I'll just make it myself, I guess...

[keelan]

I keep seeing posts from y'all showing your latest cabinet and Lista toolbox acquisitions, and it drives me bonkers, because stuff like that never shows up around here.

In the constant battle to organize my garage, I realized that certain storage methods are more trouble than good (they're toxic!) -- I'm putting milk crates in that category, especially when they're stacked 6 high, and cardboard boxes are always just a terrible idea. My problem is that I've been disposing of the toxic storage faster than I'm replacing it, so I'm reaching the point where I have nowhere to store anything.

I finally broke down and started on a project I've been putting off for ages, building modular storage drawers to hold all of my stuff in a somewhat more organized manner. I figured I'd start a thread here documenting this work in progress. They're a lot of work, and buying some off-the-shelf solution would probably be cheaper, but I enjoy puttering on woodworking projects when I have the chance.

My progress so far:

(As you can see I have a lot of **** looking for a home)

I'm constructing the carcass out of 18mm birch plywood. For 'fun', I made this my first all-metric project, I even bought a Starrett metric-only tape measure for the project. I can understand some of the appeal of the simplicity of metric when working on a project like this, but I miss mah' feet and inches. The drawers will have fronts and backs out of the same plywood, with 1/2", I mean 15/32"... uhh... 12mm... plywood for the sides.

The idea is that the vertical dividers can be removed, creating space for wider drawers, and drawers can occupy multiple vertical spaces, allowing for taller drawers. The carcass will be the same regardless of the final configuration, so I can always shuffle things up down the road. I'll be stacking up a number of these cabinets, constructed as time and funds allow.

I haven't cut the dados in the vertical dividers, that'll be tomorrow's job. Ill post more photos as I make progress. Then i'll be starting on mass-producing the drawers. I'll try for more work-in progress photos for that part.

 

[Flange]

Hi there, I think most people are like you, me included. We would love to go out and buy the latest Vidmar or Lista cabinets but cant justify the expense so end up maiking something or re-purposing something. I am looking forward to your progress.

Regarding feet and inches vs metric I am a middle aged man in the UK and have grown up using both because my country changed from Imperial Measurement (what we call feet and inches, pounds, pints etc) to metric when was very young and so the older generations when I was growing up always used imperial and schools started teaching me metric.

I call myself bi-lingual. I can speak inches or millimeters quite happily and can convert between the two without much thought.

I think its good that people can use both because whilst a lot of the world is metric, the USA is staying with feet and inches for some time to come.

 

[Outlander]

Keep the pictures flowing. Wood, and my height/weight seem to be 'unconvertible' to metric!

 

[MushCreek]

I'm starting to build the kitchen cabinets in our new house that I'm building. The kitchen will have 34 drawers, so I'd better get good at it! Little does my wife know, but the kitchen is just practice for the cabinets I'll build for the shop.....

The American aversion to metric drives me nuts. In the early 70's, I was building boats for a living, and decided to go metric, since it was said (40 years ago) that the US would be fully metric in 10 years. 15 years later, I was working as a toolmaker for a huge company (40K employees). They started a metric campaign to have the entire company fully metric in one year. We each got 40 hours of training in metric metrology, and they went out and bought metric micrometers, indicators, and gage blocks. We made the shift fairly easily, but they gave up on it after 6 months or so, after having spent who-knows-what on training and equipment. Here we are today, one of the few countries left on the planet that isn't metric!

Rant over- keep posting pictures as you progress!

 

[keelan]

Canada claims to be metric, but that is far from the truth. In the grocery store, produce is priced in $/ls, but shows up on your receipt as $/kg. Lumber, screws, hardware is all sold in inch dimensions. I'm in my mid-30's, In school, we were strictly taught metric, but at home everything was in feet and inches. All real estate listings show square feet and acres. We buy our gas in litres, and measure our car's efficiency in miles per gallon. The main reason I switched to metric for this project was because I didn't feel like futzing math-wise around with the 23/32 plywood dimensions. I'm comfortable with both, and I don't see what all the metric vs. imperial fuss is about. Why not both?

The only thing I can't stand are mixed metric/imperial tape measures. When you're trying to do precise work, it's hard to eyeball to the nearest 1/16th when it's on the wrong side of the tape.

A few weeks back, before I started this project, I threw together a prototype drawer:

I made this out of some scrap 5/8" plywood. When I went to the store to get more plywood, I found that the 18mm birch was $15 cheaper per sheet than the 5/8" fir plywood I originally planned on using, so my plans changed. This drawer will lose its handle and be relegated to the role of yet another random **** storage vessle.

 

[joe_padavano]

Awesome workmanship. I also enjoy making (or fixing) things myself rather than spending the money, but I find that as I get older, time to do that is limited. Personally I'd rather spend my limited free time working on my cars rather than working on the tools and equipment that I need to work on my cars. More power to you if you can do both.

 

[keelan]

Joe,

I definitely don't have the time for this project. I have too many projects that are demanding my time. I realized two things:

1. I hate spending money on organization, I'd rather spend that money on parts for the machines I'm fixing up.
2. My lack of organization slows me down when I finally do have time to work on my other projects.

