Building A Display Cabinet - GUIDE COMPLETED 03/06/18

I originally wanted to publish this guide in one go as a complete finished article. However, it took me far longer than I expected or wanted to get this written and published and hence it was instead published in chunks. My apologies for this, however I am pleased to say that as of 3rd June 2018, this guide is now complete.

I would also like to make it clear that, as mentioned in the related post here (viewtopic.php?f=2&t=35502), this particular cabinet build was never intended to hold vintage Star Wars items. Instead, the purpose of this guide is to be a 'how to' manual to show anyone who is interested how they might build their own cabinet to house whatever they wish to display, be that vintage Star Wars items or anything else.

Please feel free to add any comments or questions below, and I will do my best to answer them.

How To Build Your Own Display Cabinet


The aim of this guide is to show how I built my latest display cabinet and changed my room from looking like this:



to this:




Disclaimer:

Before I go any further, I would like to make it clear that I make no claims that the style of cabinet I will show you how to build is the best available, or that the techniques and methods used are the best either. What I will say is that I personally am very happy with the results these yield, but there will always be ways to improve things. Therefore, naturally if you feel you can adapt or improve on anything shown, then the very best of luck to you. I look forward to seeing your efforts


Introduction:

I have made several different cabinets over the years in a similar style to the ones shown above and below:



(If you're interested, you can see more photos of the above cabinet here: http://starwarsforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=34774)

I don't buy 'off-the-shelf' or ready-made cabinets as they generally aren't suitable for my particular needs, as I like to display a lot of stuff and want to make the most of the available display space I have. For that reason, each cabinet built was bespoke to the space I had available and the specific size requirements I had for it. As such, in this guide I won't give out very many specific measurements for pieces of wood or glass, etc., as it is unlikely anyone will want to build one with exactly the same dimensions as mine. Instead, I hope to show the techniques and methods used, and how these can be adapted to make any size cabinet you like, since although mine tend to be quite large, there is no reason why you cannot build a much smaller one, if required.

It must be said however, that they inevitably do take a bit of time to build, that you will make some mess doing it, and the whole process will definitely cause disruption to the room in which you're building it. They are also not that cheap to make. You will be buying every component part yourself, having the wood, glass and perspex cut to size, and then assembling it all yourself too. It's not massively difficult, but neither is it an entirely hassle-free process ;-)

For the above reasons, if you can buy a ready-made cabinet that suits your needs at a price you're happy with, then I would seriously consider doing so. Also, whilst I personally do not regard them as being especially difficult to build, everyone is different and so some people may find them more tricky to make than others. The end results can be very rewarding of course, but let me be quite clear; I build my own cabinets because I can't buy ones of the exact sizes I want, and it would also cost a lot more to pay someone else to make them for me.

Lastly, I just want to say a quick word about this particular style of cabinet. These are NOT sealed unit cabinets which are completely assembled elsewhere and then lifted and fixed bodily onto the wall in one go (and which could be fairly easily removed and relocated at a later date, if needed), like these earlier efforts of mine:





Instead, the style of cabinet I will show you how to make is assembled and fixed directly onto the wall. Think of them as shelves fixed onto your wall with a separate surround built around the shelves, and then with glass or perspex fronts added to turn them into a cabinet and keep the dust out. They could be disassembled of course, but not quickly or easily. You will be drilling directly into your walls and screwing multiple fixings in place. Therefore, if you require a free-standing or easily-removable / re-positionable cabinet, or if you do not have suitable brick / breeze block walls to drill into, then this is NOT the right style of cabinet for you.


Part 1 - Getting Started:

So how do you go about beginning to build a cabinet like this? I imagine for some of you it might seem like quite a daunting task, especially if you've never done anything like it before. Well firstly, it's worth noting that I have no particular woodworking skills. I'm not a professional cabinet maker and neither do I work in any sort of profession with any relevant transferable skills. What I do have is (hopefully!) a logical brain and (at least a little) common sense. Most of what I do doesn't require tremendous skill, although I will admit that there are some elements of the build where being reasonably competent at DIY and adopting a meticulous approach is certainly beneficial.

So let's get started! To begin with, you will need to know a few basic things:

1) Are you really sure you want a display cabinet in your chosen location?

This may sound like an incredibly stupid question, but the truth is the cabinet you will build is a semi-permanent structure more akin to installing a kitchen unit than hanging a picture. Once you've built it, moving it will be a royal pain in the ass, so you need to be very sure that you definitely want a display cabinet in the place you've chosen.

2) How big and what shape do you want your cabinet to be?

Only you can answer this one, but to help you work it out, ask yourself what exactly it is that you want to put in the cabinet, and how much shelf space will it take up? The one I have built here is a little unusual in that it's L-shaped with the left-hand side being quite deep (41.5 cm) with staggered shelving to maximise the available shelf space for displaying various 6 inch figures, and with the right-hand side being much shallower (16.5 cm) with conventional vertical shelving. However, unless you're building a very large cabinet to display boxed items, a very large number of figures, loose craft or dioramas, etc., I imagine the chances are you will want to make a more conventional square or rectangular cabinet with conventional vertical shelving, but it's really up to you

I will very briefly detour at this point because a common wish is to make a display cabinet for a loose vintage run of approx. 115 figures (this does NOT include Jabba). If that is what you want to make, you will want roughly 4.8 metres of shelf space to display them without overlapping any figures. If you are happy to overlap your figures, then obviously you won't need as much shelf space and can make a smaller cabinet. And if you want to display more figures, or include Jabba, the Dewback, a Tauntaun, etc. (which I haven't), then you must adjust your shelf space requirements upwards accordingly.

You must however also allow enough depth to display the deepest figures (Amanaman holding his staff, and Max Rebo when seated in his organ), and you must also of course allow for the depth of the shelf brackets, which themselves must not touch the front glass / perspex covers. As such, I recommend making such a cabinet at least 16.5 cm deep.

As for the height between each shelf, I use a twin-slot shelf bracket system and hence there are only certain separations available without adding spacers:



Placing the shelves 4 slots apart vertically is the most suitable separation for displaying vintage Star Wars figures:



The tallest vintage figures are EV-9D9 at approx. 11.8 cm tall and Han in Carbonite's carbonite block at approx. 12.2 cm tall, so at least one shelf must have at least that much height. However, you must not forget to add on the height of any action figure stand the figure may be standing on, plus you must also allow for the thickness of the glass shelf the figure is standing on (unless it's the bottom 'shelf', which is actually the wooden cabinet surround / frame, unless of course you also want to put a sheet of glass on it as well, but more on that in a moment).

