Cabinet Building

[fraz627]

I plan on building my own cabinets, so I'm asking this from the people Who ha built there own.

which method is best for a van/RV, box with a face frame or completely framed with thinner plywood skin?

the floor of my van will also be the bottom of my cabinets. Also did you contour your cabinets to the side walls of the van?

Any helpful hints and or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Fraz

 

[ckelly78z]

It's easier to insulate your van completely before attempting cabinet building. This will take all of the ribs, and bumps out of the surface, and provide needed warmth/cooling in your van.I would try to contour cabinets to the slope, and shape of the wall, which will save space, prevent unreachable cracks, look much better, and probably be more secure with less squeaking/movement.

You will appreciate it more, and be proud of your work if it has a neat/tidy appearance, and doesn't waste any usable space.

 

[fraz627]

Yes was defiantly going to finish the floor walls and ceiling first, was planning on using the van wall as the back of the cabinet and the van floor as the floor of the cabinets.

fraz

 

[highdesertranger]

keep the weight down. 1x2's ad 1/8 plywood is all you need. if you have a shelve that will have heavy items use 1/2 plywood. yes on the contouring you want to use very bit of space. with no contour you are just wasting the space behind the cabinet. highdesertranger

 

[Almost There]

What wood you use will depend on how you want the finished cabinet to look.

I have a step by step pictorial of my cabinet building in the build thread (link in signature).

All my cabinets were built with 1/2" plywood. The only place I really needed heavier wood and had to modify afterwards was one freestanding cabinet wall (pantry) behind the drivers seat. The drawer slides worked perfectly when the drawers were empty. Loading the drawers caused enough bowing of that front wall so that the drawers fell off their slides, particularly the middle 3 drawers. I ended up installed cross braces under the middle shelf that holds the two wall together. The other problem I had was the 1/2" plywood was not thick enough to allow proper installation of the door hinges. The wood soon splintered under use. I added a trim strip of 1x2 finished pine to the front outside edge of that cabinet wall and moved the door hinges on to it.

The backs of all of the cabinets are contoured to follow the finished wall of the van. This means that the drawers at the top are shallower than the bottom drawers.

 

[flying kurbmaster]

I use 3/4 x 1 inch pine framing, glued and brad nailed, then 5mm panelling glued and bradnailed. The only place I used anything thicker was on the top of the bed where I used 10mm ply, I bet I could lift he entire interior of my van and walk down the street with it. If you feel that you are going to put a lot of weight on it you can add another 3/4 x 1 brace down the center of the shelf in question none of mine have this. I did as you suggested used the walls and floors and sometimes the ceiling as backing. I don’t have doors on my cabinets, (nothing falls out) but if I were to add them they would likely be 10mm thick and I would have to glue a small section of wood behind the hinges on the panelling. Some of my cabinets have 3mm panelling. I am thinking of adding doors to a few of them to streamline and remove some of the busyness of seeing inside cupboards. You can look up my user name and look through my post to see the interiors of some of my vans and how it looks. I have since improved a lot of the interior, those pictures are several years old but you will get the idea. Nothing has ever come apart or broken in 10 years of use.

 

[Gr8ful]

Here's a you tube link that is exactliy what you're doing

 

[maki2]

I take a different approach than most people which has to do with having spent time building airplanes in addition to many years of working on houses. So my approach is for two reasons, keeping things lightweight and having a cabinet structure that can flex with rough roads without coming apart.

I frame my cabinetry out of aluminum angle. It forms the face frame. Very easy, super fast construction method and it is lightweight and durable. Won't fall apart from the vibration. Assembled with pull rivets. If you need some small brackets to attach it to the wall you just cut of small pieces of the angle stock and make your own brackets. For countertop supports lengths of angles reach back to the wall. The only contouring necessary is for any 1/8" thick  end panels to close off the cabinets. It does not require a lot of skills or tools to achieve it, measure, cut, clamp, drill, rivet, put in a few screws here and there.

 

[fraz627]

Thanks for your input. I've been reading your Build thread, very informative, to say the least I'm learning a lot.
Thanks
Fraz

 

[VanTalk00]

I take a different approach than most people which has to do with having spent time building airplanes in addition to many years of working on houses. So my approach is for two reasons, keeping things lightweight and having a cabinet structure that can flex with rough roads without coming apart.

