Today I got started on a built-in bathroom cabinet for my brother. He’s remodeling one of his bathrooms, and asked if I could build him a custom cabinet. This cabinet needs to go into an odd shaped area in the bathroom. So the cabinet isn’t something you can pickup at one of the big box stores.
The cabinet will be about 62” high, 20” wide and 22” deep. The cabinet will be divided in half. The top half will have a couple shelves and bottom half will have a pullout for a clothes hamper.
Because of the size of the cabinet I will be using plywood for this project. I have to say, I really don’t like using plywood. Not that I dislike plywood, it’s I’m really not setup to work with large sheet goods. My strategy, for my shop, is to break the sheet goods down with a circular saw. Then cut the rough sized pieces to their final dimension on the table saw. Even this is difficult in my shop. I have to move everything out of the way, and then work on the floor breaking the plywood down. I’ll stop whining, someday I’ll have more room ☺.
The first order of business was to go pick up the plywood. I don’t buy my plywood at the big box stores, anymore. Instead I go to where they sell real lumber. I have a couple choices in my area, today I chose to go to Crosscut Hardwoods.
I decided to go with some “shop grade” maple plywood. Because the cabinet will be a built-in, you will only see the inside of the cabinet. The doors and face frame will be ebonized (black), so I didn’t think a ”higher end” plywood was needed. We’ll see if I’m right on this aspect.
After getting back from the lumber store, I started to break the sheets down and get things to rough size.
To attach the sides to the top, bottom and middle shelf I’m going to use Locked Rabbet joint. As most people will learn, when you buy ¾” plywood, it’s not really ¾” it’s a little less. The last time I built a cabinet like this, I bought a special router bit that was suppose to match the smaller thickness of plywood. In reality, plywood varies, and at times this special router bit cut a dado that was too tight. You just can’t win when it comes to plywood. To get around this, I chose the Locked Rabbet instead. I can cut the dado portion of this joint to a known width (3/8”), then cut the mating rabbet to match the dado.
I’m using a router to make this joint. I decided to knock together a jig to help guide the router while making the dado cuts.
I just used some leftover plywood pieces, to make the jig. I chose to put runners down both sides on this jig. In the past I have had a few mishaps when I’ve only used a single straightedge. The router can pull away from a single straightedge so easily.
You have to be pretty precise when using 2 runners. You don’t want the router to bind up in the jig, if the 2 runners aren’t absolutely parallel.
I took a few passes for each dado. The jig worked out pretty well.
Tomorrow I’ll start to cut the rabbets in fixed shelves and maybe play around with some finish samples.