Therefore if your shelf brackets are 12.7 cm apart (this is the separation between the top of each shelf bracket when the brackets are placed 4 slots apart vertically), but your glass shelving is 4 mm thick (which is suitable for most small figure shelves) and your EV-9D9 is standing on an action figure stand 3 mm thick, then the available height between your glass shelves is only 12.0 cm. This is enough for EV-9D9 (just), but it's a very tight squeeze indeed for the carbonite block. Therefore, you can either add a thin spacer between the upper brackets and their glass shelf to lift the upper shelf slightly or, since the carbonite block won't stand upright unaided anyway, you might decide to lean it against the back of the cabinet (see pic below), in which case the shelf height is fine.

However, if you plan to display your figures in release order from left to right and from top to bottom in your cabinet (with the first 12 at the top left, and the last 17 at the bottom right), then both EV-9D9 and the carbonite block will be on the bottom shelf, and therefore you may choose to do what I have done and simply make the bottom shelf slightly taller by mounting the twin slot bracket uprights fractionally higher up the wall. This creates a larger gap between the bottom shelf (which is actually the bottom of the cabinet's wooden frame, remember), and the first glass shelf created by your twin slot bracket system. On that basis, I recommend a bottom shelf height of 13 to 14 cm, which does away completely with any tight squeeze for the two tallest figures, and the difference in shelf height is barely noticeable in the final cabinet:



3) Do you have the wall space available to site a cabinet of the size that you want?

Another pretty basic question, but a very important one. You will need to measure the space you have available and determine whether a cabinet of the dimensions you want will fit there. In the above loose figure cabinet example, if you need 4.8 metres of shelf space with each shelf separated vertically by 12.7 cm (apart from the bottom shelf which is 14.0 cm tall), then you most probably require one of the following to give that to you:

5 shelves each at 96.0 cm wide, which means a cabinet with an interior height of 64.8 cm.

6 shelves each at 80.0 cm wide, which means a cabinet with an interior height of 77.5 cm.

7 shelves each at 68.6 cm wide, which means a cabinet with an interior height of 90.2 cm.

In each case you must remember to also add on the thickness of each side, top and bottom of the surrounding cabinet frame, plus give yourself a little 'wiggle room' to get the shelves in and out (i.e. the cabinet's interior width MUST be slightly wider than the shelves; I recommend 0.5 cm). If the wood is 2.0 cm thick, you must therefore add on 4.5 cm horizontally and 4.0 cm vertically, giving you your final space requirements of:

5 shelf cabinet – 100.5 cm wide x 68.8 cm tall

6 shelf cabinet – 84.5 cm wide x 81.5 cm tall

7 shelf cabinet – 73.1 cm wide x 94.2 cm tall

And if you want a completely square cabinet, the 6 shelf version above could easily be made an extra 3 cm tall, so it measures 84.5 cm x 84.5 cm. If you do that, either put the extra 3.0 cm at the top of the cabinet to make a taller top shelf (and much like the slightly taller bottom shelf, it won't really notice), or else divide the extra height equally between the bottom and top shelves, meaning each becomes 14.85 cm tall.

In each of the above examples the cabinet will be 16.5 cm deep (i.e. this is the depth of the wooden cabinet surround).

4) Once you have calculated your shelf space requirements, and the resultant cabinet size requirements, and also whether that will fit into your available wall space, DOUBLE CHECK EVERY MEASUREMENT AND CALCULATION!!!

I can't emphasise enough how important it is to get your measurements correct. By all means use my suggestions above as your starting point, but make sure you double-check that they are accurate and are also suitable for your own display needs and your own available space.

I accept no responsibility if you get it wrong!

5) To assist you in calculating the above size and space requirements, I always find it helpful to make some rough sketches of what I want the final cabinet to look like, and then write its intended dimensions on that. In the case of the blue cabinet in this particular build, here are the (very) rough early sketches I made:

I actually tweaked the design and some of the measurements as I went along, but the sketches gave me a nice basis to kick off from. I also knew that because of the large depth of the left-hand side / leaf of the final cabinet, I would either need to use very large and strong brackets to support the bottom of the cabinet, or else have it partially supported by something else. As it happened, I also wanted to build a new cupboard / base unit beneath the cabinet as I wanted to increase my home's storage space. Therefore, in addition to building the blue cabinet, at the same time I also scratch-built the pine unit beneath it. This enabled me to use it as a support for the bottom of the left-hand leaf of the cabinet, especially at the front of its left-hand side and centre, which otherwise would risk having insufficient support and breaking. This is also shown in the first sketch above.

Note: Because the support provided by the pine base unit was an essential part of this particular cabinet design, I will include its construction in the following guide, however please rest assured that if you intend to build a narrower cabinet (e.g. one of the 16.5 cm deep loose figure cabinets mentioned above), then you will NOT need to build a base unit and your finished cabinet will be quite happily supported by the hidden support brackets alone

6) The final part of the preparation is having a fairly good idea of the tools and parts you will need to complete the job. Even if you don't have them all immediately to hand from the start, you do need to be aware of your likely needs, or you will end up bouncing back and forth from the DIY store like you're attached to a piece of elastic. For this build, I will detail below as complete a tools and parts list as I can:

Tools:

Electric drill
Hand drill
Masonry drill bits
Wood drill bits
Face mask
Safety glasses / goggles
Work gloves
Ear defenders
Vacuum cleaner
Pencil
Biro
Marker pen / felt tip pen
Tape measure
Metal spirit level
Laser spirit level
Ruler
Hammer
Screwdrivers
Reversible right-angle ratchet screw driver
Paint pads / roller
Paint brush
Bradawl
Wood chisels
Centre punch
Workmate
Mitre block
Sandpaper
Sanding block
Wood saw
Hacksaw
Junior hacksaw
Stanley knife
Paper
Pliers (large)
Pliers (needle nosed)
Wide masonry chisel
Table knife
Dust sheets
Pencil eraser
Kneeling mat
Plumb line
Wooden blocks / offcuts
Scissors
Clean cloths / rags
Micrometer


Parts:

Hardboard for cabinet back (cut to size)
MDF / Pine / Pine furniture board for cabinet frame (cut to size)
Glass shelves (cut to size)
Perspex front covers (cut to size)
Rawlplugs
Araldite
Masking tape
Parcel tape
Sellotape / Scotch Tape
Masonry screws (long)
Wood screws (long)
Wood screws (short)
Small metal washers
Angle brackets (4 inch)
Angle brackets (3 inch)
Mending plates (4 inch)
Twin-slot shelving system uprights
Twin-slot shelving system shelf brackets
Plastic twin-track channelling
Blue tacks (carpet tacks)
Nails
Paint (emulsion)
Paint (metal primer)
Sealant
Neodymium magnets
Brass hooks and eyes
Draught excluder
Cork pieces
Adhesive felt pads


And parts for the cupboard / storage unit:

Wood lengths for frame (2" x 2") (cut to size)
Pine furniture board for top, sides and doors (cut to size)
Hardboard for cupboard back (cut to size)
Angle brackets (2 inch)
Wood screws (long)
Wood screws (short)
Wood screws (very short)
Strip hinges
Handles
Briwax wood polish
MDF for interior floor
Plastic spacers
Mending plates (4 inch)
Magnetic door catches


Part 2 – Building it!:

To reiterate, most cabinet builds won't require a supporting base unit to be constructed. For mine however, a strong, stable base unit was essential to support the cabinet above, due to the large depth of the cabinet, and hence the relatively heavy weight at the otherwise unsupported front left edge and centre of the left-hand leaf.