So, maki2, as you know, I'm getting into building with aluminum from my CAD video.  What else have you designed using L frame?  Have you experimented with using acrylic adhesive instead of rivets? They say it's almost as strong as a weld?  I'm going to try it.  Any words of advice?  I bought about a million little clamps that I'll use to piece everything together, then glue it all at once.  On the bed, I've thought about the possibility of the 1" x 1/8" slats stretching over time, so I won't glue them - will drill, tap, and screw, so I can remove and cut/shorten them.

Not much on the web about building with aluminum - except for 80/20.  I think 80/20 is overkill for my little van and WAY more expensive.

Thanks,

Jim

 

[maki2]

So, maki2, as you know, I'm getting into building with aluminum from my CAD video.  What else have you designed using L frame?  Have you experimented with using acrylic adhesive instead of rivets? They say it's almost as strong as a weld?  I'm going to try it.  Any words of advice?  I bought about a million little clamps that I'll use to piece everything together, then glue it all at once.  On the bed, I've thought about the possibility of the 1" x 1/8" slats stretching over time, so I won't glue them - will drill, tap, and screw, so I can remove and cut/shorten them.

Not much on the web about building with aluminum - except for 80/20.  I think 80/20 is overkill for my little van and WAY more expensive.

Thanks,

Jim

Agreed, 80/20 while it is a terrific product and great for building up structures used in workshops and factories to support machines and such is too heavy and too expensive for our application.

I have not looked into acrylic adhesive. Riveting is so fast and easy and plenty strong. I do suggest going on Ebay and buying a kit that has cleco pliers and clamps in it. The only sizes of clecos you will need are 3/16 and possibly 1/8".  It is a really fast way to pre-drill and temporarily assemble the face frame before you put the rivets in. The reason you want to do it that way is you can take the piece back apart after drilling through them and deburr all the holes as well as clean out any debris or shavings that might have gotten between the surfaces when drilling.

Another trick I used was purchasing some truly square and strong brackets from Fast Cap. The shape of those brackets made it easy to clamp the aluminum angle pieces to it.

Of course I created 2D drawings for the various pieces as well as an assembly layout drawing. Then I put some scrap plywood panels on the floor, used a few lengths of 1 by materials I had on hand as well to slightly elevate things to clear the tips of the clecos. I am attaching some photos of the assembly process of one of the face frames. Once it is assembled I screw it to the floor inside the vehicle, in my case a trailer. Get it standing square and then put in the horizontal supports that tie it to the side of the vehicle. I have a vintage molded fiberglass trailer so of course the wall are not 90 degrees to the floor and the surface is slightly irregular and the floor has a slight hump in the middle. Old trailers and old houses are never squared up, that is life in the renovation slow lane. So all the piece that tie the face frame to the wall need to be measured in place for the final fit. I will also add in a few views captured from my 3D CAD design software.

This image is my final layout of the interior, I don't have any upper cabinets and of course most of the outer walls have been suppressed so the interior is visible in the view. You can't see the face framing in this view, it is hidden by the cabinet doors and panels.

A view of the aluminum framing inside of the cabinet that has the stove and sink with those doors and panels supressed

the 2D layout drawing for assembling the face frame for that cabinet. It provided me with the dimensions for the spacing the individual pieces

The actual down on the floor with the real pieces of the frame, squaring them up and drilling the holes for the rivets. You can just see the clecos which are little spring loaded draw clamps with fingers that insert into the drilled holes and keep the pieces exactly lined up. A very fast clamping system for riveted structures. But of course an assortment of various C clamps were also needed during this squaring it up phase. You can also see that 2D layout drawing plan for the framing sitting on the plywood.

Close up of a clecos inserted into the frame

the assembled face frame


I have the frame put into place, in a couple of weeks I will get back to work on the project and take some photos of the framing before I start fabricating the doors and drawers. I have not finalized all the drawer heights yet. 