I tried to design these drawers to be made as easily as possible, and I'm creating jigs whenever I can, so that the next time I do this it will go much quicker.

 

[rburke65]

I wish I had the time to devote to cabinet making on just a general scale....just sort of what you are doing there. That's talent....planning. Envious on this end.....

 

[Terranova]

Looks great.

 

[Packard V8]

Too bad you're not from around here. We have a large commercial cabinet company whose outlet store has beautiful dovetailed plywood drawers by the pallet load for a couple bucks each - less than the retail cost of the material.

jack vines

 

[Anarius]

Too bad you're not from around here. We have a large commercial cabinet company whose outlet store has beautiful dovetailed plywood drawers by the pallet load for a couple bucks each - less than the retail cost of the material.

jack vines

Wow! I would live there if there was a place around here (SE Michigan) like that.

Nice start on the cabinets OP! I find I enjoy building them a lot more than organizing them!

 

[Krash Kadillak]

Awesome workmanship. I also enjoy making (or fixing) things myself rather than spending the money, but I find that as I get older, time to do that is limited. Personally I'd rather spend my limited free time working on my cars rather than working on the tools and equipment that I need to work on my cars. More power to you if you can do both.

Jeez, Joe, you're all over........

Keelan, what's your set-up for doing the dados? Router work is one thing I've never had much success with.

Marshall

 

[keelan]

Jack,

We've crossed paths before! I bought a 4 inch Delta jointer from you a few years back. I'll be in Spokane in May for my wife's graduation -- she's a satellite student of Gonzaga university right now.

 

[keelan]

Jeez, Joe, you're all over........

Keelan, what's your set-up for doing the dados? Router work is one thing I've never had much success with.

Marshall

Marshall,

The dados in the carcass were cut with a router. I made a T square out of plywood and routed the dado into the T so that I could use it for alignment. I line up the square and clamp it down, and go to town. There's a bunch of raggedness that I have to clean up with a razor blade afterwards that wouldn't be there if I used a down-cutting router bit. It's a slow process, which is why today I switched to the table saw for the next batch. That meant crafting a zero-clearance insert for my saw (which meant making a jig so that I can do it faster the next time around), and fighting with my fence to get my saw cutting perfectly square, which absorbed an hour of time this morning.

Exhibit A: Screwing Around

Even after all of that I still ended up with them being a bit out-of-square, but hopefully not enough to be noticeable. The tear out is worse, so I either need to upgrade to a sled, or switch back to the router.

 

[Catadj78]

 

[jgorm]

I love metric! I have lots of metric tape measures, and dual system tapes.

 

[thewatusi]

A few weeks back, before I started this project, I threw together a prototype drawer:

Nice work, but the double layers of ply are a little overboard. That drawer looks heavy as hell and would probably be a bit unmanageable filled with stuff.

 

[joe_padavano]

Jeez, Joe, you're all over........

Yeah, too much time wasted online may be another reason why projects don't get done...

 

[keelan]

Nice work, but the double layers of ply are a little overboard. That drawer looks heavy as hell and would probably be a bit unmanageable filled with stuff.

It's made out of plywood, not cast iron! If you find a 11" x 15" drawer full of bolts unmanageable, maybe a little more time at the gym is in order

I don't like when dividers creep up, and everything under them mixes. The next iteration of drawer design will actually have a sort of cap over the thicker middle divider, which can be screwed down to retain all the dividers. Not every drawer will be the same, all of the dividers are optional.

 

[383 240z]

Liking this build, it is on the list of things to do!! Keith

 

[keelan]

I temporarily stalled on this project -- I'm really not happy with the crooked dados on the dividers, and it's quite noticeable from the front of the cabinet.

So those are going on the scrap pile, and I'm going to assemble a jig to use my router to cut the dados on the new ones. Before I could get to that, though, I had to stop to organize my garage. My workbench was lost under a mountain of ****, and I wanted to put the new cabinet on it to assemble it. One thing led to another, and I spent the week uncovering a good amount of floor space.

Hopefully I'll be able to get to assembling that jig tomorrow!

 

[TheEquineFencer]

I built storage drawers under a workbench. I actually started with some old drawers and built the face and mounting. It was a real pain. A carpenter I ain't. I realized that bottom slides are very good with any real weight, side slides are the way to go next time. Live and learn. I bought a cheap Sears table saw and found out fast why it's cheap. Getting the thing adjusted out of the box right is not as easy as you'd think it would be. After a few "cuts" i called an old friend that knows woodworking and got an earful about just how cheap the saw I bought was. But he agreed I bought the right one for my use, getting it close for "rough work."

 

[keelan]

My saw is a fairly beefy old Craftsman saw from the 70's. Nice cast iron top, 1 HP induction motor, and adjusted to run true. It ain't no sliding table beast of european origins, but it gets the job done. My tools aren't to blame here, I am. I think I let the material drift during the cut, causing the cut to run out. A sled would have helped the situation, but it's a bit late for that!