Pantry Cabinet

Leo Voisine

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5,703
Location
East Freeetown, Massachusetts
OK - this is purely woodworking, or maybe carpentry - you can decide.

I am building a Pantry Cabinet, rather large.

It is 18" wide 92" tall 32" deep

3 raised panel doors

6 24" deep shallow pull out shelves.

This is not something I do on any sort of a regular basis and not really what I consider a fun project. I don't hate it, but it's not my first choice. I would hire it out if I could.

This is a BIG cabinet - and YES, I do use the CNC as one of the tools to make this cabinet. The CNC is unparalleled in its ability to get dados and rabits square and parallel. I am building a cabinet, not trying to preserve "traditional" woodworking.

In order to "fit" the cabinet into the corner it is going to live in, I needed to remove the baseboard heat and install "under cabinet" heaters. I needed to replumb the heat circuit a little to do that. Plumbing is almost my least favorite thing to do, but I cannot afford to farm it out. Repairing my car - I farm out, even though I was a auto/marine mechanic in my younger days.

I will make the progress into a youtube video
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCANIXXLCVtl0rkJIz7dwMlg

I have have not yet posted the video, but I will be uploading to my channel a bit more regularly now that I am only a couple or years away from retiring.

Pantry Cabinet closed.JPGPantry Cabinet.JPG
 
Small design thought. I wouldn't have necessarily thought of this myself but the drawers in the pantry at our house were setup with undermount slides when we bought the place. I quite like it, as you have a bit more side-side room and it didn't increase the top to bottom usage to badly plus you get a dust shield between shelves. Basically what the fellow did was he put in 1/2" plywood shelves, then mounted the slides to those with the pull outs on top..

A couple of pictures probably explain it better than my ramblings..
IMG_20180218_093258.jpg

IMG_20180218_093229.jpg

I re-did the lighting with the LED strips (and diffusers) that leevalley sells, I'm sure there are cheaper ones but they were pretty easy to assemble with a pressure switch (so they automatically go on when the door opens) and are low profile while providing decent light.
 
I thought about under mount slides. They were significantly more money. Even with side mount non-soft close slides the 6 24" slides were some serious money.

I don't think the slides in the pics you posted are really undermount slides. They look like side mount slides but used under rather than on the side. The strength of the slide is seriously compromised. Like a 2x4 - laying down is not as strong laying down as it is standing up.

My drawer slides are 24 inch full extension slides rated at 100 pounds. I am concerned that with any significant weight on the drawer would stress the slides and maybe cause a failure.

Under mount slides are designed to carry the load to full extension without failure.

On the other cabinets I will be using 24" under mount soft close slides.
 
I don't think the slides in the pics you posted are really undermount slides. They look like side mount slides but used under rather than on the side. The strength of the slide is seriously compromised.

I agree. General rule of thumb for this hack in the "post surprise" discussions I've seen is to restrict the shelves at about half their extension in order to avoid those "surprises".
 
I agree. General rule of thumb for this hack in the "post surprise" discussions I've seen is to restrict the shelves at about half their extension in order to avoid those "surprises".

That's about where they stop maybe a smidge more around 18" for a 24" slide. We've loaded them pretty heavily without visible flexing or sag so far. Proper undermounts would undoubtedly be better.
 
With the design intent on my cabinet, the side mount is fine.

The total width gained by mounting under is only about 1", 1/2 inch per side.

The value of full extension outweighs the width advantage - at least to me.

I do however appreciate the thoughts for the under mount.
 
Not sure if the width of your pantry is large enough to make this practical, but what I have seen is a central vertical board or partition that has shelves on both sides. The central board has slides at the top and bottom, so fewer slides to buy and the shelves that aren't as deep.
 
Looks like plenty of storage.

One thing I've notice with two of the pullouts we have in our lower cabinets is that the metal drawer glide front scrapes the door from time to time. The one we have that the front panel that covers the front of the glides does not. So my advice would be to make your tray fronts cover those and round them over on the corners to prevent the scraping, or at least add some blocks in front to prevent it.
 
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