Cabinet Box Materials

[stickman]

I have been working with the many box cutter and cabinet programs.

I am going to be building my kitchen cabinets. They are going to be oak face frame cabinets, using faceless hardware throughout. I am in the process of considering cabinet box materials and thought I would ask others what they are using.

I have thought about white melamine interiors, colored melamines, MDF, baltic birch plywood or even a birch or poplar plywood.

I want to hear what others have been using.

[Ryan Patterson]

Jay,
Most of the cabinets I build is made from 3/4 prefin maple. Some are colored melamines. The doors will be a rasid panel wood on the prefin maple, and foil doors on the melamines.

Ryan

[richards]

I use melamine exculsively for the interiors, primarily due to the consistant thickness of the material. The plywoods that I've tried have had quite a bit of variation in thickness, even baltic birch.

All material is 3/4-inch thick, even though many use 5/8-inch thick. Even the backs are 3/4-inch thick to give rigidity to the box. The boxes are heavy, but they are stable.

[beacon14]

I also use 3/4" melamine for almost all my cabinet sides, tops, bottoms and shelves. It's economical, strong when built properly, durable (I know, unless it gets wet - so I make sure never to have melamine in contact with the floor), looks good when cut and joined cleanly, cleans easily, and makes the contents of the cabinets easy to see. Occaisionally I'll seek out maple or cherry woodgrain melamine if there will be glass doors or open cabinetry in order to match the doors, but most people like white just fine, and it's readily available. I build frameless cabinets and I always edge the front edges with matching material and finish to the doors, so with the doors closed you absolutely can't tell what the inside looks like.

I use 1/4" MDF white one sided board for my backs (I use the offcuts for drawer bottoms, plus they come in handy for jigs and such around the shop).

see this post for my construction methods