The base unit I built is free-standing, but due to its large size and the fact it will be stuffed full of my junk when in use, there is no danger of it moving. However, I did want it to stand directly on the floor (mine is concrete with floor tiles), rather than on the carpet, which will compress and potentially lead to problems with the cabinet above over time. I therefore had to cut away the carpet and underlay over the area of the cupboard's footprint, which of course meant I needed to know exactly how large that footprint was. Therefore to try to minimise the chance of error, since I didn't wish to remove too much, I built the frame of the base unit first before actually chopping up my carpet!

And so it begins…

1) Clear the area where you will be building and ready a working space (here you see the MDF, hardboard and wood I will be using, already cut to size by the timber merchant I bought it from):






2) Lift the carpet and underlay, and remove the carpet grippers from an area slightly larger than the approximate footprint of the base unit, but do not remove any of the carpet or underlay yet:




3) Put down some dust sheets where you will be working, then using 2" angle brackets on all internal connections, construct the wooden frame of the base unit. Do this by holding each angle bracket in position by hand and marking the drill holes with a pencil. Use a bradawl to pierce a shallow guide hole for each one, then hand drill each screw hole to minimise the chances of the wood splitting when you subsequently fit the screws:










4) Once the frame is assembled, fit a piece of MDF into the bottom of it as a base for the cupboard. I had the MDF cut to size length and width-wise, but I then had to saw out the 6 small squares where the frame struts go:



The base does not need to be fixed down, and will actually be an inconvenience if it is, so once you have checked that it fits, remove it again for the time-being.


5) The base unit's sides, top and doors are made from pine furniture board, and the backboard from hardboard. All of these were cut to size to my measurements by a timber merchant. Attach the sides with more 2" angle brackets, and nail the backboard on:

The top of the cupboard is also attached by 2" angle brackets, but just like with the cupboard's base, after attaching it to make sure it fits correctly, remove it again for ease of moving the unit. The whole thing is very heavy and bloody awkward to move when fully assembled, and it will need to be moved in and out of its intended position several times over the course of the build, so you should attach the doors later, and the top and base only after it is permanently in its final position.


6) I don't know about your home, but the floors and walls in mine are not perfectly level or square. Therefore, temporarily put the unit into what will eventually be its final position, and insert plastic spacers beneath it where necessary to level the whole thing up, and check that it is indeed truly level using a spirit level. This is crucial! The unit must be level or the cabinet above will look like it's at a drunken angle!

The spacers I used are old double-glazing ones, but almost anything solid will do, including wood offcuts or even cardboard, providing it never gets wet:





7) I will be using 4" angle brackets to support the bottom and top shelves of the display cabinet frame:




With the unit in position, and remembering that the top surface of that unit is not yet fixed in place, and therefore allowing for the extra height this will add, mark the height of the bottom of the display cabinet on the wall above the unit. Leave a gap of approximately 1 cm between the top of the base unit and the bottom of the display cabinet. This gives enough room to manoeuvre the unit itself into position beneath the bottom shelf, once that's fixed in place. It also allows enough room to slide the top of the base unit into position when that's ready to be finally attached. Lastly, this gap is also small enough to wedge supporting spacers into it at appropriate points, to provide the essential support needed at the cabinet's front left-hand end and front centre of the left-hand leaf.

For now, you need only be concerned with marking the position of the bottom shelf, so draw this on the wall. Use a spirit level to ensure it's level and also parallel to the base unit's top. Next, measure and mark the positions of the angle brackets which will support the bottom shelf, manually holding each one in place and then marking the positions of the drill holes with a pencil.



Because the left-hand cabinet leaf is so large, I am using 5 brackets to support its bottom shelf, plus a further 3 to support the smaller right-hand leaf, as shown in a few photos' time.


8 ) Moving the base unit in and out of position with the carpet folded back is a damn nuisance, so it's now time to finally cut the carpet and underlay! Unless you're a carpet fitter, make sure you don't quite cut enough off. In other words, deliberately cut off slightly too little carpet and underlay in order that when the unit is finally put into position for the last time, the remaining excess can be carefully trimmed off to achieve a neat and tidy finish.

Having positioned the spacers and cut the carpet with the unit still in position, now carefully remove the unit leaving the spacers in place.



Tape the spacers to the floor with parcel tape or duct tape so they won't move when the unit is moved in and out of position (brilliantly, I didn't take a dedicated photograph of this [sorry!], but it can still be seen in this slightly blurred enlargement of another photo. All the spacers have been taped to the floor with brown parcel tape):




9) You are now ready to drill the holes for the angle brackets, but first put down a dust sheet or newspaper to catch the dust and spoil:



I make no apologies for stating the obvious at this point: Be very careful when using power tools! If you don't know what you're doing, ask the help of someone who does. Make sure you wear the correct protective gear when drilling. I wear gloves, a face mask, safety goggles and ear-defenders. I might look like a tit whilst I'm drilling, but I still have all my fingers, sight, hearing and no lung problems.


10) Drill all the holes! I always mark the drill holes first with a bradawl, then drill them first with a small drill bit as my walls are very hard indeed, and then re-drill them all with the full size drill bit. This takes a little longer, but makes the process massively easier. Once drilled, vacuum each hole to remove the remaining dust, hammer in rawlplugs of the correct size and then screw the angle brackets to the wall. If you've done your job properly, they should all be in a straight line:




11) For my display cabinet shelves / frame, I used MDF, which worked just fine. However, with hindsight, I think I would have preferred to have used more pine furniture board instead, as it is lighter, less bendy and easier to tool. Whichever you use, balance the bottom shelves onto the brackets and mark all the drill / screw holes onto them from underneath:



Remove the shelves and hand drill the screw holes you just marked, taking great care not to drill right through to the other side! The shelves are thin, so be careful.

