Believe it or not this is a very beginner-friendly
project we're using dimensional lumber for all of the face frame and the supports and then
three-quarter inch plywood for the cabinet carcass itself and MDF for the doors and drawer we're not
even going to use a table saw we're going to use a circular saw to break all of the sheets down and
then we'll use a miter saw to cut all of these pieces to length i've also got a free plan for
this project you can get that at the link below i designed the dimensions for this cabinet to
fit a 35 inch lift from tvliftcabinet.com who is also the sponsor of this video and this lift
can actually fit a much bigger TV than the one i'm putting in it I'm just putting a 50 inch on
this lift so if you want to put a bigger tv just make sure that lid opening is wide enough for the
tv to fit through i'm also using pocket screws to join the wood together on this project i don't
think i've really done any pocket hole joinery on this channel yet but for a cabinet
like this pocket hole joinery is great especially for beginners so let me get started by
breaking the three-quarter inch plywood down and we can build the cabinet carcass by the way if you
have no clue what a cabinet carcass is check out my last video where i go over 25 woodworking terms
that you need to know that link will be down below this particular jig has markings here that you can
set the depth of this with this collar according to the thickness of your work piece i've got
three-quarter inch plywood that's actually 23 32nd so i'll set this just shy of three quarter and you
don't set the tip of the bit you set the shoulder so i line that up just shy of three quarter and
then tighten down that set screw and i'm ready to drill the hole as far as the screws when you have
three quarter inch thickness you're supposed to use an inch and a quarter screw but since ours is
just under three quarters of an inch we may have to use an inch screw so we'll test with this inch
and a quarter and make sure it doesn't pop through or come close to popping through and if it doesn't
we'll use that otherwise we'll use the hinge the cabinet carcass is basically put together
now i just need to cut the supports for the top and the bottom those will be out of solid wood 1
by 2 for the top and a one by four for the bottom real quick i want to talk about the location of
these pocket screws now i put these on the outside so that they're slanted in towards the middle
of this bottom piece that we're connecting the sides to if we were to put these holes on the
inside then the screws are slanted toward the edge of this base piece and that's a much
less secure way to attach them now since i'm putting baseboard on this cabinet all of
these holes around the bottom in the back and on the sides will be covered up now these holes
on the back from the top to the bottom on the sides will show but if you want this to be
a 360 cabinet so to speak where the front and the back are visible you can just put a piece
of trim over that i am going to add glue just for that extra security where it's practical so
like on these sides or the shelf piece that's going in the middle but really you could get
away without gluing any of this cabinet part now obviously you have to glue the top but
the bottom you don't really have to glue it uh so i just got done test fitting my lift and it
fits great make sure you do that before you go any further after you build the actual carcass
you'd hate to get to a point where you were almost done and you went to put in the lift and
it didn't fit now i can move on to the face frame which is made up of one by twos and a one by six
when i go to attach the pieces again we're using pocket hole screws i'm going to use a clamp
to clamp the pieces securely down to the bench and then i can drive the screws
and everything will stay straight even though i've got a dimension here on my
plan for each of these face frame pieces i'm going to go over there and measure the finished
carcass to get the actual measurement that i need i've got the cabinet on its back and the
face frame is temporarily clamped to it and the reason i'm doing that is so that i can
set this lower cross piece flush with the shelf now that's really hard to do by just
measuring a distance and attaching this and then hoping it lines up so this method
will work a lot better i can put this up flush with the shelf and then make marks
of where this cross piece needs to be and then take the face frame over and attach this
cross piece and then that will allow me to measure and cut the vertical door dividers and i've got
the face frame flipped around so that i'll be able to see my marks when i go to attach this cross
piece once the face frame is all put together i'll bring it back over here and use the same method
to permanently attach it with glue and brad nails since the baseboard will cover all of this bottom
portion here i decided to go ahead and drive some inch and a quarter screws just to add some more
stability here now that i've got this face frame attached and i'm sitting back and looking
at it i'm not really crazy about how these two dividers are not supported in the back now i
think they're stable enough that they could work but it's easy enough to add another 1×2 behind
here then i'm going to go from this inside support all the way up to the shelf and i'll just glue
it right to the back of these dividers now i'm also not crazy about how this is not supported
up here even though there's two pieces here and they're glued together this is actually
sagging a little bit that way and i think it's because i didn't get this inside support
flush with the cabinet so it's sitting back just a little bit so i'm just going to pocket
screw a little support piece that goes from here to the back of this piece and pushes it out to
the right depth and we'll pocket screw that in so i went ahead and filled in all these holes with
wood putty and even on the sides of the cabinet this plywood had some scrapes and some gouges so
i filled all of that in everything i can see now i'm just going to sand the entire cabinet while
i'm sanding i'm also going to make sure that i get all of these surfaces nice and flush
some of them have just a slight little lip so as i'm going through i'll make sure that
i take care of that another thing i'm going to do is to roll over all of these sharp edges
that'll give it a more professional look and feel then up here where it intersects another
piece i'll have to hand sand those edges the doors and the drawer are made from half inch
mdf as a backing piece and then we glue the rails and the styles to that backing piece and that will
give us a nice shaker style look for the rails and the styles if you can find quarter inch mdf in
a large enough sheet then use that but if you're like me in my area i could only find two foot
by four foot sheets of quarter inch mdf so i'm going to use this 3 16 fiber board that will make
the doors in the drawer about a 16th of an inch thinner than the baseboard and the trim that we're
putting on the cabinet but i really don't think it'll be noticeable before i start cutting all
those pieces out i'm going to make some marks and do some measurements just to make sure we've got
the right dimensions for the doors and the drawer depending on how you want to mount your
doors and which side you want to put the hinges for each door you may need to build up
this outside portion now that one by two will give you plenty of surface area to mount the
hinge and if you're mounting on these inside dividers those already have plenty of surface
area because we added these backing pieces so what i'll do is cut a 1 by 2 just like we
did with this support it'll go from the bottom of the shelf to the top of the support here and
we'll just glue it and clamp it in until it dries now i can fit the other two doors and a
trick i'm going to show you why we haven't measured and cut this drawer yet once
i've got all three of these mounted up i'm going to measure across the actual
doors and that will give me the length of the base for this drawer after i've got that
measurement and i cut the drawer out i'll bring it over here and mount its hinges and then
we'll take all of the doors and the drawer down take the hinges off and we can glue and
brad nail the rails and the styles to each one a quick tip anytime you use an mdf or
a material similar to mdf we have to put these on to test fit and take them off and
put them on these holes will really loosen up so what you can do before you install it for
the last time is add a little bit of glue here so you can use a toothpick i'm using
a skewer that's just broken in half here we'll get some glue and drop it in there if you're
wondering why i don't just put a drop on top and let it seep down when you do that you're trapping
air in the hole and the glue doesn't actually seep down so it just dries right there on the surface
this will make sure we get it down in there tv lift cabinet is the sponsor of this video
you can check them out at tvliftcabinet.com not only do they offer several sizes of tv lifts
but they also have the cabinets so if you're not into building your own you can head over there
and buy one directly from them if you are into building your own i've got a free plan available
at the link below in part two we're gonna build the top and cut the lid out and then put some
finish on it and then we're gonna paint the cabinet get everything assembled and then install
it inside the house once that video releases you'll be able to click on it right here
and go straight over there and watch it but in the meantime click on one of these
two videos and i will see you over there
