- Joined
- Nov 23, 2014
- Messages
- 2,634
POTD was actually a couple of days work. I used to have stuff stacked on an 8' x 6' x 2' deep set of shelves, totally disorganized. About two years ago I made a couple of 4' x 4' x 2' deep cabinets with a divider down the middle. Having no real plan for storing stuff, made a twin bank of drawers with the depths 10", 8", three 6", 4" and 3". I used 1/2" B/C plywood for everything including the drawer bottoms. Filled them up and made a bank of drawers for the other cabinet based on what was left. Fast forward 2 years to this past weekend. . .
Now that I've lived with it for 2 years, some changes were in order. I had my electrical stuff like breakers, switches & plates, outlets, etc. in a 10" drawer and it was chocked full. Also had my end mills in 3" deep tubs that were stacked two-deep in one drawer. The upper layer had a label for what was below, but it was a pain to pull out a bin to get to the one below. Also had other tooling in a plastic organizer across the shop.
Didn't show it yet, maybe tomorrow's POTD, but I have a nice maple workbench top that sets on lockers. Bought it from a high school shop 20 years ago. I like the bench, but it's a stand-at bench because of the lockers. So pulled some stuff out of one of the locker banks and sized it for drawers in the storage cabinet. That'll let me pull one of the locker units and add some legs for a sit-at bench.
Made this cabinet and drawers a couple of years ago. Time to store more stuff and do some rearranging. Fortunately, I kept the far bank empty so the drawer sizes could be made to what was left to hide, 'er store.
Most of my end mills were in one drawer at the bottom of a cabinet, so a deep knee bend to get to them. Plus, they were stacked two-deep. The paper label is what's in the bin below.
I had an empty drawer (all have the same foot print) so could dump stuff in and measure the height. This one would hold my Dewalt 3 x 21 belt sander and orbital sanders.
I used 1/2" B/C plywood for everything including the drawer bottoms. I typically use 1/4" luan for drawer bottoms on furniture, but ended up with about 1/4" of sag on a couple of drawers full of pots and pans in our kitchen drawers. Doubling the thickness yields 8-times the stiffness, so sacrificed a 1/4" of drawer depth to hopefully not get a droop in these bottoms. So far, so good after 2 years on the existing cabinet.
Harbor Freight gets a bad rap on a lot of products, but I LOVE my HF dovetail jig. Albeit, I've never used one of the $200+ ones, only have a $30 plastic Sears one to compare to (it's garbage). I replaced the plastic clamp cams with aluminum ones a couple of years ago and it's served me well. I used a HF HVLP spray gun to shoot 3 coats of poly-urethane on the drawers, have had great luck with that gun.
I used 20" and 22" full-extension drawer glides. Would have preferred to use 22" on all of the drawers, but only had two of them and had at least 20 of the 20"ers. I must say the Chinese do a nice job on these. I paid $5 per pair for the 22" glides. I recall paying over triple that for a pair of 16" Amerock full-extension glides 20 years ago. I had been re-using drawer pulls from my parent's old kitchen cabinets and as luck would turn out, came up ONE short.
Finished cabinet. Used a Brother label maker for labeling the drawers. Still have a few empty ones (for now).
I can now get to my end mills a lot easier. Put them in the top three drawers. Top drawer is 1/8" - 3/8", next is 3/8" - 3/4", third has 3/4" - 1" and some other tooling like spotting drills, center drills, roll form tabs, etc. A 4" drawer with a 1/2" bottom in a dado 1/4" up from the bottom of the sides/front gives a 3 1/4" deep drawer. It's the perfect size for the U-line, Menards, etc. 3" deep storage tubs.
1/8" - 3/8" end mills
3/8" - 3/4" end mills
3/4" - 1" end mills and other tooling
I cut pieces of sheet metal that fit into the label slot, a bend at the top gives a flat spot for a label. Works well for bins with screws and nuts too. Let's you over-fill the containers some, plus doubles as a squeegee when the contents are dumped on the bench for sorting/searching.
Thanks for looking,
Bruce
Now that I've lived with it for 2 years, some changes were in order. I had my electrical stuff like breakers, switches & plates, outlets, etc. in a 10" drawer and it was chocked full. Also had my end mills in 3" deep tubs that were stacked two-deep in one drawer. The upper layer had a label for what was below, but it was a pain to pull out a bin to get to the one below. Also had other tooling in a plastic organizer across the shop.
Didn't show it yet, maybe tomorrow's POTD, but I have a nice maple workbench top that sets on lockers. Bought it from a high school shop 20 years ago. I like the bench, but it's a stand-at bench because of the lockers. So pulled some stuff out of one of the locker banks and sized it for drawers in the storage cabinet. That'll let me pull one of the locker units and add some legs for a sit-at bench.
Made this cabinet and drawers a couple of years ago. Time to store more stuff and do some rearranging. Fortunately, I kept the far bank empty so the drawer sizes could be made to what was left to hide, 'er store.
Most of my end mills were in one drawer at the bottom of a cabinet, so a deep knee bend to get to them. Plus, they were stacked two-deep. The paper label is what's in the bin below.
I had an empty drawer (all have the same foot print) so could dump stuff in and measure the height. This one would hold my Dewalt 3 x 21 belt sander and orbital sanders.
I used 1/2" B/C plywood for everything including the drawer bottoms. I typically use 1/4" luan for drawer bottoms on furniture, but ended up with about 1/4" of sag on a couple of drawers full of pots and pans in our kitchen drawers. Doubling the thickness yields 8-times the stiffness, so sacrificed a 1/4" of drawer depth to hopefully not get a droop in these bottoms. So far, so good after 2 years on the existing cabinet.
Harbor Freight gets a bad rap on a lot of products, but I LOVE my HF dovetail jig. Albeit, I've never used one of the $200+ ones, only have a $30 plastic Sears one to compare to (it's garbage). I replaced the plastic clamp cams with aluminum ones a couple of years ago and it's served me well. I used a HF HVLP spray gun to shoot 3 coats of poly-urethane on the drawers, have had great luck with that gun.
I used 20" and 22" full-extension drawer glides. Would have preferred to use 22" on all of the drawers, but only had two of them and had at least 20 of the 20"ers. I must say the Chinese do a nice job on these. I paid $5 per pair for the 22" glides. I recall paying over triple that for a pair of 16" Amerock full-extension glides 20 years ago. I had been re-using drawer pulls from my parent's old kitchen cabinets and as luck would turn out, came up ONE short.
Finished cabinet. Used a Brother label maker for labeling the drawers. Still have a few empty ones (for now).
I can now get to my end mills a lot easier. Put them in the top three drawers. Top drawer is 1/8" - 3/8", next is 3/8" - 3/4", third has 3/4" - 1" and some other tooling like spotting drills, center drills, roll form tabs, etc. A 4" drawer with a 1/2" bottom in a dado 1/4" up from the bottom of the sides/front gives a 3 1/4" deep drawer. It's the perfect size for the U-line, Menards, etc. 3" deep storage tubs.
1/8" - 3/8" end mills
3/8" - 3/4" end mills
3/4" - 1" end mills and other tooling
I cut pieces of sheet metal that fit into the label slot, a bend at the top gives a flat spot for a label. Works well for bins with screws and nuts too. Let's you over-fill the containers some, plus doubles as a squeegee when the contents are dumped on the bench for sorting/searching.
Thanks for looking,
Bruce
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