Bottom of cabinet
Welcome! / Forums / General Woodworking Discussions / Woodworking Methods and Techniques / Bottom of cabinet
- This topic has 4 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 1 month ago by Matthew Byrne.
-
AuthorPosts
-
17 February 2018 at 1:19 pm #475489
Hello everyone,
I am wondering what the best way is to secure the bottom (deck) on a hanging cabinet/shelf. Should I dovetail the bottom to the gables, Or should I dado the bottom in leaving the gables hanging down past the bottom? Thanks for any advice!
Matt.
17 February 2018 at 6:24 pm #475731Could you rabet the sides and front and screw in the bottom. Is the bottom plywood? Is wood movement an issue?
It depends. I am hardly an expert, I might have it all wrong, but my thoughts are the following. The sorts of hanging cabinets you see Paul making, and which we are learning to make here, are basically solid wood, dovetailed boxes: top, bottom and sides are dovetailed together. As such, the walls do not extend below the sides at all. This is a good way to make a box, whether or not one hung as a cabinet on the wall, and is quite natural when using hand tools. On the other hand, most mass produced cabinets of the sort you find in kitchens all over the country are made from plywood. They are not usually dovetailed at all — though you do sometimes see plywood dovetailed. Rather, the plywood top, bottom and sides are typically attached together by rabbits and dados. The bottom piece of plywood is often dadoed in to the sides and the sides therefore extend a bit below the bottom. You can see that on most kitchen cabinets easily. It is generally all tied together using nails, screws or even biscuits. Since the box is plywood, it is common to then add a face frame which both looks nice and gives the whole greater rigidity. This approach has the advantage of using plywood, which is good for some purposes, and simple joinery well suited to power tools and mass production. So, though I am not an expert, I think that the approach you take depends on whether you want a more or less standard machine made plywood box, or a hand made dovetailed box. Both have a place, but I would not want to use hand tools, of the sort we are learning to use from Paul, to imitate mass produced plywood kitchen cabinets. Or am I just confused about all this? P.S. I am vaguely considering replacing my plywood kitchen cabinets with my own handmade ones — some day before I day or the sun goes super nova. So if I am confused about this, I would love to know. P. P. S. Are the sides a a cabinet really called “gables”? Live and learn.
19 February 2018 at 6:02 am #477024I’ve made several small wall cabinets and I have always dovetailed the bottom to the sides. My feeling was that this was the strongest application, especially because the bottom would be supporting the weight of whatever was inside. The dado would most likely be fine, but unless you add a mechanical fastner you are relying on the glue holding the end grain of one board to the long grain of the other. Not ideal in my book, but that’s the way Paul built the wall clock, although it doesn’t have to support things being put in it.
Anyways, my cabinets were built as a dovetailed carcass, and had another piece glued to the top and bottom, then had a face frame attached. worked well for me. Good luck and have fun
Kevin
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.