Will you share your experience for Garage wall cabinet construction?

[mac sparrow]

Hello,

This will be my first ever meaningful wood project; ever!  I've got a garage with red brick walls.  I'm going to make some cabinets to hang on the wall.  I've been doing a lot of reading on how to do it.

I only have a couple of Festools to help me do the work.
I already have, or will be arriving soon:

• TSC 55
• ETS150/3
• Carvex
• Kreg Pocket Hole K4MS
• Kreg Shelf Pin System

I plan to mount wooden battens to the wall, then mount the cabinets to the battens.  This will give me some additional space to store my guide rails and long bits of lightweight wood behind the cabinets, access to the side of the cabinets is plentiful.

I guess my question is, I believe I have enough tools to more than get by and to build a successful cabinet system, I'm just getting a little lost with information overload.  Is there a definitive way to build them that you follow and recommend?  Using the pocket hole system, do I mount the sides on top of the base or to the side of the base?  It's questions like that I'm less sure of.  I could just use a best guess and I'm sure it would all work out great.

I've never used a sander before either so I'm keen to learn how to stain the plywood and what type of ply to go for.  Not looking to spend lots of money on them but want to do a good job.  It's all about learning on this one.

Thanks for your input.

 

[TomGadwa1]

I have made four cabinets for my garage. Two of them hold Festool only. The third has some Festool and Lee Valley MFT kit. Number four has various mitre gauges and fences. I suggest making the sides the full height of the cabinet. The reason for this is that you can cut your shelves to the same width as the top and bottom of the cabinet. The face frame will then have full height stiles and the rails will fit between the stiles. You can then use your pocket hole system to build the face frames. They can be attached to the cabinet using several methods including biscuit joiner, domino joiner or of course the pocket hole system. I prefer to use the domino. But all those above mentioned will work just fine. I made my cabinets about a foot deep which will accommodate systainers and made them about 35 inches wide and tall. This will allow two columns of systainers of varying sizes to fit nicely. It is late now but if you would like let me know and I would be happy to post some pictures of my cabinets for you!

 

[mac sparrow]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your efforts and time.  I get pretty much most of what you are saying, thank you.

Please do post pictures, I'd love to see them.

I'm going to go with 18mm Ply of some sort.  As well as storing systainers I will be storing other items in the cabinets as well.

I need to mount them above my work bench, as I said in my original post, I was going to batten the wall and mount the cabinet to the battens, do you think that would be a good option?  I'll need to drill and plug the battens to the brick.  I will then have a couple of inches behind the cabinet to store long items.

Thanks again.

 

[rljatl]

I made mine like Norm's.  See his video below for some ideas.  You might want to try using a French cleat to hang your cabinets.  I used my Festool track saw and router instead of a table saw to cut the pieces and route the dadoes and rabbits.

 

[Billedis]

I built my first set of garage cabinets out of 3/4 ply and used the kreg pocket hole to put the cases together.  Since I have a router table, I tongue and grooved the rails and stiles and ply faces and just glued them.  They are 42" high, 36" wide and 16" deep.  For the doors I used poplar for the frames and mdf panels for the raised panels.  Since I knew they would be holding a lot of weight, I put a 2x4 above the ceiling over the trusses and used threaded 3/8" rod at each corner of the cabinet so they would not sag.  I have had them up for about 5 years now and they hold a lot of stuff.  Bill

 

[Stoli]

I would follow Tom's advice on having the sides be full length.  That way when you join the top an bottom with pocket screws, the screws are holing the sides up across the length of the screw (i.e. the screw would have to shear off to have the joint come apart).  If you went in the other direction, you are only relying on the strength of the threads in the plywood to hold the joint together.  Plus, this option hides the plywood lamination from view from the sides, and they will only be visible from the bottom.

 

[mac sparrow]

rljatl - Thank you, yep I've viewed that video many times and this morning after I posted the thread I had a brain wave, I thought to myself "hey, the TS55's can do 45 degree cuts, I don't need a table saw after all, so I can do Norm's cabinet design" or words to that affect.

So I am going to go with the french cleat system for hanging the cabinets to the wall.  Will I have to make stoppers for the bottom rear edge to stop it sagging forward at the top if that makes sense?  I'll view Norm's video a few more times before beginning the project.

No dadoes or rabbits for me, no router.  My version will be a modified version of Norm's, or a compromised version we will see

Billedis - Thank you.  Would you happen to have a picture of the rod & 2 x 4 system you used please?

Stoli - Thank for the very clear description, that all makes sense and yes I will follow the advice from Tom and yourself to go full length for the sides.

It's all coming together. 

 

[rljatl]

So I am going to go with the french cleat system for hanging the cabinets to the wall.  Will I have to make stoppers for the bottom rear edge to stop it sagging forward at the top if that makes sense?  I'll view Norm's video a few more times before beginning the project.

No, you do not have to use a stopper for the bottom because the back panel is recessed by the thickness of the French cleat.  So, the French cleat is actually recessed.  Fast forward to the 8:00 mark in the video and you will see what I mean.