Sunday, November 13, 2016

Making Shop Cabinets

I came across a website that had information on building shop cabinets by Tom Clark.  He had lots of cabinets that he has made over the years and they looked great.  He was selling a book on how he did it and I really liked his style so I purchased it.
Practical Shop Cabinets
Since I got the book, I have built two bench cabinets.  One is 10 drawers and the other is 8.  The first one took me about 30 hours over 14 days at about $80.   It has a 3/4" plywood top.  The second one I just finished in about 24 hours over 8 days for about the same cost.  I had built a Ron Paulk style workbench which I cut down and used for the top on this cabinet.  I must say these cabinets are rock solid and should last a long time.  It is nice to have lots of space for organized storage where things have a home.  I also fixed up an old small 2 drawer dresser and replaced it with 4 brand new drawers with drawer slides.  It used to have drawers that just slid in on wood rails.  I painted it black and left the drawer fronts natural.  I just used polyurethane satin for the finish on the red oak plywood.  The 8 drawer cabinet was finished with boiled linseed oil, then 1 coat of satin poly and it looks a bit better than the straight poly.
I made the wooden drawer handles out of bits of cherry and maple.  Some were cut by my cnc machine but most were cut out on the bandsaw.  The handle design is from Matthias Wandel and the ones on the 4 drawer unit are designed by John Heisz.  These handles are much more solid than what you can buy.