Modern Cabinet (With Automotive Spray Finish)

several months back I was contacted by a friend of mine who was looking for a cabinet for a fish tank that he was wanting to buy and wasn't really happy with what he was finding online as far as options not to mention most of the crap you you can buy online is melamine or some kind of particle board and because he wanted these certain special dimensions he knew he was going to have something custom-made so of course I agreed to do it for him as you can see I've started this project looks like I start all of my projects first breaking down everything with the track saw and then using a combination of the table saw and the MFT to break all the parts down according to the cut list and my plans I'm using a very quick and dirty method of joinery for this cabinet because most everything is going to be covered up and I just the main thing I wanted to do was to make sure this thing was sturdy to be able to hold the heavy contents of a fish tank so most everything is just getting glued together pre-drilled and screwed and the middle section will actually have two layers of 3/4 inch plywood for the bottom of the cabinet I just nailed and glued on some cleats on the inside and outside faces then measured to fit cut the bottoms and nailed and glued them on I use the help of a squeeze clamp here to help pull the sides in on the cabinet to make sure that once I glued and nailed these in place that it would sort of pull a cabinet square like it was supposed to be added some simple cleats to the top insides of the cabinets to be able to attach the top with and just use pocket screws to attach these with now when it came time to add the shelf pins on the inside of the cabinet I actually had to make this shelf pin jig myself because the inside of this cabinet is so small that the jig I have now wouldn't fit so with the help of my current one I was able to drill a few holes make a centerline and then drill all the shelf pins and all four sides on the inside for the top and the bottom of the cabinet I'm using double layered 3/4 inch MDF and so once I had the parts cut down on the table saw I spread tons of glue and then tried my best at least to keep all four of these pieces lined up together so that I can just clamp all of it at once I used just about all the clamps that I have available to clamp these up and it was quite a lot of squeeze out once I took them out of the clamps I was then able to take them over to the MFT table and get everything back square like it was supposed to be and cut both the top and the bottom to their final wink and width cutting the bevel on the top and bottom was probably one of the more I guess difficult parts of this build because I wasn't really sure how I was going to cut these and I ended up deciding to cut the angles on the front here on the table saw because I figured that would be the easiest way to go about it and for the sides I ended up using my track saw and that sort of took a little bit of trial and error sort of sneaking up on the cut to try to get that proper amount of reveal that would match the front but in the end it ended up working out pretty good to attach the bottom I made a center mark on the bottom and a Cinemark on the cabinet and then line the cabinet up and drew reference marks on the bottom so that I could pre-drill through the top which would give me the proper mounting locations once I flipped the bottom over to be able to countersink and then attach the bottom to the cabinet using screws attaching the top was done in a similar fashion as far as making center marks but it was a little more simple to actually attach it because I had these cleats already made from earlier in the project so that I could just pre-drill through them and screw into the top all of the phase frame material is going to be made out of MDF just like the top and the bottom I'll first start by ripping it all down the sides and then cross-cutting it on the miter saw and once all of the pieces are sort of cut to a rough size I will take everything over and sort of sneak up on all of the cut so I can get a nice tight fit on each one of these pieces and I'm just gluing and Brad nailing these all into place you'll notice that the front piece of the face frame here on the sides is cut three quarters of an inch narrower so that once the front and the sides joined together everything looks to be symmetrical I'm using drywall compound here to try to fill any screw and nail holes that I have and also try to spread it in a lot of that porous oak grain hoping that maybe I could fill a lot of that up before I got to the actual primer stage here you'll notice probably a little bit of a change of scenery I decided to take the cabinet to work and just use my da sander at work up here to be much easier and much quicker to sand and I have obviously a lot more room to work in here than I do in my shop at home the main thing I want to do is to try to get all the surfaces even and flat so that everything looks as seamless as possible for the primer here you may notice that I'm actually using an automotive primer this particular problem here mixes two to one and it's an epoxy primer I will put one coat of it on first and then go back and put three coats of a regular high build urethane primer now this time that I'm sending it I'm sending it with 320 grit and I'm just trying to get a nice smooth finish and knock all the orange peel out of the primer before taking it to paint as always here in the shop I turn on the agitator before mix it any color to make sure that all of the toners are properly stirred up before the mixing process starts once I've selected my color in my case black the mixing software that we use will actually give me the amount of each one of the toners that it needs to get the proper color so once everything is set up I just pour each toner down to zero press ENTER and it will ask me for the next color until I get to the point of needing reducer the reducer is added last not only to thin the paint but is also to get it to the right dry time in between coats according to the temperature that it is once everything is mixed up I can put a lid and a locking ring on to the cup put it on the shaker shake it for a minute and then we're ready to spray at this point here I've already added a coat of black sealer to cover any sand throughs that I may have had earlier and I'll first start by adjusting the spray pattern to a much smaller pattern to spray the inside parts of the cabinet and then readjusting the fan pattern wide to spray the outsides I'll add two coats of base coat before I mix up the clear for the clear coat on this project I'm using a flat clear and it's just it just mixes up like any other clear it has two clear coat the hardener and the reducer the difference is it will go on wet but once it's dry it's a completely matte finish just like what you would have on any other woodworking project you also get to notice that I get to wear my cool party suit once I get to spray on the clear coat I added two coats of the matte finish to all of the parts and here you can see the final product the one thing that you'll probably notice is the level of smoothness that is on this cabin and that's the cool thing about using an automotive finishes by being able to spray the two coats of high build primer and sand both of those flat and smooth before spraying this finish it just allows you to achieve that next level of smooth finish on a painted surface that normally you wouldn't be able to do on any other you know painted finish that you would put on a woodworking project be sure to LIKE share and subscribe that really helps the most you can also follow us on all the social media websites I've got all that linked in the description down below I have a website article and plans available for this cabinet so if you'd like to build one of these your own or maybe slightly modify it to fit what you need be sure to check those out as always happy trails thanks for watching

Channel: Matt Lane

Views: 1,110,770

Rating: 4.887969 out of 5

Keywords: modern, cabinet, diy, how to, modern build, cabnietry, aquarium, fish tank, wood working, media center, hvlp, makers, home decor, interior design, design, building, builds

Id: 7ckWs-i0v9U

Length: 12min 23sec (743 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 07 2016