The bathroom cabinet I am building has 7 adjustable (with shelf pins)
5/16" glass shelves.

The sides and back are painted birch plywood and the face frame is poplar and
the dimensions are 18" x 9" (the cabinet is pretty square).

What is a good margin to leave so that I won't have issues with shelves
sticking due to expansion, paint layers (over time), measurement
tolerance etc.

I made a blank of 1/4" plywood that had 1/16" margins (17 7/8 x 8 7/8)
which certainly would give enough room but I'm wondering whether it
would be wise to tighten them up a bit to say decrease the margin to
1/32".

So what is a standard margin for a good quality cabinet in such a situation.
(I know this is not a scientific question but I wanted to get input from
people who have built such cabinets before)

blueman writes:
The bathroom cabinet I am building has 7 adjustable (with shelf pins)
5/16" glass shelves.

The sides and back are painted birch plywood and the face frame is poplar and
the dimensions are 18" x 9" (the cabinet is pretty square).


Also, should one use tempered glass for such a situation?

I am planning on ordering polished edges at least for the front edge. Is
it common to polish all edges or is that likely to be a waste of money
and should I just go with polishing the visible front one.

Anything else that one should consider when ordering glass for shelves
for a bathroom cabinet?

Note I am planning on using 5/16th glass to match the thickness of some
existing glass shelves in the bathroom.

If existing glass shelf tolerances have worked fine, why not continue
to use those tolerances with the new shelves.

I would assume if you pay for the edges to be polished, the fee is for
any number of edges. I think the fee is for polishing, period, not
dependent on the number of edges. Otherwise, the fee is an hourly
fee. Any additional fee can't be that much to complain about....
5-10 minutes to polish 7 small panes!

Sonny

On Jan 9, 1:41*pm, blueman wrote:
Swingman writes:
On 1/9/2012 11:24 AM, blueman wrote:
*writes:

On 1/9/2012 9:23 AM, blueman wrote:

So what is a standard margin for a good quality cabinet in such a situation.
(I know this is not a scientific question but I wanted to get input from
people who have built such cabinets before)

I typically make shelves 1/4" - 5/16" narrower in width than the width
between the interior end panels.

If you do have trouble, due to the shelves being a bit too wide for
the thickness of the doubled (one on each side), typical shelf pin
standard, simply turning all four shelf pins upside down will
generally solve the problem.

The shelf pins I use don't have a side lip
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=112

So i was thinking 1/16th clearance on each side would be enough.

Any reason not to use the above style pins?

I prefer these, because, IMO, their design adds a bit more shear
strength to loaded shelves when the bottom of the "L" is down, but
YMMV:

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=108

I could see how those could be helpful on heavy shelves.
But these are 18x9" medicine cabinet type shelves - so no heavy loads -
mostly medicine bottles, wife's makeup stuff, toilet paper, tissue
boxes, etc.
I wouldn't think more than 10lbs/shelf max.

And since the shelves are glass I prefer smaller, less obtrusive pins.

But for heavy wooden book shelves, I see why the other style would have
benefits...- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

For less obstrusive, have you considered either of these clear pins?

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=1343
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=111

On 1/9/2012 9:17 AM, Sonny wrote:
If existing glass shelf tolerances have worked fine, why not continue
to use those tolerances with the new shelves.

I would assume if you pay for the edges to be polished, the fee is for
any number of edges. I think the fee is for polishing, period, not
dependent on the number of edges. Otherwise, the fee is an hourly
fee. Any additional fee can't be that much to complain about....
5-10 minutes to polish 7 small panes!

Sonny

edge work is usually paid by the linear inch.

On 1/9/2012 8:23 AM, blueman wrote:
The bathroom cabinet I am building has 7 adjustable (with shelf pins)
5/16" glass shelves.

The sides and back are painted birch plywood and the face frame is poplar and
the dimensions are 18" x 9" (the cabinet is pretty square).

What is a good margin to leave so that I won't have issues with shelves
sticking due to expansion, paint layers (over time), measurement
tolerance etc.

I made a blank of 1/4" plywood that had 1/16" margins (17 7/8 x 8 7/8)
which certainly would give enough room but I'm wondering whether it
would be wise to tighten them up a bit to say decrease the margin to
1/32".

So what is a standard margin for a good quality cabinet in such a situation.
(I know this is not a scientific question but I wanted to get input from
people who have built such cabinets before)

yes, order them tempered. get the dimensions right though, as you can't
get them recut.

blueman wrote:
Swingman writes:

On 1/9/2012 9:23 AM, blueman wrote:

So what is a standard margin for a good quality cabinet in such a
situation. (I know this is not a scientific question but I wanted
to get input from people who have built such cabinets before)

I typically make shelves 1/4" - 5/16" narrower in width than the
width between the interior end panels.

If you do have trouble, due to the shelves being a bit too wide for
the thickness of the doubled (one on each side), typical shelf pin
standard, simply turning all four shelf pins upside down will
generally solve the problem.

The shelf pins I use don't have a side lip
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=112

So i was thinking 1/16th clearance on each side would be enough.

All you need is enough to get them on the pins.

Any reason not to use the above style pins?

None at all.

--

dadiOH
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LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

On Mon, 9 Jan 2012 08:23:36 -0700, blueman wrote
(in article ):

The bathroom cabinet I am building has 7 adjustable (with shelf pins)
5/16" glass shelves.

The sides and back are painted birch plywood and the face frame is poplar and
the dimensions are 18" x 9" (the cabinet is pretty square).

What is a good margin to leave so that I won't have issues with shelves
sticking due to expansion, paint layers (over time), measurement
tolerance etc.

I made a blank of 1/4" plywood that had 1/16" margins (17 7/8 x 8 7/8)
which certainly would give enough room but I'm wondering whether it
would be wise to tighten them up a bit to say decrease the margin to
1/32".

So what is a standard margin for a good quality cabinet in such a situation.
(I know this is not a scientific question but I wanted to get input from
people who have built such cabinets before)

5/16 glass is quite strong, I don't thing tempered is required unless there
is going to be lots of impacts on it. Also consider that 1/16" is not
uncommon for the cutting tolerance of the shelves so add that in.

-Bruce