I want a couple of odd sized cabinets and I’m thinking of putting some together myself.
I’m quite happy coming up with a cabinet design as I’ve spent quite a of time on that in the past. Unfortunately, I’m not planning to get a HOMAG setup in my garage, and I don’t fancy drilling for cam and dowel fixings with my cordless drill 😆
At the moment I’m thinking of buying veneered MDF or Chipboard, finding a friendly supplier who will cut sheet material to size, and using iron on edge band.
Am I likely to find a timber yard that will be able to cut panels accurately and cleanly enough for me to work with them straight away, or am I going to have to get them oversize and sort them myself? What’s the best way to make straight clean cuts without going full Norm Abrams and building a complete workshop with table saw?
I think I’ll be going for butt joints for the sake of simplicity – side panel to base panel joints can be clamped, drilled and screwed from underneath quite easily without any fixings showing, but top panel fixings can’t be done that way. Am I best off getting a pocket screw jig, biscuit jointing or doing something else entirely?
Back panels are going to either need to sit in a groove or in a rebate in the back edge of each panel – which is easier to do with the minimum of tools? The back side of the cabinet won’t need to look good.
If anyone’s got any suggestions for what methods and tools to look at, it would be much appreciated. Or if it’s going to be cheaper to produce a set of drawings that will work and hand them over to a cabinet maker who already has all the tools, that would be good to know too 😀