As my first project of sorts, I'm in the middle of making a 1 meter wide kitchen cabinet out of MDF. I've done some limited wood working in the past, but nothing this complex. Mainly just shelves and a desk extension. I got two sheets and had the bulk of the cutting done by the local wood merchants. I needed some of the rest of the wood for a kitchen cupboard that I'm doing also. This is very much a first bash. Hopefully they'll last a couple of months or so, which will give me enough breathing space to make up the proper cabinets. Also hopefully I'll make all the really stupid mistakes on this one and not when I'm using real wood.
It's probably not the most efficient use of the wood, but I'm making two 50 cm cabinets, which will sit side by side with a 100cm worktop on top. I'm just using dados and rebates for all the joints with screws and glue to hold it all together. No doors to worry about as I didn't have enough wood. Ooops. Well I didn't want to buy another sheet which I wouldn't use and don't have the space to store it. In the new year, I'm going to try out making a couple of shaker style doors for it, which I'll reuse on the proper cabinets.
The picture is one of the sides with all the dados and rebates cut.
So far I've got the first cabinet done, just not assembled. I'm going to put them both up at the same time, so they both fit well together. The dados have gotten better after the first one, which wasn't great. They're all slightly oversized tho, which is annoying, but it's only by a mil or so and I can live with that for a first bash. Everything looks pretty square, so fingers crossed they'll actually be level and not like the leaning tower of piza!
It's taken a couple of evenings work to get to this stage, over the past few weeks. I've had lots of other DIY to do, so they've not been top priority. The kitchen is also my workshop, however I'm getting annoyed of cooking in the mess (the wife doesn't/can't/won't cook, so the kitchen is mine to mess up!) so getting this cabinet done will allow me to put most of the cooking stuff away.
It's probably not the most efficient use of the wood, but I'm making two 50 cm cabinets, which will sit side by side with a 100cm worktop on top. I'm just using dados and rebates for all the joints with screws and glue to hold it all together. No doors to worry about as I didn't have enough wood. Ooops. Well I didn't want to buy another sheet which I wouldn't use and don't have the space to store it. In the new year, I'm going to try out making a couple of shaker style doors for it, which I'll reuse on the proper cabinets.
The picture is one of the sides with all the dados and rebates cut.
So far I've got the first cabinet done, just not assembled. I'm going to put them both up at the same time, so they both fit well together. The dados have gotten better after the first one, which wasn't great. They're all slightly oversized tho, which is annoying, but it's only by a mil or so and I can live with that for a first bash. Everything looks pretty square, so fingers crossed they'll actually be level and not like the leaning tower of piza!
It's taken a couple of evenings work to get to this stage, over the past few weeks. I've had lots of other DIY to do, so they've not been top priority. The kitchen is also my workshop, however I'm getting annoyed of cooking in the mess (the wife doesn't/can't/won't cook, so the kitchen is mine to mess up!) so getting this cabinet done will allow me to put most of the cooking stuff away.