Reposition the shelves back onto the brackets and screw them into place using short wood screws. If you're making a 2-leaf design like this one, you should also use a couple of straight mending plates on the shelves' undersides to fix them together:

As already stated, my walls are not even slightly square, but if yours are, you might want to consider cutting slots out of the back of each shelf at the position of each angle bracket in order to have the shelves be completely flush to the wall. I have done this in the past with previous cabinet builds, but to be honest the room in which I built this one was so hopelessly out of true that it really wasn't worth it.


12) Slide the base unit back under the shelves and reattach its top to make sure everything still fits properly and that you haven't made an horrendous cock-up with your brackets :




13) Now check that the shelves are level. It only takes one of the supporting brackets to be slightly out of position to send the whole shelf out of true, so before you go any further, check to make sure that everything's still OK.

With this particular design, I knew that having such a large left-hand leaf meant it would bow slightly under its own weight at the front left-hand end and middle, something which would of course only get worse once any extra weight was added to the shelf.

Therefore, to level up the front edge and also provide the required support, add spacers between the top of the base unit and the bottom shelf of the cabinet at its front. For the time-being, you need only be concerned with getting it level rather than measuring the exact height of the spacers, so use something like a stack of mending plates and or non-corrugated cardboard pieces (these will be replaced later with something which looks a lot better! ;-)). Add as many spacers in as many places as are necessary in order to level up the front of the shelf:





Once the front edge is level, check that the rear of the shelf is also level. The easiest way to do this is to lay a long spirit level across the very back edge of the shelf whilst it is still screwed in place, and then to simply add more spacers temporarily beneath the spirit level in line with where each angle brackets is, until it is level.

Once you know how many spacers are required at each angle bracket, you will need to transfer them beneath the shelf between it and the brackets themselves. Therefore, firstly you should remove the previous stacks of spacers you placed beneath the shelf to level up the front of it, and clearly label them so you know which stack goes where. Then, remove the top panel from the base unit once again, and then remove the base unit itself. Lastly, unscrew the shelf and remove it completely, exposing the brackets once again.

Now add whatever spacers you determined were necessary to the top surface of each angle bracket to level it up, but take care not to cover the brackets' screw holes! Lay a spirit level across the top of the brackets to check that you're doing it right.

With this cabinet, because of a slight miscalculation, I needed thicker spacers than I had hoped, and since I wanted the maximum surface area of each angle bracket as possible to be in contact with the shelf above, I cut down some mending plates and cardboard pieces and taped them onto the brackets. In order to cut the mending plates, because I have no vice, I improvised by screwing the mending plates onto a piece of wood which I held in place on a Workmate, and then simply hacksawed them:









Having levelled up the bottom shelf of the cabinet, screw it back onto the brackets and restore the base unit and its top cover, and replace the spacers beneath the front of the shelf once again. Now double-check that everything is still level! I can't over-emphasise how crucial it is that the bottom shelf be level. If it isn't, at best everything above it will be at a drunken angle, and at worst you might find that your cabinet no longer fits your available space.


14) You now need to mark the positions of the angle brackets which will support the top of the cabinet frame. With this particular cabinet design, the bottom shelf acts as a support for the side panels of the cabinet frame. Therefore whilst you could simply use a tape measure for the next part, you can also hold one of these side panels vertically in position at the edge of the bottom shelf, and then balance a small straight edge (e.g. a small ruler, or an offcut of MDF or wood) on top of that and mark the bottom of the straight edge, thus guaranteeing you achieve the correct separation between the bottom and top of the cabinet frame:

Repeat this action at regular intervals along the length of the shelf, marking the position of the underside of the top of the cabinet frame. Then, using a metre ruler or your spirit level, join up the marks to leave a straight pencil line. Use a spirit level to check that your line is level.

Now take the angle brackets which will support the top of the cabinet frame and, holding them against the line you've just drawn, mark the positions of the screw holes:



The glass shelves that will go inside the cabinet will be supported by a twin-slot shelving system, so you now need to decide where you want the twin-slot vertical uprights to be positioned. Do this by first deciding how far apart from one another and the inside edges of your cabinet you want the uprights to be. Use a plumb line to draw a vertical line on the wall where those uprights will go.

You have now found the horizontal position of the uprights, but you must still determine their vertical position. THIS IS CRUCIAL!!! If you get the vertical position of the uprights wrong, your lowest GLASS shelf will not be at the correct height above the wooden frame of the cabinet (i.e. the actual bottom shelf of your cabinet). Therefore, you must be quite certain of the height at which you want the first glass shelf to be. Since the bottom of the wooden cabinet frame is currently fixed in place, it is a simple task to mark a line on the wall where you want the BOTTOM of the lowest glass shelf to be.

Insert a single shelf bracket into the twin-slot upright, and hold the upright over the vertical line you have drawn. Then line up the top of the shelf bracket with the line marking where you want the bottom of the glass shelf to be:



You now have the twin-slot upright in the exact position you want it, so mark the upright's screw holes.

The back of each cabinet leaf will be a sheet of hardboard. These will be fixed in place both with the screws from the vertical uprights (which will of course be fitted on top of the hardboard), but also by one screw in each corner of the hardboard sheets.



Your wall should now be covered with numerous marks where screws will go. You should have marks for the screws needed for:

i) The angle brackets supporting the top of the wooden cabinet frame.
ii) The uprights for the twin-slot shelving system.
iii) The four corners of the cabinet's hardboard backboard.

Consequently, your wall will now look something like this:




15) You are now ready for more drilling! Protect your surfaces and yourself as described in steps 9 and 10 above, then drill all your holes and screw the upper row of angle brackets to the wall:








16) Now that you have your upper row of brackets, you can finish off both the bottom shelves of the cabinet, and also the base unit, which still needs its doors.

The doors of the base unit on this particular design were wider than the maximum width of pine furniture board available at the timber merchant I used, so I decided to simply join two pieces together with mending plates to make up the width that I wanted:






17) Having made doors of the correct width, they now need to be attached to the base unit with strip hinges. Lay the base unit on its back and mark the screw holes for each hinge, then bradawl and hand-drill them and fit the hinges and the doors. Do all of this whilst the base unit is flat on its back, as it is far easier to drill the holes and fix the screws when it is in this position than when it is standing upright:

Now fit the magnetic door catches and the handles:







And now stand the base unit back upright to check that your hinges will hold the doors!