My bed frame was done in similar way with a combination of aluminum angle, vertical piece are square tubing for strength and U channel for the upper piece of the face frame, the cross bars going back to the wall that support the mattress are made with aluminum T bar for its strength . the T bar shape makes it easy to screw to the face frame on the front of the bed and secure to the wood 2 x 2 cleat on that rear wall. I did make those upper T bar supports for the mattress base removable in case I wanted to store something larger under there. No telling what I might want to do in the future. Sometime this summer when I am done with the build all this stuff will go into an official build thread.

I will stop in about a week and take a photo of the bed frame for you. You don't really need to use slats. 1/4" plywood over T bars spread out about 16 to 20 inches apart is extremely strong for a 30" or so wide bed. Not a scheme for a pullout slat bed though but good for a single bed which is all I want to have.

 

[highdesertranger]

Dang, Maki that is beautiful work. for sure give us more pics of your build. did I miss it what are you facing the cabinets with? highdesertranger

 

[VanTalk00]

I LOVE it.  Thank-you for responding in such detail!  I had never heard of clecos, and I will definitely buy a kit now.  My original thought was to get a bunch of little clamps, but the cleco idea is MUCH better.

I see you have private messaging disabled, but I'd like to swap contact info if you don't mind.  I'm really looking forward to hearing more from you about your aluminum building adventures. Can you email me at vantalk00 (at) gmail (dot) com? Thanks.

 

[maki2]

Dang,  Maki that is beautiful work.  for sure give us more pics of your build.  did I miss it what are you facing the cabinets with?  highdesertranger

Thanks for the compliment. I have an advantage in that I have spent years doing precision fabrication work with aluminum. Of course I do make mistakes now and again like everyone else. The aluminum angle is its own facing. My cabinet doors are 1 x 2 poplar lumber, available at both Home Depot and Lowes. I will use the Kreg screw method of joining the perimeter frame together. My panel insets are a PVC coated, woven mesh. You have likely seen that kind of mesh on some of the patio furniture. Super strong stuff. Lightweight, and it allows air movement inside of the cabinets to help prevent mold and mildew.

There are a couple of ways to install the mesh. You can rout a groove and use screen spline. I though about doing it that way, it is how a pro would finish it off, I do have the tools and skills for that. But I am going to do it the less labor intensive way and staple it to the backside of the cabinet. I like doing nicely finished work and I will do a very tidy job of it, but as it is only visible with the doors open I will take the compromise solution of less labor time but still achieve the same look on the cabinet exterior.

The cabinet hinges will be screwed to the wood doors but installed to the aluminum frame with rivets. I will need to make spacers to put under the hinge. That is because the upper and lower rails of the cabinet face frame overlap the upright vertical pieces which means I need an 1/8" thick filler to go under the hinge. Easy enough to make with a 1/8" thick flat piece of aluminum. I will make them out of the leftover scraps of angle. If the head of one of the rivets protrudes too much so that it hits the door just use a ball shaped burr and put a slight dish into the backside of the wood door. That slight dishing on the backside will be barely noticeable when the door is opened. I also do that to the underside of the countertop so that it pulls tight against the framing.

The person in the foreground in the photo below is me circa 1980 while working in mockup at Boeing. I was installing a bracket on the trailing edge of the wing on a mockup for a new variation on an extended plane at Boeing.  Mockup was great, we had to fabricate all kinds of unique parts, my favorite job I had during my years there, something new and different everyday. I wish I had solid rivets and a lovely #00 rivet gun and bucking bars but pull rivets work just fine for this task.

 

[VanTalk00]

My panel insets are a PVC coated, woven mesh. You have likely seen that kind of mesh on some of the patio furniture. Super strong stuff. Lightweight, and it allows air movement inside of the cabinets to help prevent mold and mildew.

Will you use the same material on the cabinet sides, and how will you attach it to the aluminum frame? Also, can you speak a little about your preference for pull rivets versus pop rivets in this application? Recommendations for a pull rivet gun?

Thanks!

 

[maki2]

Will you use the same material on the cabinet sides, and how will you attach it to the aluminum frame?  Also, can you speak a little about your preference for pull rivets versus pop rivets in this application?  Recommendations for a pull rivet gun?

Thanks!

Pull rivets....pop rivets.  Pull is the more accurate term, that is how the expansion is achieved. Pop is the noise they make.

