I just use a decent grade of 3/4" plywood, assembled with dados, screws and glue. Drawers are 1/2" Baltic birch plywood on ball bearing, full-open slides, with 1/4" or 3/8" plywood bottoms glued in and solid wood, applied fronts. I dislike melamine for a couple of dozen reasons and prefer plain plywood.
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I switched to prefinished plywood when the inside needs to be finished. Regular cabinet grade plywood if the interior doesn't need a finish.
I started with absolutely nothing. Now, thanks to years of hard work, careful planning, and perseverance, I find I still have most of it left.
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I like using Melamine for the carcases of kitchen and bath cabinets. Nice and bright inside, easy to clean, a good durable coating, and it's very reasonably priced.
John
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I use 3/4" ply for the sides and bottoms. I dado in the bottoms.
The rest is all applied with pocket screws and glue.
I am going to try those adjustable feet in the future. It looks like it simplifies the process.
I shellac the interior after assembly.
No animals were injured or killed in the production of this post.
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The trick to using the search function here is that you need to put a plus (+) in front of the terms that must be present, and a - in front of the terms you don't want:
+cabinet +carcass -roadkill
Also, the default is to search for hits from the last week only, so you should change that to year if you want to see what's still available. Threads unmodified for a year get deleted.
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Been using melamine for 20 years. no regrets.
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Plywood to match the faces. Once in a while I use Baltic Birch just because it is such a much better plywood. I use BB for drawer boxes, plywood for cabinets with doors. I also always finish the insides too. To me it is a sign of craftsmanship.
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Location: Eagle River Alaska
I pretty much use either 3/4 pre-finished plywood or Melamine depending on the job or person I'm building for. IMO both make good cabinet boxes.
I can't see using a material for cabinet boxes that I have to put the finish on myself. The factory finish on plywood is much tougher finish that I could put on in my shop and the Melamine coating is very tough and stand up to a lot also.
Alaskan's for Global Warming
Eagle River AK
