What's inside
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Contents
Project Overview and Skill Level
This wooden console cabinet is a good intermediate woodworking project: the cabinet is straightforward, but making smooth tambour doors requires accurate spacing and patience. The finished cabinet is suitable for a hallway, living room, or media area. A practical target size is 60 inches wide, 30 inches high, and 15 inches deep, with two tambour doors and an adjustable shelf.
Build the carcass from 3/4-inch plywood, use solid wood for the face frame and trim, and make the tambour from narrow hardwood strips connected with flexible cloth. Plan on two to three weekends if you are learning as you go. The most common failures are a cabinet that is slightly out of square, doors that bind in their tracks, and tambour slats that are too thick to make the required curve.
Materials and Tools
You will need two side panels, a top, bottom, center divider, back, shelf, and door components. Baltic birch plywood is easy to machine and has a clean edge, but cabinet-grade maple plywood is usually less expensive in large sheets. Avoid construction plywood; its voids and uneven plies make accurate joinery difficult.
| Material | Best use | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Baltic birch plywood | Visible carcass parts and shelves | Flat, strong, but costs more and may be harder to find in full sheets |
| Cabinet-grade plywood | Most of the cabinet | Good value, but face veneers and core quality vary |
| Solid hardwood strips | Tambour slats and front trim | Looks best, but must be milled consistently |
| Flexible tambour cloth | Joining the slats on the back | Inexpensive and forgiving; exposed glue or wrinkles cause problems |
Useful tools include a table saw or track saw, router, random-orbit sander, drill, clamps, square, and a reliable tape measure. A flush-trim router bit set helps with templates and consistent parts, but it is not essential. A woodworking parallel clamp set is convenient for assembling the carcass; cheaper bar clamps are fine if you check the cabinet for square repeatedly.
Make a Cut List Before Cutting
For a cabinet measuring 60 by 30 by 15 inches, cut the top and bottom at 60 by 15 inches, the sides at 28 1/2 by 15 inches, and the center divider at 28 1/2 by 15 inches. This assumes the top and bottom run between or over the sides according to your chosen joinery, so confirm the final dimensions before cutting. Add a 1/4-inch plywood back, cut slightly oversized, and trim it after the carcass is assembled.
Leave at least 1/8 inch of clearance around each tambour door opening. Measure the completed opening rather than trusting the cut list. Wood movement, plywood thickness, and small assembly errors can easily change the opening by 1/16 inch or more.
Build and Square the Cabinet Carcass
Cut the plywood panels with a fine-tooth blade and support the sheet on both sides of the cut. Mark every part immediately. Drill shelf-pin holes in the sides before assembly, using a 1 1/4-inch spacing jig or a purchased shelf pin jig. Keep the holes at least 2 inches from the cabinet top and bottom so they do not weaken the joints.
Assemble the sides, top, bottom, and center divider with dados, confirmat screws, pocket screws, or a combination of glue and screws. Dados give the strongest alignment, but pocket screws are quicker and acceptable when the joints will be hidden. Measure both diagonals before the glue cures. If they differ by more than 1/8 inch, pull the carcass square with a clamp or adjust the joints.
Install the back after the box is square. It is not merely a dust cover; a properly attached back prevents the cabinet from racking. Glue and nail or screw it into a continuous rear edge. Add a recessed stretcher behind the top if the cabinet will support a heavy television or stone object.
Make the Tambour Doors
Choose straight-grained hardwood with low movement, such as poplar, maple, or oak. Mill a test strip first. A useful slat is 3/4 inch wide by 3/8 inch thick, with a shallow roundover on the front edges. Make enough slats to cover the opening plus two extras. For a 27-inch-high opening using 3/4-inch slats, start with 38 slats, then confirm the count with a dry layout.
Consistency matters more than the exact profile. Run every slat through the same setup, then sand the front faces to 180 grit. Do not aggressively round the back edges; thin areas can split when the door curves. Lay the slats face down on a flat surface, align them with spacers, and glue tambour cloth across the back. Use a thin, even coat of flexible wood glue. Too much glue soaks through the cloth and creates stiff spots.
After the glue dries, trim the cloth and test the door in a temporary curve. The door should bend smoothly without any slat separating. If the cloth wrinkles, the slats were not aligned during glue-up. If the door resists the curve, the slats are too thick, the gaps are too small, or the track radius is too tight.
Install Tracks and Fit the Doors
Tambour doors need a continuous track from the front opening into the cabinet sides. Rout or install hardwood tracks in the top and bottom, keeping them parallel within about 1/16 inch over their full length. A shallow track that is too tight will bind; a deep track can let the door jump out. Make a plywood test track before cutting the finished cabinet.
Leave approximately 1/16 inch of side clearance and 1/8 inch of vertical clearance. Install the doors before adding decorative face trim. If a door catches at one point, locate the exact spot with chalk, then adjust the track or sand only that area. Do not solve binding by sanding the entire door; excessive clearance produces rattling and visible gaps.
Add Trim, Finish, and Hardware
Apply a solid-wood edge band or face frame to hide plywood edges. Keep the trim flush with the door opening so it does not reduce the track clearance. Ease exposed corners with a small roundover and sand through 180 or 220 grit. Vacuum thoroughly before finishing, especially inside the tracks.
Water-based polyurethane dries quickly and keeps light woods pale. Oil-based polyurethane gives more warmth and longer open time but can take several days to stop smelling in a living space. For either finish, apply three thin coats to the cabinet and two to the tambour slats, sanding lightly between coats. Do not flood the tracks with finish; buildup there can make a previously smooth door stick.
Install magnetic catches or a discreet finger pull only after the finish has cured. Test both doors through their full travel, load the shelf, and check that the cabinet remains stable. If it will stand where children can climb, attach it to the wall with an anti-tip bracket rather than relying on its weight.
Account for Seasonal Wood Movement
Solid tambour slats and trim will expand across their grain as humidity rises. Keep solid parts narrow, avoid trapping them tightly between plywood panels, and leave small expansion gaps at trim joints. Store the wood indoors for at least a week before milling. A cabinet assembled in a dry winter shop may develop tight doors in a humid summer room, so the initial clearances are deliberate rather than sloppy.