18) The base unit is almost complete, so now turn your attention back to the bottom shelves of the cabinet. Unscrew the shelves once again and paint them and the left-hand side panel of the cabinet in your chosen colour:






19) Once dry, you are now ready to attach the plastic twin-track channelling in which the perspex cabinet front covers will sit and slide. The channelling I use is 16.7 mm wide and obtained from http://www.unico.uk.com. The channelling comes in 2 different depths of channel, with the shallow channelling being for the bottom and sides of your cabinet, and the deeper channelling being for the top. The idea is that the top of the perspex or glass fronts is lifted into the deeper top channelling groove, and then the bottom of the perspex / glass is dropped down into the shallower bottom channelling groove. If you have measured and built everything correctly, your perspex / glass will be held in place by the top channelling and won't fall out and hit you on the head

In practice, whilst you should indeed use the deeper channelling for the top as it gives you a greater margin for error, if your cabinet fronts are perspex, the sheets are very flexible and can simply be flexed / bent in and out of the cabinet as required, rather than lifted in and out using the method described above.

The specific channelling I bought can be found here (and no, I don't work for Unico ;-)):

https://unico.uk.com/glass-wood-sli...or-channel/SDF007800203/167mm-wide-twin-track

The channelling comes in 2 metre lengths and has a raised central ridge to reduce the surface area of glass / perspex in contact with it to make sliding the panels easier:






20) You must now cut the channelling to the correct length. The easiest way to do this is to lay the channelling along the cabinet frame edge to which it will be fitted. Since you are doing the bottom shelf first, you must allow for the thickness of the side panels of the frame, otherwise your channelling will be too long. Placing an off-cut of the same thickness of MDF where the side panel will ultimately go will suffice:

In this particular build, because it is an 'L' shaped cabinet with two leaves, the right-hand edge of the larger left-hand leaf will not have an MDF panel, but rather the right-hand edge will be formed by the backboard of the left-hand leaf. Since hardboard used for the backboard is far thinner than MDF, for the right-hand end of the bottom shelf, you must use something of the same thickness as the hardboard:



Mark the place where you need to cut the channelling with a Stanley knife:




21) You are now ready to cut the channelling. If you are very good at making perfectly vertical saw cuts, then you are better at it than me. Personally, to avoid cutting at a slant and giving a poor looking end result, I prefer to use a mitre block to ensure a vertical cut. However, if you don't own a mitre block, you can easily improvise one using some old off-cuts and a few nails:



Insert the channelling into your mitre block and cut at the mark you made with your Stanley knife:




22) The channelling can be attached to your cabinet frame with glue, however I prefer the extra security of nailing it in position. This does however present a problem as the nail heads must lie below the bottom of the perspex / glass panels once they are inserted into the channelling, otherwise they won't slide. Fortunately, the ridge inside the channelling grooves can be carefully hand-drilled to decrease its height, thereby allowing tacks to be used to secure the channelling to the frame, whilst also ensuring the tack / nail heads are below the path of the perspex / glass above:





The above process is a bit laborious as each tack / nail you use must have a 'well' hand-drilled out for its head as shown above. Also, you should make 'wells' in both grooves of the channelling (i.e. if your length of channelling needs 4 nails to secure it, make two 'wells' in the front groove and two 'wells' in the rear groove, alternating along its length). However, once done your channelling can be secured with far greater peace of mind.

Lay the now-drilled channelling back into position on the cabinet frame, ensuring it is perfectly aligned. Use a bradawl to mark the shelf through each drill hole in the channelling, then remove the channelling and VERY CAREFULLY hand-drill each nail hole with a very thin drill bit. This is necessary as the nails will be fitted extremely close to the frame's edge, and you can very easily split the MDF / wood if you don't pre-drill the nail holes.






23) Because of the 2-leaf cabinet design, the point at which the channelling for each side of the cabinet meets poses a problem that need addressing. You could simply have both sides' channelling stopping at the point at which they meet. However, due to the large size of the left-hand leaf, I want to give the perspex cover on that leaf the extra support of sliding into some vertical twin-track channelling at its right-hand side. This means not only fixing a piece of channelling to the backboard on that side, but also running the channelling on the bottom and top of the cabinet frame all the way to the backboard. However, this means that the perspex cover on the right-hand leaf won't neatly touch the perspex cover on the left-hand leaf when both are closed, due to the design of the channelling, and will consequently leave a gap for dust to get into your cabinet. Therefore, a notch must be cut out of the channelling on the left-hand leaf to allow the right-hand side's perspex cover to fully slide to its left and neatly touch the left-hand leaf's perspex cover. If that sounds confusing, hopefully the images below will help explain it more clearly.

With both the left and right-hand bottom cabinet shelves' channelling strips cut to the correct size, lay them on the shelves and mark the point at which they meet. The right-hand side's perspex cover will ultimately sit in the front groove of its channelling when the cabinet is finished, so use a Stanley knife to mark the points at which the front groove of the right-hand channelling touches the left:



Now carefully cut out the required notch from the left-hand channelling:

Lay the channelling pieces back into position and check that the notch is in the right place:




24) You are now ready to nail the channelling pieces onto the frame using carpet tacks (aka blue tacks).



Be VERY careful when fitting the tacks as the channelling MUST be perfectly on the frame's edge, or it will look terrible, and the channelling can easily move as you are nailing it. The best way I've found to fit it is to carefully push the tacks into the pre-drilled holes by hand, then gently knock each one partially in using a hammer, constantly checking that the channelling is still in the correct position. Once the nail head reaches the lip of the channelling, use a centre punch to finish the job of hammering the nails home.

The nail heads MUST be below the internal ridge in the channelling groove or your perspex covers will not slide properly, so ensure you hammer the tacks in fully.




25) You are now almost ready to screw the bottom shelves back into position, but before you do, you must fit a pair of 3" angle brackets to the left-hand side of the left-hand leaf. These will fix in place and also help support the left-hand panel when that gets fitted. Therefore, position the brackets and mark the screw holes, then bradawl and hand-drill the screw holes.

Now screw the bottom shelves back onto their brackets for the final time:






26) Move the base unit back into its final position. This time the doors are attached to it, so it will be heavier and more awkward to move, so be careful.

Once the unit is in position, refit the carpet grippers you removed earlier to the front and side of the unit:





Then fit and finally trim the carpet to make a neat join with the base unit:





Install the base unit's bottom base board:

Screw on the base unit's top for the final time:





Fit the 3" angle brackets:



And then check that everything is still nice and level:

27) Do this by inserting supporting wedges / spacers at regular intervals beneath the front edge of the left-hand leaf. Without them, due to its large size, the bottom of the cabinet will bow under its own weight and dip down, especially at the left-hand front end, but also generally along the front edge. The wedges / spacers will prevent this by ensuring the bottom of the front of the cabinet remains level.

