It's time for a cabinet meeting!

[Kerry Drake]

The great cabinet build started in earnest on Thursday. Before any cabinets got built, however, I had to wait for a little help to show up to cut the full sheets of plywood down. While waiting I gave the shop a pretty good cleaning and even managed to organize my sheet good pile.

I even manged to measure and label all of the partial sheets with their size, including thickness.

With the layout of my shop, cleaning up this space was very important in order to have a clear path for feeding the plywood over my table saw.

As it turned out, after much initial frustration of not getting consistent sized cuts off my table saw, I found my rip fence was loose when locked down and was moving as much as 1/8" during the cut of the big sheets. Once I figured what was happening and snugged the fence adjustment down, I ended up with my cuts being a full 3/8" narrower than I had planed. It's not the end of the world though as long as they are all ripped to the same exact size.

Using the tablesaw, bandsaw, and mitre saw, my wife and I (she came home early to help) got all the pieces cut, assembly line style, for all 4 cabinets.


Here is the first:

This will be the only cabinet with an exposed end and will eventually hold the trash can for the kitchen.



When we stopped working that night we had the first cabinet's twin also done:

The second cabinet will have one door and a sliding shelf. These cabinets are both 15" wide.




Saturday we went into my wife's office and painted all the walls to freshen the place up, but I did get out into the shop around 4:00 and put together the last cabinet in the row (skipping the 3rd cabinet because it is the biggest at 36" wide and I was working by myself).

This cabinet will up with two doors opening into a 28 1/2" space with one or two sliding shelves (I'm thinking about putting a "false bottom" shelf in for easy access.



That just leaves the last big cabinet that is going to have 3 drawers in it (a 12" deep, a 9" deep, and a 6" deep). Right now it is sitting in parts waiting it's turn (maybe tomorrow).

As with any new project, the opportunity presents itself to add a new tool to the arsenal, and surprisingly enough my wife grabbed this little gem off the shelf at the Big Blue Box Store and threw it in the cart while I was getting some more pocket screws.

As funny as it sound, I think I might prefer the Multi-Mark to my regular adjustable square (I'm not big fan of the way a regular square tightens down I guess). I just wish this came with a12" ruler instead of the 6".

That's all for now.

[KregRep]

Great post, Kerry! Loved getting all of the detailed step-by-step information, as well as your comments on the Multi-Mark! Keep building, can't wait to see the finished product!