THE LAST FRONTIER, THE ASYLUM SOUTH WALL… (Part 2 of 50)
5-DRAWER LATERAL CABINETS
With most company files going digital, I can’t imagine there is much of a market for new lateral file cabinets anymore. And you are seeing many businesses dumping their old cabinets for a song to open up space in their offices. These lateral style file cabinets have proven extremely versatile at storing things at my city garage, so I decided they will be integrated into the Asylum as well. Besides the number of drawers, the biggest difference in the configurations are the drawer/door styles. Some have drawers that simply pull out and others have flip doors in front of the drawers that can be left open or closed.
In my quest for suitable lateral file cabinets, I found this interesting old cabinet. Literature proves it is the first “flip-door” style cabinet of its kind. It’s made by Supreme and they call it a Conserv-a-File. It was budget priced at $25 so I bought it. It’s doubtful I will ever find any matching cabinets out there, but it was just to cool to pass up.
I really like the wide aluminum lid pulls because it comes in handy in tight quarters when you are standing to the side of the cabinet while trying to access a drawer.
As I said, it has flip doors and once the door is flipped up, the drawer can be pulled out. All the contemporary manufacturers offer cabinets in this style, but they are the minority of cabinets being sold. Still, they are handy in the shop because you can open up the doors and use it like a bookcase if you want. If you need access to what’s at the back of the shelf, just slide the drawer out partially or fully.
It has a nice little pull out shelf too.
All of these tall cabinets have some type of method to allow only one drawer to be pulled out at a time to avoid a tip over situation. Most modern day cabinets have elaborate latching systems to accomplish it. Not this one. If you look closely, you will see a string with just enough slack in it to allow one drawer to fully extend. I thought it was so simple, it was brilliant. However, I can also see a string breaking and causing a big lawsuit. LOL Unlike the newer style of latching systems, this one will let you pull out two drawers, for instance, halfway.
Another very interesting feature is the type of drawer slides. Forget about any drawer slide you have ever seen before. This one has rollers position vertically at the back of the drawer. A steel cable is mounted at the back frame of the cabinet and runs forward over the top roller. The cable then runs down around the back of the bottom roller before mounting low on the cabinet frame. In this picture, you can see the cable routing diagonally between the two rollers. Believe it or not, those drawers fully extended are just as sturdy as any of the other cabinets I have with conventional slides. Removing a drawer is a pain, however, because you have to unhook those cables.
I happened to notice that its color matched the freebee 5-drawer cabinet I found a few months ago. I doubt I will put this tall cabinet into active duty in the Asylum, but it may end up in my retro office back at the city house with my old tanker desks. Time will tell.
