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How to build something like fridge doors for a cupboard for my storage cage?

Im looking to build some robust wardrobe like cupboards for my storage cage to store tools and other ‘garage type’ items. The units will be 1.8m high x 76cm wide and about 80cm deep. The cupboard bit will be about 60cm deep (made of 40mm thick pine) and I want something like fridge doors to be about 20cm deep to store mostly bottles, aerosol tins and other fluid containers. Any thoughts about what might be suitable for the frame and shelves (possibly removable or adjustable at different heights) would be welcome. To keep things on the shelves, I’m thinking elastic straps like bungy cords.

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Jewelleryrescue

Hi @grantburrows

Well My first tool storage was a old wardrobe i got off the street so consider that as an option as the price was right.

Or there is a comercial shelves that are close to your dimentions

Pinnacle 1830 x 730 x 730mm 5 Tier Corner Adjustable Shelving Unit - 1830 x 730 x 730mm

https://www.bunnings.com.au/pinnacle-1830-x-730-x-730mm-5-tier-corner-adjustable-shelving-unit-1830-x-730-x-730mm_p2760255

I/N: 2760255

$224

grantburrows

Thanks for the suggestion. That corner unit looks pretty good but being a corner unit, the gaps between the uprights on the front ‘corner’ are quite small. Also I would need a solution for fully enclosing it as the area with my storage cage in, gets really dusty.

thanks again 🙂

MitchellMc

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @grantburrows. It's great to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about constructing a storage unit.

Having doors akin to a refrigerator sounds like a custom build, and I am unaware of any pre-fabricated door that would suit your needs. I've gone ahead and created a rendering of a potential solution. If you're interested, we can discuss further the appropriate timber and panels to use for it. I'd suggest melamine would be a good choice and you can get pre-drilled side panels for adjustable shelf heights. You'll need to use several cabinet hinges on each side to support the weight of the goods in the doors.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell

grantburrows

Thanks so much for that. You’ve drawn pretty much what I had in my head.

I’ve done a model of it (I’ll be building the unit in two pieces, with one stacked on the other) the bottom unit will have castors and each door will also have a castor to support it. The hinge mechanisms might need to be something like gate hinges so the axis of opening is at the front corner of the door, not the corner by the cupboard bit. This is because I want the cupboard door to open with them being no wider than the unit. My quick diagram shows the hinges in the wrong place for now, but what you suggested is quite similar to what I imagined. I’ll update my drawings to include the hinges in the right place. I think I’ll also make the doors thinner (maybe 120 mm deep instead of 200).

Thanks again for your suggestion. I’ll update my drawing probably tomorrow, and reach out again for guidance on panels and hinge selection.

MitchellMc

Sounds great @grantburrows. I look forward to it.

Mitchell

grantburrows

Here's an updated drawing with 'hinges' roughly in the right places. I've put 50mm * 3mm steel bars on the sides which will have hinges attached to the end, to allow the doors to open within the same width as the cupboard itself. The faces of the doors that face eachother are at an angle so one door has to open before the other, but at least they open without being jammed in place by having the hinges where they are.

The drawing shows the doors to by 89mm wide which matches lengths of 89mm * 19mm pine - I may use offcuts of the 40mm pine board for these parts depending on how the boards need to be cut and if there's enough board left for this.

The sides and back are likely going to be 16mm thick mdf - which isn't as strong or resistant to moisture, but it's cheaper and thinner so gives me more room inside the cupboard. I'm looking for suggestions on the type of paint to use for the entire thing, inside and out, is there an appropriate primer or base coat that could be used for both the mdf and pine boards?

You might have noticed that my cupboard is very short compared to my original question / scenario. I'm thinking of building the units in two bits stacked one on top of the other. This is so that if I end up moving to a place with a garage, I can unstack them and put castors on the top cupboard and have something like a two piece workbench on wheels, containing storage.

I understand that Bunnings Gladesville offer timber cutting services for $1 per cut, would it be acceptable for me to have these boards cut by Bunnings to be quite accurate and noting that there would be something like 6 cuts per board?

Thanks again for your suggestions and help with this.

Grant

MitchellMc

Hi @grantburrows,

I've run some tests in 3D-design software, and I believe that if standard hinges are used and placed where they'd typically go, even with the 89mm thickness of the doors, they are not going to jamb when opening. Yes, if the doors are hard up against each other, they'll bind, but my experiment reveals that even a 1mm clearance between the doors would allow them to open. They jamb at around a 210mm thick door with only a 1mm gap between them. Maybe have a play and see if you get a similar result, as it would be good to do away with the current hinge system and angled door edge. I could be completely wrong here, but it's worth checking.

For painting it's a similar system between the MDF and pine boards. A couple of coats of primer and a couple of topcoats.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell

grantburrows

Thanks for doing that drawing and for the links to the primer and topcoats.

Your drawing looks like the doors won't interfere with one another, but I'm not sure how / where the hinges are located in your example - and they might cause the doors to hit the sides of my storage cage.

My problem is that the cupboard is almost the same width as my storage cage and there is only about 10-20mm of wiggle room to wheel the cupboard in and out. there isn't room to open the doors much wider than the width of the unit - so my first drawing with the hinges mounted in a conventional way, won't work - I've included new drawings with yellow lines showing the bits of the doors that would hit the sides of my storage cage - imagine the width of my storage cage is shown by the yellow lines - note the top pic shows the doors will open to 90 degrees without hitting the sides of the cage..

design with crazy hinges but doors open within the space availablethe doors will hit the sides of the cage when openconventionally hinged doors cause doors to hit sides of my storage cage

MitchellMc

Oh, ok, @grantburrows! I didn't realise the doors couldn't open wider than the width of the cabinet. The hinge location was as per your second image.

Mitchell

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