G'day welcome to downunder woodworks. In this video I'm going to show you how I made
this cheap, simple, shallow wall cabinet. I first ripped down some 16 mil MDF into the
four pieces that would make up the outside of the cabinet. These were all
the same width. I then used the jointer to remove the saw marks from one edge of
each board that was going to be the front facing edge. The edge against the
wall didn't need to be done. Next I cut a groove in each board for the six
mm MDF backer board. I ran each board over the blade set to
the depth I wanted and without moving the fence
and then using a test piece I adjusted the fence until I had the right fit for
the backer board and then finished cutting the groove in each piece.
I made this simple right-angled jig that referenced along the front edge of my
router table and this was so I could route some 16 mm wide
channels on the inside of the side panels to help locate the top and bottom
panels and the internal shelves. Using a combination of a spacer block and my
table saw fence I was able to cut the channels in exactly the same location on
both side panels making sure the shelves ended up level and parallel. The rebates
on the ends were for the top and bottom panels and the other channels were for
the internal shelves.
Here I'm checking that my alignment is good and it was. I was using a half inch
spiral bit to cut these channels so I needed to adjust my table saw fence back
just a little to creep up to the right width for a snug fit. Perfect.
With all the components milled up it was time for paint.
I first brushed the undercoat onto the edges so I could get a nice thick coat
because the edges of MDF are very thirsty.
I used masking tape in all the grooves to eliminate any paint getting onto the
glue surfaces when I spray painted the boards and to keep paint out of the backer
board groove I just used some lengths of six mm dowel laid in the groove.
Here's a shot of all the cabinet pieces sprayed with sealer undercoat
After sanding everything down here I am spraying the final coats of satin white
on all the pieces but you can't tell because it's white going over white so
you'll just have to take my word for it.
Once the paint had dried it was time for assembly but before I did that I fitted
the cabinet part of the hinges. This was much easier now than if the cabinet was
assembled. I used that center hole in the hinge bracket to eyeball my height mark
on the masking tape
The first step in the assembly was this shortened shelf and upright piece.
They were different to all the other shelves which were the full width of the cabinet
These were only glued together so that no fixings were visible. Once the glue
had dried on those first pieces I could finish the assembly. The shelves and
bottom panel of the cabinet were glued in place and nailed through the sides.
The cabinet was wide enough that it fit between two walls with a very small
gap either side so the sides wouldn't be visible.
Here you can see that shortened shelf and upright piece in the top left-hand
corner. The cabinet is actually upside-down in this shot. Next I cut the
backer board to size and painted the inside face of it off-camera.
After sliding the backer board in place I could then glue and nail the top panel
in place to complete the cabinet.
The cabinet was going to be hung using a French cleat which I cut from a 19
mm pine board. The backer board was set in nineteen mm so that
the cabinet would sit flush against the wall. The top cleat was fixed to the back
of the cabinet with glue and screws. I drilled pilot holes first and then
remove the cleat to enlarge the holes in the side panels for screw clearance.
The bottom cleat was fixed to the stud in the wall and here is the cabinet
hanging on the wall. It was very hard filming in that tiny space. The doors for
the cabinet are going to be shaker-style doors and they're also made out of 16mm
MDF. I've gone ahead and cut all my pieces for the doors so I've got two
stiles which run the full height of the door, actually these ones are plus 15
mm because I'm not going to have a handle on the door, I'm just gonna
have a small lip at the bottom where you can just open the door with your hand.
So I've got the two stiles and the two rails, obviously that's the configuration
of the door with a panel inset in the middle. Now you can see there I've got a
panel just sitting underneath those components it's six mm MDF for the
panel. The way I'm gonna put these doors together is a way that I saw Peter
Millard do, and ill provide a link for his video to that. Basically what it is, you
run a six mm groove for the full length of the inside of each style and then on
the rails you run the groove on three sides, so on
this end, along that edge and on this end and what that does is allows first of
all allows you to put the panel in but it also gives you a small basically
spline cavity here and then what you do is you just take another
piece of six mm MDF and slide it in and glue that together and yes, it's a fairly
easy way of making the doors and it looks pretty sturdy so I'm going to go
with that. For the grooves I used my slot cutter in the router table.
The slot cutter's only four mm wide so after making the first pass on
all the pieces
I adjusted the height of the cutter to enlarge the grooves to six mm
with a second pass.
Here you can see where those splines I mentioned will get glued in. With the
rails and styles together in a dry fit I measured up for the internal panels
and cut them out.
And I cut out the 8 splines as well.
I wasn't confident trying to glue the whole door together in one go so I glued
one corner together first
and then once that was set it made the rest of the door glue up much easier.
To make sure the doors glued up flat I clamped on a pair of cauls at each end
then I glued in the splines and left everything to set.
Once the glue had set on the door assembly the top and bottom were flushed
off on the table saw.
Next job was to drill out the doors for the door part of the hinges
and drill the mounting holes. With that done the doors were sanded before being
spray painted to match the cabinet, which I did off-camera. When the paint was dry
I fitted the hinges to the doors
and then fitted the doors to the cabinet. Did I mention it was very difficult to
shoot video in this tiny space?
Well I think the cabinet turned out great, it really serves its purpose well
and hopefully you found that way of making the shaker style doors
interesting. I certainly did when I watched Peter's video so I definitely
wanted to give it a go myself. Now I know there's a few critics out there of MDF
but to be honest when it comes to a project that's going to be painted or a
paint finish you really can't go past MDF, it's cheap its stable and it's easy
to get. Thanks for watching through to the end of the video, hopefully you got
something out of it. If you want to know what I'm up to in between videos you can
follow me on Instagram and if you haven't done so already I do invite you
to subscribe to the channel that way you can see what's coming up but until the
next one, you guys all have a great day.