Suitable material for cabinets in a garage?

[tim]

I have a storage crisis at home (according to SWMBO!)

There is a large passageway between the house and the garage that is covered and has doors at both ends. Its technically weatherproof but swifts and swallows get in for nesting! its unheated and probably a bit damp.

I intend to make five or six tall cabinets to go in there. Of simple comstruction ie frameless with doors made from single panels all made from sheet material.

I don't particularly want to finish them with anything other than a clear varnish/ coating (if anything at all) so I'm put off MR MDF. I don't mind the raw edges of ply but I'm wondering about a cheaper material thann Birch ply but without lots of edge voids.

What's the most suitable material for this?

Cheers

Tim

 

[Chris Knight]

Tim,
Fir construction ply is pretty good. It's flat and voidless in the pieces I have bought. The plies are quite thick (in a 19mm sheet for example, there are 6 plies and it really looks like two 3 plies glued together). I used it for a treehouse for the grandkids and painted it with one of those Ronseal one coat preservatives cum dyes and it is OK after several years.

The surface is a bit rough but would probably sand OK - haven't done this.

IIRC it's about a third of the price of birch ply.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

Tim, for general purpose cabinetry as you describe in reasonably sheltered locations and, at about £28- £30 a sheet + VAT, this stuff should do okay. The important bit to note is the grade, viz, WBP, BB. This stands for Water and Boil Proof (the glue) with both faces B quality, ie, with some filled voids. The long grain in the first description runs across the board which is the common or garden way.

Birch Ply, 18mm, CROSS GRAIN. 1220 long X 2440 wide X 18mm thick, WBP, BB grade.

If you must have the show veneer grain running the length of the board buy,

Birch Ply 18mm, LONG GRAIN. 2440 long X 1220 wide X 18mm thick, WBP, BB grade.

This second specification costs about £3- £4 a sheet more than standard stuff. Specification of materials very precisely is important. Loosey- goosey specifying on your part leads to unexpected supplies of materials.

I use either of these specified types for toolboxes, general cheap cabinetry in workshops, etc. Heck I've made several tool cabinets on wheels using stuff of this grade and they've been shipped over to Texas and back full of tools. You can't imagine how much abuse cabinets get when stuffed into shipping containers as tight as possible and humped and dumped on to ships decks, docks, freight bays, road freight trucks, etc, ha, ha-- ha, ha, ha.

This indicates that with the right joinery they can be made pretty tough, and in this case the joinery is tongues and housings or biscuits.

This material can be used as the ground for fancy veneers too along with MDF and other suitable man-made board materials. Slainte.

 

[Shady]

Yup - I used 18mm birch ply, WBP, for my garage cabinets. Used a mixture of biscuit and pocket hole joints with waterproof PVA. As said, very strong. FWIW, I ran a series of 6mm holes down each inner side of the carcasses before assembly, using an offcut of the ply with a set of holes as a template: with a packet of the plastic shelf supports from screwfix, this gives a very flexible set of shelves that can take pretty much any weight.

Personal observation though: you might consider cheap white gloss paint: I covered everything with this once built: it adds to the moisture resistance in this sort of environment, hides any surface irregularities/edges, and - more practically - brightens what are often slightly dark places. Functional, not pretty, but very useful...

 

[Waka]

Tim

For all the cabinets and mobile units in the WS I have used Far Eastern Ply 18mm, for the doors I used hardwood offcuts for the frame and any 6mm ply I had lying around for the panel.

All construction was done with pocket hole screws, very robust and takes all the weight I can give them.