For now, exactly what you use as your wedges is not important, as these will be replaced with custom-made discrete cork blocks in the finished cabinet. As long as it / they do not easily compress, almost anything small will do (I used a mix of mending plates, cardboard and paper). Build up the thickness bit by bit, as necessary, to ensure the front edge remains level:




28) Screw the left-hand side panel of the left-hand leaf in place:



Then simply rest the two top panels of the cabinet on to the top angle brackets to check that everything fits together properly. If it does, you should also be able to insert the right-hand side panel of the right-hand leaf into position to give you your first look at how the border of the final cabinet will look:




29) With the top panels in position, mark all the screw holes needed to fix them to the wall-mounted supporting 4" angle brackets. Also mark the screw holes for another pair of 3" angle brackets inside the cabinet at the top of the left-hand side panel to match those you fixed at the bottom of the same panel. Once done, remove all top and side panels and once again, bradawl and hand-drill all the holes you just marked:

30) As you did with the two bottom cabinet panels, use a pair of straight mending plates to join the two top panels together and ensure they remain flush with one another. Fix these plates to the outside (i.e. upper) surface of the two top panels. If your cabinet is small enough, this can be completely done when the panels are flat on the ground or work table, and then simply lifted bodily into position whilst joined. However, if your cabinet is very large like this one, lifting the two joined panels together is quite awkward, so it may be easier to lift each one into position separately, and then join them with the mending plates in situ.

Once again mark, bradawl and hand-drill the screw holes needed for the mending plates, and attach the mending plates to one of the panels:





Reattach the left-hand side panel and place the top panels back into position and screw them onto their supporting angle brackets. Also screw the left-hand side panel to the top left panel using the pair of 3" angle brackets you added.

Finally, join the two top panels together using the two mending plates. If like this cabinet, the top panel is very close to your ceiling, limiting your working space, use a reversible right-angle ratchet screw driver to screw the screws into the top of the mending plates:






31) Now that the top panels are fixed into position, check that everything fits together as it should, and that everything that should be level remains level once screwed in place.

IT IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL THAT THE TOP AND BOTTOM PANELS ARE A CONSTANT DISTANCE FROM ONE ANOTHER AT THE FRONT OF THE CABINET!!!

IF THEY ARE NOT, THE PERSPEX FRONT PIECES WILL NOT FIT PROPERLY AND EVEN RISK FALLING OUT!

If necessary, add spacers above the top angle brackets to boost the height of the top panels, and again if necessary, adjust the height of the wedges / spacers beneath the bottom of the front of the cabinet, to maintain a constant and level separation between the top and bottom of the cabinet front:

32) You are now ready to test-fit your hardboard backboards into each leaf of the cabinet. These backboards will nicely hide most of the supporting angle brackets, and will also provide a uniform, smooth back to the finished cabinet.

With all cabinet perimeter panels now safely screwed in place (apart from the right-hand side panel, which is simply stood / wedged in place), insert each backboard into position one at a time. If they are a tight fit, they may be able to be wedged / jammed in against the upper angle brackets:







Mark the positions on the backboard of any angle brackets that it is wedged against:



With the backboard still wedged into position (or if it is not wedged, then simply holding it in position), remove the right-hand side panel. Mark the corners of BOTH backboards with a pencil, along with their left, right and top edges:

Once all corners, edges and angle bracket positions are marked, remove the backboards. If either is wedged in tightly, use a bent coat hanger to pull them free:






33) Using the pencil marks you just made of the backboards' corners and edges, position a sheet of paper exactly where each corner of the backboard was. Locate the 4 corner holes for each cabinet that you marked and drilled steps 14) & 15) above, which will hold each backboard in place, plus the screw holes for the twin-slot shelving system uprights. Because you are using paper, you can simply feel for where the holes / rawlplugs are, and then pierce the paper in the right places with a bradawl:





N.B. In this particular design, by careful initial positioning of the top-left supporting angle bracket fixed to the right-hand wall, I was able to use the bracket's lowest hole for two functions; helping to fix the bracket to the wall, and also as the top left corner hole for the right-hand backboard. This is why in picture 108 above (3 pictures back), the bottom screw is not yet fixed in the angle bracket.


34) Laying the backboards flat, position each sheet of paper you just marked exactly over its particular corner of the backboard, and mark the locations of all of the screw holes. I used a pencil for this initially, and then made the marks more obvious with a marker pen / felt tip after removing the paper:





Hand-drill each hole you just marked.

Next, if you previously marked any places where the backboards wedged against the angle brackets, use a hacksaw, Stanley knife and metal ruler to cut and score out small notches to prevent the boards wedging against the brackets in the finished cabinet:

35) Now remove all side and top panels for the last time and paint both them and the backboards:






36) When the backboards are fixed in their final positions, they will be covering multiple angle brackets, each of which is a couple of millimetres thick. However, they will be screwed into position using the four corner holes you made, and also by the screws fixing the twin-slot shelving system uprights in position. Therefore to avoid having a wavy surface to the backboard, and instead maintain as smooth a surface as possible, use masking tape to position a mending plate of the same thickness as your angle brackets over each screw hole that will be used to hold the backboard (both the corner holes and the twin-slot upright holes). Obviously, make sure you line up one of the holes in the mending plate with your screw hole!



When taping the 4 mending plates which will be behind the twin-slot shelving system uprights, ensure the mending plates are mounted horizontally (i.e. perpendicular to) the uprights, so that each side of the upright will be supported by / will press against the mending plate when finally screwed in place.


37) Now remove each support wedge / spacer from beneath the bottom of the left-hand cabinet and measure its exact thickness (I used a micrometer). Use cork pieces (a cork tile is ideal), a Stanley knife and a metal ruler to cut out identically sized neat rectangular support blocks, and glue these together into a stack. If necessary, add a piece of neatly cut cardboard, or even sheets of paper, measuring the thickness of the stack as you go, until each stack is the exact same thickness as the wedges you removed.

Once made, position your new cork wedges beneath the cabinet at the same points you removed the temporary ones from:




38) Once the paint is dry, screw each backboard into position. For a nicer finish, I use silver washers behind each screw head for the four corner screws:





Next, screw the twin-slot shelving system uprights into position:



Temporarily slot a couple of shelving brackets into the uprights and lay a spirit level across them to check that your glass shelves will be level! If they're not, you've made a mistake somewhere and will probably need to remove the backboards and drill new screw holes for one of your uprights :-(


39) Fix plastic channelling to the front inside edges all remaining cabinet panels (including the right-hand leaf's right-hand panel, which will be removable in the finished cabinet) as shown in steps 19) – 24) above. Once again ensure that you make a notch in the left-hand leaf's top panel's channelling, as detailed in step 23) above).

