Best Wood For Making Cabinet Doors

For making cabinets we use interior plywood.

Best wood for making cabinet doors.

Build the face frame from solid wood to match or contrast with the sides. You could also use dowels if you d rather that s typically what i do lately. Plywood is a combination of different layers of wood veneers glued together into boards. In fact solid wood cabinets will opt for mdf doors.

Here i have two options. It can have a slight greenish tint to the wood so most people use it for projects that are to be painted. Glue up shaker cabinet door. That is the question.

A budget of only 100 means you do not have a lot of money for each project. Poplar is great budget friendly wood and easy to work with wood for diy cabinet doors. Cabinet doors and face frames are often made from solid hardwoods. You can instead use hardwood veneer plywood solid mdf plain or melamine covered particleboard and solid wood.

However some carpenters find that poplar dents easily. Species such as maple beech or hickory resist denting and scratching at a higher degree than softer species such as alder mahogany or walnut but they also cost more. In homes mdf wood is mostly used in constructing cabinet doors. Wood species such as hickory maple or beech will resist scratching and denting at a higher degree when compared to other softer species like walnut alder or mahogany but they will also cost more.

Mdf wood does not warp or crack. To glue place the plywood in the grooves of the sides and liberally squirt glue along the inside of the top and bottom where the top and bottom 1x3s will go. However i used stained poplar for this rustic tv stand with concrete top and love the way it turned out. It s best to build out of tight grain woods to avoid this.

Plan to use 1 3 or 1 4 hardwood boards for the door s frame. Or 3 4 x 3 1 2 in. These are just nominal dimensions of course. You ll find this material at most home centers and lumberyards.

Maple hickory oak ash and cherry face frames and cabinet doors often consist of solid hardwoods. The actual dimensions will be 3 4 x 2 1 2 in. Open grained wood has a rougher look and likely needs filler to look good when painted. Poplar and soft maple are popular for most parts of a cabinet face frames end frames and door panels mostly due to cost and workability.

The grain of each layer of plywood is at right angles to each other. Double check the material thickness before calculating cabinet sizes and cutting dadoes and rabbets.