China Cabinet Humidor DIY - 1st Attempt

[98rt46]

My collection of cigars has grown and I'm running out of room. Went from my small desktop humidor (shown in pictures), to a mini fridge conversion, to then a wine fridge. Always wanted a cabinet humidor but I have a hard time paying over $2k for one. And part of me wanted one that would hold my liquor as well as my cigars. So, might as well try to build one.

First, let me start out by saying this:

- I'm by no means a carpenter. I just like pissing around with my tools and trying to build things. The finish is off in some parts. That being said, this is my first go at it and I plan to do another one in the near future and incorporate my lessons learned from this one

I found this cabinet (on the left) on facebook marketplace for $100.

I then stripped out the shelves.

From there I removed the back flimsy panel and installed a piece of 1/4" plywood. After the plywood was installed I used aquarium grade silicone to seal all the corners and sides. I managed to get some 1/4" Spanish cedar from a local woodshop and started cutting to size. I lined the entire inside of the cabinet in 1/4" Spanish cedar. Boards were installed with titebond wood glue. I used quick support rods to hold the top panels in place while the glue set.

Note to self: don't rush!! You'll notice that the center pieces of SC are running horizontally vs the other boards running vertically. The vertical boards were off level by a few mm which meant that the center piece needed to be tapered. And then I found out I didn't have any more boards left at that length so I had to change direction and run the rest horizontally. Figured if it was going to look off, might as well try to center it at least.

Installed a motion activated LED light up top. Light turns on once the doors are open. I sealed the back of the doors with the same grade silicone as the interior of the cabinet.

And I made my own little twist on the shelf brackets. I used 1x2 with holes spaced every 2" starting roughly 4" from the bottom. 1 in each corner. Instead of wood dowels, I used pushrods cut to size from a big block chevy engine that my dad had in the garage. He passed away 5 years ago and he taught me a lot about building engines and working on old hot rods. I wanted to incorporate something engine related into this build.

The main door has a barrel bolt latch on the top and bottom to secure it in place and seal tight. The secondary door utilizes a keyed lock with angled catch to secure itself to the primary door. I installed the keyed lock and realized it was a bit too tight to the primary door so I had to chisel away some of the overlap. I'll be using the router to clean up the cut.

For now, the humidor is seasoning and I have a Bluetooth hygrometer in there to monitor the readings. What I have remaining is:

- Build 3 shelves using leftover SC

- Install Set and Forget humidifier

- Install 3 hygrometers on each shelf

- Clean up the latches

- Install LED strip lights around cabinet interior

One of my big learnings from doing a cabinet build:

BUY A CABINET THAT HAS A SINGLE DOOR. DO NOT BUY A DOUBLE DOOR CABINET!! Being that there was no center divider between the two doors, that made for such a pain in the ass to try and get them to seal correctly. I utilized foam and rubber weatherstripping of various different sizes, barrel bolts to have the door close tight, key latches etc. It was by far the biggest pain in my ass for this build. Next time, I'm going with a single door cabinet.

I also forgot to mention, cabinet is about 13 cubic feet in size. I figure it should hold around 3000 cigars by my guess.

I'm open to all criticisms and suggestions. What would you have done differently? I'm trying to learn from others that have done these before and later down the road build another one and hopefully have it turn out way better than this.

[Li Bai]

Really nice work ! I've done something similar myself but as the cabinet is in my basement (the room is always between 60 and 70RH) I didn't need to worry too much about sealing.

Have you done something about the doors glass?