Kitchen Cabinet advice please!

[Charlie Woody]

Our kitchen is made of pine (looks hand built and in good conditon) but the built in fridge was too small and when we moved here we already had a large fairly new fridge. So we took out the built in fridge and are now left with a lovely gap in the kitchen units!!

My wife would like me to make a drawer cabinet to fill this void. Most of these drawers would be filled with tined food items so pretty heavy. I have some full extension ball bearing drawer slides (side mounted) that should take the load.

The long term plan is to replace the base cupboards with drawers, hopefully, by altering the existing cabinets.

The finished unit(s) will be painted.

My questions are:

1. What materials to use for the cabinet? I would prefer to avoid MDF - hate using it because of the dust!
2. What materials to use for the drawers?

Oh and I have a small budget ...... now where have you heard that before!

 

[mailee]

You could always go for ply. More expensive but no dust problem with it and it is tough.

 

[woodwise]

Ply would be a good choice for the cabinets. I too hate MDF and just hate the quality of the resulting piece. You can get some good looking ply and since you are painting it, it doesn't really matter what type you are getting, unless you are trying to match the rest of the kitchen. Then you might run into difficulties.

 

[eunicesmith]

Oak is better suited for carrying heavy loads and offer a sophisticated look. Plywood are prone to sag and split so it is better to use the expensive one than the cheaper. An oak last for years but a plywood maybe not.

 

[Pvt_Ryan]

Not trying to threadjack here but, I have a load of ply lying around and imo it's a nightmare mine is always flaking and chipping easily. Painting may solve that though, but I would avoid unless you are going to veneer it.

 

[Charlie Woody]

I was speaking to a friend of a friend yesterday and he suggested blockboard, with tulipwood lipping. He says that he has had good results with it ..... has anybody else used it?

 

[Erasmus]

Assuming this is a 'front frame' or 'in frame' type kitchen,

First of all, I'm assuming you don't intend to make the carcase from pine although there's no reason, apart from cost, why you shouldn't. Lamo board isn't ridiculously expensive if you can find a local workshop happy to sell you the odd board that is.

Failing that idea and If you can afford it, make the carcase from 18mm birch faced ply. Takes a screw and load better than MDF, MFC and can be painted or lacquered with equally good results.

Make the front frame and drwr fronts from 20-22mm Tulipwood or Pine and biscuit joint the front frame to the carcase. You could pin and glue it on if you don't have a biscuit jointer.

Make the drawer boxes from 12mm birch faced drawer side ply with a 6-12mm thick bottom depending on load. You can half-joint the box front to the sides and trench the box back to the sides. Trench the box front and sides to take the bottom and pin, glue and screw as necc. The assembled drawer box can then be fitted to the drawer front.

Let me know if you need drawings for this, I've made hundreds.

Alternatively, It's possible to buy a pre-built carcase to order which means you only need to make the facade and drawer boxes, but where's the fun in that.

 

[Charlie Woody]

Thanks Erasmus, that's very helpful.

 

[Chems]

Not trying to threadjack here but, I have a load of ply lying around and imo it's a nightmare mine is always flaking and chipping easily. Painting may solve that though, but I would avoid unless you are going to veneer it.

Theres lots of types of ply, the really nice softwood stuff that is expensive is actually lovely to work with minimal voids between layers. I've experienced that sort of stuff your talking about. I think it was from B&Q :evil:

 

[mailee]

Ah, don't knock B&Q ply Chems. Just the other day I was in there and spied good quality Brich ply sheets on the rack.......mind you they are around £55 per sheet! :shock:

 

[Pvt_Ryan]

Not trying to threadjack here but, I have a load of ply lying around and imo it's a nightmare mine is always flaking and chipping easily. Painting may solve that though, but I would avoid unless you are going to veneer it.

Theres lots of types of ply, the really nice softwood stuff that is expensive is actually lovely to work with minimal voids between layers. I've experienced that sort of stuff your talking about. I think it was from B&Q :evil:

I got some better quality stuff from BQ practically a whole sheet for £1 (Someone had had it cut up then returned it as they didn't like the finish, I spied it and made the guy at the cutting machine an offer.)

 

[Chems]

Ah, don't knock B&Q ply Chems. Just the other day I was in there and spied good quality Brich ply sheets on the rack.......mind you they are around £55 per sheet! :shock:

I've noticed that my local Focus has started to sell the pine laminated sheet that we like so much. 2.4 by 600mm. I pay £21 a board from my local Build Centre, Focus want £58 a sheet, for pine! Crazy!

I've only really used ply twice I think to build by outfeed and for a few drawer bottoms. The drawer bottoms were from B&Q and it was horrid stuff like a bit green in colour, the other stuff thou from the Build Centre again was lovely stuff, really nice to look at and work with.