. And it will also make
moving these cabinets to a different position in
the future, if I want to, a heck of a lot easier. So once I had one side and one
vertical partition attached, I could go ahead and attach
the back panel again. And once again, I'm just gonna
drill in some pilot holes and drive in some screws. The cool thing about assembling
the cabinets this way is that it leaves me a little
overhang on the back panel, and that overhang fits
perfectly into my rabbet on my other cabinet. So referencing these
two pieces on the wall when it comes time to hang them ought to be pretty easy. And just like the ninth
letter of the alphabet, I was done. So now that my two cases were assembled, I could finally cut out those doors. To do that I'm just gonna measure out the front of my doors
and then take the pieces over to the table saw and trim them down to their final width and height. Now what I'm aiming for with my doors is about a 1/16" gap all the way around. This way I have a nice consistent reveal around my entire door face. But we can adjust that gap
slightly using the hinges and we'll talk about that
more when we get there. For now, let's focus on the pulls. Now originally I had designed
some European style pulls that were going to inset
into the door faces, but if you follow me over on Instagram I shared a story about that and it just didn't work
out for this project. So here I'm just going
to use my Forstner bit to cut in some circles
to act as the pulls. But I guess since they are
the pulls, they're not acting. This stays in line with the
minimalist European look that I'm going for with these cabinets without adding a bunch of extra hardware to the cabinet faces. One trick I like to do when plunging all the way through with
the Forstner bit like this is just adding a bit of painter's tape to the back side of my drill hole. This way, I minimize the tear-out. All right, so next it was
time to attach the hinges. And for the hinges on this project, I'm gonna be using Blum soft close hinges. So I have this jig from Rockler that I got a couple years back that works great for
these types of hinges. What it does is attaches to the door and give you the exact placement and depth for your hinge cups. So it minimizes the thinking portion of setting these things up. Because once you set it up once you don't have to think about it. Which, for me, is great. Like that old rotisserie oven ad. You know, set it and forget it. So once I struck my line three inches from the top and bottom I could go ahead and just
drill in the pockets. My only gripe with this jig is that it does jerk every now and then but other than that it's pretty good. From there I could use a scrap
board and some 1/16" shims to transfer my marks on to my carcass. From there I use another jig to drill in my pilot
holes for the hinge clips. All I have to do is line up my lines, then use a self-centering drill bit to drive in the pilot holes. Again, this is no-brainer stuff, which, at this point in the project, is my kind of woodworking. All that to say that you
don't really need these jigs to attach these hinges. Blum has some pretty
comprehensive instructions, but they are in metric
so my American audience may have to do some converting. I know, I know, or just work in metric. All right, so next I can
attach the hinge to the door. And I just used my double
square to line everything up, then a self-centering bit
to drill in my pilot holes and drive in the screws. Now, because my upper cabinet
has really wide doors, I went ahead and installed
those hinges at like 85 degrees. This way, they would lift
the outside of the door up a little bit to relieve
some of that weight. And as you can see here,
after a few adjustments, the doors work flawlessly. Uh, wait, that's too far. So to fix that, I'm just going to cut a couple of strips
out over at the table saw. For this one I'll just use
my smaller cross cut sled. So once I have the strips cut out, I could bring them over to the bench and use a scrap piece to
set the depth on the stop. Then from there, a little
glue and brad nails hold the stop in place. Now, another way to stop the door is just to use the shelves as a stop. But in this case I cut my shelves a little narrower than the cabinet width so the stop works great. All right, so next I could
prep the doors for paint. And all I'm going to do is sand everything up to about 180 grit. Now since I only have four doors to paint I'm not going to bust out
the sprayer to do these. I'm just gonna roll them
out with a nice roller now. So my first application
is gonna be two coats of Kilz primer. I've used this stuff on plenty of projects and it works great as a primer but it does give off quite a bit of fumes, so make sure you have good
ventilation if you're using it. Once I have the first coat on, I'll wait about an hour and a half and then apply the second coat. Once I gave that about eight hours to cure I could go ahead and apply
my first coat of paint. For that I'm just going
to use this nice cool gray 'cause I think it matches
pretty well in the shop and overall it's pretty neutral. And for this one I'll look real serious giving it three coats, waiting
about an hour between coats. Lighten up, Shane. You're
supposed to be having fun. So while we're on the topic of fun things, if you're enjoying these videos and you want to support the show I'd like to invite you to join my Patreon where you'll get discount
codes on plans and merch, an invite to the Discord server, some free stuff and access
to monthly live chats. So if that sounds like
something you're interested in be sure to check out the link below. And again, to all those
who have already joined, thank you guys so much for
your continued support, it means the world. All right, so getting back to it, I drafted my wife to help
me hang these cabinets up. Now what I did first was install a brace at the bottom of the cabinets so I could keep everything
level and straight when I installed them. From there, I just used a couple screws, making sure to drive them into studs. And yeah, the cabinet was hung. For the smaller upper cabinet, I basically followed the same process, only this time I drove
in my pocket hole screws to make sure that
everything stayed aligned and then drove the screws into the wall. And before you ask, yes,
that's my step-ladder, my real ladder wasn't available. I promise that's the last
dad joke of the episode. From there, it was on to the finish. Now, for the finish on this piece I'm just going to be
using penetrating oil. And I'm only using it on
the exterior surfaces. I'm not going to finish the
interior of the cabinet. And that's just because
this is shop furniture and that's a lot of surface area. But I do love how the penetrating oil makes those laminated layers pop out. So I did apply this to the clamp rack I built in the last episode. From there I could pop in the shelf pins and then slide in the shelves. Now, these shelf pins are 5mm, so make sure that you check with your jig, and whatever bit you're
using for your jig, to make sure that you have
the correct size shelf pins. From there, popping in the shelves is pretty straightforward,
you just slide them on. And again, because they're adjustable, if I want to I can move them around. All that was left was to hang
the doors using the hinges. And before I forget, if you
need to make any adjustments to the hinges, there's
three screws on the hinges that will adjust up, down, in or out. So you have some options to
adjust the fitting on the doors. From there all that was
left was to fill her up and see how it turned out. (exciting music) So yeah, designer quality
cabinets in the wood shop? Why not? I think this goes back to
my statement on the Roubo, that if you make the
environment you work in reflect the type of work you
want to make, it's a win-win. So while these cabinets
may not be for everyone, maybe you're a more shaker
style cabinet individual, I think these cabinets are pretty stellar. The curved upper cabinets really fit in with the other shop furniture
I've built recently, and it leaves me plenty of
room to utilize my joiner without bumping into it. So I hope these give you some ideas for some space-saving
solutions in your shop. And hey, if you enjoyed this video and you want to see more like it, check out this video next. Subscribe so you don't
miss the next project and I'll see you next time.