Once all channelling is securely fixed to the panels, screw the panels back in place for the final time:





As mentioned earlier in step 23), I want the perspex front cover of the larger left-hand leaf to slot neatly into a vertical piece of channelling at its right-hand end. However, the narrow width of the channelling grooves do not lend themselves to being fixed in place with large screws (which is one of the reasons why I used tacks to secure the other pieces earlier). However, the channelling on that side won't be supporting any significant weight, and simply needs to be held in place, and hammering tacks deep into a plaster and breeze-block wall isn't a very good idea. Therefore, fix this piece of channelling in place using very small short screws just long enough to go through the channelling and into the backboard behind. You want the screws to go completely through the backboard, but ideally do no more than just graze the plaster on the wall behind.

Mark the screw holes and carefully hand drill them (apologies for the blurred photo):

40) You must now paint all the exposed brackets left showing inside the cabinet with metal primer to ensure they don't rust and discolour when you subsequently paint them with their final colour.

Mask off all appropriate areas with masking tape (I use 'Frogtape') to ensure you don't get paint on the channelling, and then paint the brackets with metal primer:










41) Once the metal primer is dry, use flexible gap filler to seal and fill all internal edges. Ensure you smooth the sealant whilst it is still wet! :



Once the filler is dry, paint the filler and areas of primed metal with however many coats of paint are required to match the rest of the cabinet.

Once the paint is dry, screw the final piece of channelling into position on the right-hand side, and add the twin-slot shelving system brackets at the desired heights:




42) Now carefully measure your perspex requirements for the front covers. If you intend to have two panes in your cabinet front (as I have in the left-hand leaf of this build), then remember to allow a small overlap of the panes where they meet. To get the dimensions, measure the total width of the cabinet between the top of the internal ridge in each piece of vertical channelling (left and right sides), divide that distance by two, then add approximately 15 mm to get the required width of each perspex pane (this will give you a 3 cm overlap where the panes meet, which is about right).

Measure the height of the cabinet from the top of the internal ridge in each piece of channelling (top and bottom) to get the required height of each perspex pane, but deduct 2 or 3 millimetres from your measurement to allow yourself a little wiggle room. DO NOT DEDUCT TOO MUCH OR THE PANE WILL BE TOO SHORT AND WILL FALL OUT WHEN FITTED! DO NOT DEDUCT TOO LITTLE OR THE PANE WON'T FIT AND SLIDE!

N.B. IF YOU PLAN ON USING GLASS IN THE FRONT OF YOUR CABINETS INSTEAD OF PERSPEX THEN THE HEIGHT MEASUREMENT WILL BE DIFFERENT FROM THAT ABOVE AND NEEDS TO BE MORE EXACT, AS GLASS ISN'T FLEXIBLE!

Once you have your perspex panes cut to size (they need to be 4 mm thick), insert them into your cabinet to check that they fit properly. Because it is so flexible, it can simply be bent / flexed in and out of the cabinet. Do not remove the protective outer plastic film from the perspex yet:



When installed, if the two perspex panes appear to overlap more at the top than at the bottom (as is often the case because large sheets of perspex are so flexible / bendy), this can be easily fixed by cutting down an off-cut of the plastic channelling to make small lifts / spacers and placing them in the channelling grooves where the two panes overlap:

43) The front cover of the left-hand leaf is made up of two pieces of perspex that can slide past each other. In practice, these pieces are of a size where they can be bent / flexed in and out of the cabinet completely if you need to gain greater access to the contents, but clearly removing them completely won't always be convenient, so being able to slide them open is also very useful.

However, from both a dust-prevention and an aesthetic viewpoint, having two pieces of perspex is always going to be less desirable than having one single piece of unbroken perspex at the front of a display cabinet, in my personal opinion. With this build, because the right-hand cabinet leaf is narrower and far shallower than its much wider and deeper left-hand neighbour, making the right leaf's right side end panel removable is very easy. This in turn makes having a single pane of perspex at the front of the right-hand leaf a much more possible and convenient option. This is because, with the right-hand side panel of the cabinet removed, a pane of perspex can simply be slid in and out of the cabinet from that side.

However, when the perspex is fitted in the cabinet, naturally the cabinet's removable right-hand side panel must remain securely fixed in place so it can't fall out. This is achieved using simple brass hooks and eyes at the top and bottom of the panel:









This panel must be removable, but if there is too large a gap at the top of it when fixed in position, to keep the dust out use some sticky-backed draught excluder to close it:








44) You are now ready to fit the glass, which you will have ordered after very carefully measuring what you require. Remember to allow yourself a little wiggle room at each end of the shelves (e.g. if the internal width of your cabinet is 100.5 cm, order shelves which are 100.0 cm wide, otherwise you will have trouble fitting them). Additionally, when measuring the depth you require your shelves to be, make sure you measure from the front of the twin-slot vertical supports, NOT the backboard of your cabinet, and also make sure that you measure no further forward than the back of the plastic channelling, otherwise your shelves will stick out further than the perspex covers! Again, if the measured depth between the bracket front and the back of the channelling is 14.0 cm, order glass shelves less deep than that (but not less deep than the depth of your twin-slot brackets or the brackets will stick out beyond the front of your shelves).

N.B. If your glass shelves are large and or will be supporting a lot of weight, I recommend using 6 mm float glass (i.e. regular glass, not tempered or hardened glass). If your shelves are small and won't be holding much weight (e.g. if they are just holding loose Star Wars figures), then 4 mm float glass should suffice. The glass does NOT need to be toughened. Toughened glass is much more expensive than regular float glass and simply isn't necessary unless it's likely to get knocked about, which your perspex cabinet fronts should prevent happening. Toughened glass also carries a very small risk of spontaneously exploding, as I found out to my own great financial cost (see the 11th post down here and shudder: http://starwarsforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=34774). Regular float glass does not carry this risk.

Additionally, (and I know this is stating the bleedin' obvious!) the edges of cut glass are extremely sharp and dangerous. You can order your glass shelves with polished edges to remove the danger, but whilst this finish does look the very best of all, it's also quite an expensive additional cost. A cheaper alternative is to have the edges of your glass shelves 'arised', which is a process that removes the sharp edges like polishing does, but leaves a rougher finish. Pictures 007 & 008 in the very first post of this thread show glass which has been 'arised', and whilst it isn't as nice a finish as polished edges, providing the contents of your cabinet are sufficiently interesting, I doubt many people will be looking at the edges of your glass shelves ;-)


45) Once you have your glass you should wash and dry each piece as it will inevitably arrive dirty and covered in fingerprints:



Once cleaned, fit your glass shelves into your cabinet.

