Furniture designer
Design a bookcase, a base or wall cabinet carcass, or a workbench from its size, sheet thickness and joinery (screws, pocket screws, dados, rabbets) — joint allowances added to the cut lengths, back panel, fixed and adjustable shelves with shelf-pin holes, face frame, toe kick — with drawings, a side-panel layout, a cut list, sheet and board layouts and a shopping list from the cut list optimizer, shelf-sag checks and illustrated steps.
Added
Works with
- Cut list optimizer Woodworkingopens the design’s panels as a cut list to lay out on sheets
How to use it
Pick what you are making, give it a size and a material, and choose how it goes together. The case is drawn to scale with every part, and the cut list already allows for the joints: a shelf that sits in 1/4"-deep dados is cut 1/2" longer than the space between the sides.
How to use it
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What are you making? — Bookcase (full top and bottom, plinth), Base cabinet (top stretchers instead of a top, recessed toe kick notched into the sides, face frame), Wall cabinet (no kick) or Workbench. Switching resets the fields to that template’s defaults.
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Size — outside width, height and depth (the depth includes a back nailed on; a face frame adds its 3/4" in front).
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Material and joinery — the case material (its real thickness is used: 23/32" for “3/4” sheathing plywood, 18 mm for hardwood plywood), and the joints:
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Butt joints, screws — top, bottom and fixed shelves fit between the sides, screwed through them.
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Pocket screws — the same lengths, pocket holes underneath.
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Dados — top, bottom and fixed shelves sit in dados in the sides; each is cut the inside width
2 × the dado depth (a third of the side’s thickness is usual; at most half is allowed). -
Rabbets + dados — the top and bottom in rabbets at the ends of the sides, fixed shelves in dados; the same allowance.
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Back — none, nailed onto the back edges (the sides and shelves are made shallower by its thickness), or let into rabbets in the sides (half the side’s thickness deep; the back is the inside width + both rabbets, less 1/16" play, and the shelves stop in front of it).
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Shelves and face frame — fixed shelves divide the height into equal openings; adjustable shelves are spread over them, 1/16" shorter than the opening. Shelf-pin holes follow the 32 mm system: 5 mm holes, 32 mm apart, in rows 37 mm from the front and back edges, starting and ending 2" from each opening; the Side panel drawing shows them with the dados, rabbets and heights from the bottom. The face frame is 1x2 (or ripped wider) with rails at the top, bottom and every fixed shelf.
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Workbench — length, depth, height and top overhang; one to three layers of sheet for the top; 4x4 or doubled-2x4 legs inside a 2x4 apron, with a lower stretcher ring and an optional lower shelf notched round the legs; carriage bolts or screws at the leg joints.
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Drawings — drag the view to turn it, or pick Isometric, Front or Side (Front and Side show the dimensions). ⛶ Full screen (or
F) gives the view the whole screen; ◫ Panels hides the settings; Escape leaves. -
Cut list, Sheet & board layout and Shopping — parts with length along the grain, width, thickness and notes (dados, rabbets, notches); the parts packed onto 4 × 8 ft sheets and 8 ft boards by the cut list optimizer (open them there, filled in, to change kerf or stock); the sheets, boards, screws, pins and glue to buy at your prices.
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Steps — cut, cut the joinery, drill the shelf-pin holes, assemble, back, kick and face frame, shelves and finish (or for the bench: end frames, join, shelf, top), each with a drawing of what it adds in orange. Print view puts the whole plan on one page; Save design / Load… keep it as a JSON file.
Shelf sag — a rule of thumb
Shelves are checked as simply supported beams under a uniform load with the shelf sag calculator's formula and stiffness figures (δ = 5wL⁴ / 384EI): a pass (✓) below span/600 (0.02" per foot, where sag starts to show), △ to span/360, ✗ beyond. The default load is 20–25 lb per foot of shelf, about a row of hardbacks. Shelves in dados are stiffer than this (partly fixed ends) and loaded shelves creep to about twice the initial sag over months. A hardwood strip glued to the front edge is the easiest stiffener. Workbench aprons use E = 1,400,000 psi (SPF No. 2, AWC NDS Supplement Table 4A).
Limits
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Carcasses are boxes: no doors or drawers (see the drawer and door tools), no curved or angled parts, no dividers between the sides.
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The face frame is flush with the outside of the sides; stiles wider than the sides overhang the opening.
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Fastener counts are estimates (one every 6" along a joint).
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The sag check is guidance, not engineering; workbench racking is resisted by the aprons and stretchers only.
Linking to an example
Share link copies a URL with the design in readable parameters; lengths are in the design’s units
(units=in or mm; inches accept 11-1/4). Settings not in the link take their defaults.
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Outside width (bench: length), height, depth |
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Case and back material: |
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Fixed and adjustable shelves; shelf-pin holes |
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Face frame |
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Plinth or toe-kick height; toe-kick depth (base cabinet) |
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Shelf load, lb per foot (kg per metre) |
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Bench: top layers, overhang, |
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