I have been working on extending the workbench on the side wall of the garage. I used unfinished kitchen cabinets for the base and 3/4" ply for the workbench. The original portion was made with the cheap Birch wood unfinished cabinets from Home Depot, but they were so poorly made I had to place corner blocks top and bottom and a 1x4 board inside the back wall to securely secure it to the wall. The Home Depot cabinets are 3/4" shorter than the new unfinished Oak cabinets I bought at Lowes so although I doubled the 3/4" ply for the original countertop the new portion will be a single layer of 3/4" ply with extra reinforcements where needed.
I took some photos of the last cabinet I reinforced and installed to give a good example I what I believe is needed for the lame pre-made big box store versions of so called affordable cabinets. Not all of what I have done is needed for all applications but the corner blocks and 1x4 I believe is a must if you want them to last.
I forgot to take a before picture but here is what I am working with....... it has already been reinforced, painted, and installed but I will cover those steps as I go.
I used 2x4's to reinforce and support the bottom of the cabinet. Since these cabinets have a fake wood grain plastic veneer I used 80 grit sandpaper to scuff it good and wood glue and 1 1/2" brad nails in a nail gun to hold things together.
A 1x4 was cut to length and glued and nailed inside the top of the back panel, I also glued and nailed the ends to reduce the chance of the entire back panel pulling loose. Lowes used those cheap plastic corner pieces on the top to provide lame anchor points for the countertop. I will mention more on those later.
Because this is the last cabinet and I will have a 10" overhang at the end I cut a 2x12 and glued and nailed it flush with the top of the cabinet to give me more places to glue and screw the counter top down at the end. I also glued and screwed a 2x4 on the outside top edge for the same reason.
This is the previous cabinet already installed with the end of the first 8' section of 3'4 ply installed. Washers were used when gluing and screwing on that 2x4 to reduce the chance of the screw pulling through the cheap particle board.
The last cabinet is placed and screwed to the wall using 3" construction screws. I spaced it far enough to store some water jugs under the counter and allow for the overhang of the 8' length of plywood at the far end. a 2x4 was screwed to the wall to further support the plywood and give me something to screw into. Everything on top was given a good amount of construction adhesive to glue down the plywood.
I learned why these screws were on clearance at Home Depot, they are a Phillips head and I had to keep swapping the bit in my drill driver because all the other construction screws I use have a torx bit head. Torx bits wont slip or spin in the head of a screw like Phillips heads do. I regret "saving" the money on these screws, they are not worth the hassle.
More to come in the next post.
I took some photos of the last cabinet I reinforced and installed to give a good example I what I believe is needed for the lame pre-made big box store versions of so called affordable cabinets. Not all of what I have done is needed for all applications but the corner blocks and 1x4 I believe is a must if you want them to last.
I forgot to take a before picture but here is what I am working with....... it has already been reinforced, painted, and installed but I will cover those steps as I go.
I used 2x4's to reinforce and support the bottom of the cabinet. Since these cabinets have a fake wood grain plastic veneer I used 80 grit sandpaper to scuff it good and wood glue and 1 1/2" brad nails in a nail gun to hold things together.
A 1x4 was cut to length and glued and nailed inside the top of the back panel, I also glued and nailed the ends to reduce the chance of the entire back panel pulling loose. Lowes used those cheap plastic corner pieces on the top to provide lame anchor points for the countertop. I will mention more on those later.
Because this is the last cabinet and I will have a 10" overhang at the end I cut a 2x12 and glued and nailed it flush with the top of the cabinet to give me more places to glue and screw the counter top down at the end. I also glued and screwed a 2x4 on the outside top edge for the same reason.
This is the previous cabinet already installed with the end of the first 8' section of 3'4 ply installed. Washers were used when gluing and screwing on that 2x4 to reduce the chance of the screw pulling through the cheap particle board.
The last cabinet is placed and screwed to the wall using 3" construction screws. I spaced it far enough to store some water jugs under the counter and allow for the overhang of the 8' length of plywood at the far end. a 2x4 was screwed to the wall to further support the plywood and give me something to screw into. Everything on top was given a good amount of construction adhesive to glue down the plywood.
I learned why these screws were on clearance at Home Depot, they are a Phillips head and I had to keep swapping the bit in my drill driver because all the other construction screws I use have a torx bit head. Torx bits wont slip or spin in the head of a screw like Phillips heads do. I regret "saving" the money on these screws, they are not worth the hassle.
More to come in the next post.