As to a gun, don't buy the cheapest on on the shelf. Sometimes I use the hand powered ones, at the moment I have a Dewalt 6" swivel, it is decent. But since I have some wear and tear arthritis and there is a large air compressor as well as a Marson hydraulic rivet puller here at the workshop I used that for the majority of the framing work. But as I was looking up those tools to make sure they are still around I noticed that there are now some battery operated pullers, Milwaiuokee 12v. That would be handy if I did not already have the use of the compressor driven gun but I am not going to invest in one. Then I noticed on Ebay that they have some rivet nut guns that you can power with a drill motor. I have no idea if they work good but they only cost about $15.00. Interesting, but once again I am already tooled up so I probably won't buy one to try it. But nice to know about. I get to learn something new almost everyday when doing research to verify things while helping people in forums A way to pull rivets with a drill motor....clever... but only if it is reliable and easy to eject the pins.

 

[highdesertranger]

can't wait to see the finished product. highdesertranger

 

[maki2]

I thought I had mentioned using 1/8" inch plywood for end panels. But the end panels on those two parallel kitchen area cabinets are slightly different. One side has the fridge above the wheel well so while it will have a panel screwed into the aluminum frame it would not need to be removed other than if I really had to get behind it to repair the fiberglass wheel well perhaps if a rock broke through it. I did have to repair that kind of hole in one of the wheel wells a part of the restoration/renovation of the shell.

The other side, the one shown in the photos above, has a lot of electrical stuff at that end towards the bed. So the end panels on it are different and need to be stouter and easier to remove. I have not yet finalized the arrangement of all those small electrical components. I don't sweat all that small stuff until I get there. I just deal with the big, fixed items first. No point in overloading the circuits on a senior brain with hundreds of details that don't need to all be worked out in advance. Building for yourself gives you a lot of slack compared with designing something that is going into production by a team of workers who have to know exactly what they need to do next when they show up for work.

 

[VanTalk00]

Sorry to keep badgering you, but do you know if you can bend the end of a 1" x 1/8" aluminum flat at a right angle without it cracking? Say you want the last 1" of a 24" flat piece bent 90 degrees. Is the type of aluminum alloy you buy important? (e.g not 6061?) Have you done this? I have a lot of these angles and would like to be able to just bend them if possible, rather than attaching a short L-channel piece to the end of a flat.

I'm sorry to pounce, but you're the first person I've found with extensive experience working with aluminum cabinets, etc.

Thanks again,

Jim

 

[maki2]

Sorry to keep badgering you, but do you know if you can bend the end of a 1" x 1/8" aluminum flat at a right angle without it cracking? Say you want the last 1" of a 24" flat piece bent 90 degrees.  Is the type of aluminum alloy you buy important? (e.g not 6061?)  Have you done this?  I have a lot of these angles and would like to be able to just bend them if possible, rather than attaching a short L-channel piece to the end of a flat.

I'm sorry to pounce, but you're the first person I've found with extensive experience working with aluminum cabinets, etc.

Thanks again,

Jim

If you mean can you trim off one side of the angle as well as the inside radius area then bend over a length.  Yes but not with a super tight radius of course. 

 I am not an engineer, I can't give you the load bearing and span specifics for the various alloy types and shapes of aluminum. But if you look you should be able to find charts on the internet with those specifications. If not then you need to find a mechanical engineering text book to give you the charts and formulas. I am much too lazy for that. I use 6061 T6 for where I know I need good strength. But sometimes I use the "architectural" metals for where strength is not a critical issue. Plus in some places I use square tubing, others U channel and also some T bar or even flat bar.  For instance the top of my bed frame is a 1" U channel and into it I fit uprights of 3/4" square tube, both extrusions are 6061 T6. The reason for that design thinking is strength plus easy assembly. The weight of my body is going to be resting on that upper edge fairly often when sitting and that load needs to be transferred down to the floor without the vertical pieces doing sideways deflection or the upper rail deflecting too much. The kitchen face frame is not going to take anywhere close to that kind of structural point loading so L angle is sufficient. Just think it through, how much force will be put onto the structure at any given location, from what direction and how long of a time will it have to carry that load. Bridge designing in very small sizes