N.B. Providing the glass is thick enough (I'm using 6mm), and also providing it cannot be accidentally knocked (again, the front covers prevent that from happening), the glass shelves can quite safely simply rest on top of the brackets without additional pads or support.



And here's picture with the right-hand side panel removed:

46) The panes of perspex used in this build are quite large, and due to their size and natural flexibility, as already stated they will bow slightly under their own weight. In the left-hand cabinet leaf, the left and right-hand side vertical plastic channelling helps to counter much of this when the perspex is fitted in its 'closed' position. However, to help pinch the two panes together at the point where they overlap, and hence to also help keep them upright and keep dust out, small neodymium magnets are used (these are incredibly strong for their size and are easily available online).

One magnet is glued to the inside of the rear perspex pane (i.e. the pane sitting in the rear groove of the plastic channelling), and then a second magnet (not glued) is simply attached via magnetism onto the exterior of the outer pane (i.e. the one sitting in the front groove of the channelling), thereby pinching the two panes together.

To find exactly where to glue the rear magnets, firstly fit the perspex front covers, again leaving the protective film in place. Ensure that the left and right panes are slid fully into their respective vertical channels. Mark the positions where you want your magnets to go by simply drawing a dot on the protective film with a marker pen in the appropriate place(s). This mark will however of course be on the front surface of the outer pane, but since you want to glue the magnet to the back of the rear pane, measure the exact position the mark you've just made, then remove the front pane and, using your measurement, draw the mark again on the front side of the rear pane.

There will be two magnetic 'pinch points' on the left-hand leaf, so try to line each of these up with a shelf edge (to avoid having a magnet hovering in front of whatever you end up displaying in the cabinet), and also at the mid-point of where the panes overlap:



To glue a magnet onto the perspex, carefully cut and peel back the protective film in a small area on the rear side where you are fixing your magnet (take care not to scratch the perspex!), and use a small drop of very strong glue like Araldite on one side of that magnet. Line it up with the mark you made on the protective film on the other (front) side of the perspex, and then simply add another magnet to the front side on top of the mark you made to hold both magnets in position whilst the glue dries:







And here it is with the panes back in the cabinet:




47) Now ensure that the right-hand cabinet's perspex cover is pushed fully over to the left-hand side, so that it touches the right-hand perspex pane in the left-hand cabinet. However, the right-hand cabinet's perspex cover poses a problem of its own. Because it is a single large pane, but does not have any vertical channelling to slide into at its left-hand edge, it too may well bow under its own weight and not look square (or the perspex sheet it was cut from may have a natural bend to it). Counter this by forcing it into a vertical position with further neodymium magnets.

In this particular build, the perspex pane in the right-hand cabinet bent inwards in the middle, meaning it was touching the glass shelves behind. I didn't want this, and it also looked poor, so I fixed a stack of magnets to the right-hand perspex pane of the left-hand leaf (again, gluing just one single magnet onto its rear face, but then adding more magnets on both sides of the perspex to build the desired stack). I made sure to position this stack such that when the right-hand cabinet's perspex pane was fully closed, it would sit in front of the stack, forcing it vertical and preventing it bending inwards and touching the shelves behind. I did this by first marking on the protective film whereabouts I wanted the stack to sit:



Then using the same technique shown above, I glued just one single magnet at the base of the stack (the other five magnets are being held in place by their magnetism :



Lastly, to help pinch the right-hand cabinet's perspex pane tight against the stack, I glued one extra magnet to the OUTSIDE of the right-hand pane, and then added a second magnet on top of that one, also on the outside of the pane (there are no magnets on the inside of the perspex pane in the right-hand cabinet). The magnetic attraction of this mini stack of two magnets is sufficient to pull the pane inwards towards the larger magnet stack:

And at the risk of skipping ahead, here's a shot of the above in the finished cabinet:



N.B. Neodymium magnets are very strong indeed and whilst they won't pull off a magnet stuck on with Araldite, a larger stack of magnets will easily pull off a smaller one. For this reason it was essential that there be a larger number of magnets behind the right-hand cabinet's pane (albeit they are fixed onto the pane in the left-hand cabinet), than there was in front of it. I therefore used the arrangement shown above with 3 magnets on either side of the pane in the left-hand cabinet, but only 2 on the front of the right-hand cabinet's pane.


48) Because the glued magnets on the inside of the left-hand cabinet's panes are very close to the glass shelves, to stop them rubbing and scratching against the glass edge, I added a small adhesive felt pad to the back of the magnet, cut to size from a larger sheet:









And skipping ahead once again, here's a shot of the felt pad in place in the finished cabinet:




49) Remove the perspex panes and carefully peel off the protective film from the rear sides.

N.B. This process generates a LOT of static electricity, so make sure you do not do this in a dusty area or your panes will get dirty very quickly. Also, perspex is much lighter than glass, which makes it much safer and easier to work with in some respects. The trade-off for this is that it also scratches and marks much more easily than glass. Additionally, cleaning off fingerprints / grease / dirt can be tricky without marking perspex, so I recommend always taking care not to touch the surface of the perspex any more than necessary. When sliding or lifting the panes in and out of the cabinet, I use a pair of clean cloths to touch the perspex so that my fingers don't touch it directly.

Put the panes back in the cabinets and carefully remove the protective film from the front of the cabinets:








50) Congratulations, you have built yourself a display cabinet

Great work Jeremy and thank you for sharing. Always good to see how everyone displays their pieces and also very interesting to see how the custom ones are built as you may or may not know I am also in the process of building one too. It's nice that you can build a custom one that suits yourself.

Look forward to seeing the progression.

tigerham said:

Great work Jeremy and thank you for sharing. Always good to see how everyone displays their pieces and also very interesting to see how the custom ones are built as you may or may not know I am also in the process of building one too. It's nice that you can build a custom one that suits yourself.

Look forward to seeing the progression.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Ham. I really will try my best to post the rest of this guide ASAP. I have the photos already, of course, so it's just a case of joining all the dots with the written instructions / explanations of what I did and why. And I am quite serious, if anyone has any questions about how I did something or why, please feel free to ask. I will try to make this guide as complete as possible, but there will always be things that I won't have explained as well as I could, or which perhaps aren't as self-explanatory as I hoped

And as for your own display, yes I am very much looking forward to seeing it when it's done . I just hope you're a little faster building them than me, as I take ages! I shouldn't do, as the build itself really isn't all that time-consuming, but life usually seems to get in the way of a rapid finish! ;-)