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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Adelaide
    Posts
    259

    Default Five vertical drawer cupboard

    This is probably the forth or fifth iteration of storage something to occupy the small space in the front corner of my small woodwork space. Small means 10 x 10 foot. The brick wall is the back of the garage, and there is a c.350x350mm corner. The side wall steps back a bit from there. This is the current result.

    1_cupboard.jpg

    The basic footprint of the 5 drawer plus sides is D:380 x W390. The right side was previously a shallow door in front of two small cupboards in the same space. So it extends the right an additional 40mm and is 410mm deep as it extends at bit past the back of the 5 drawers, skirting the brick work. The overall height is 2280mm.


    I had been thinking about full height vertical drawers for a couple of years. Finally got some ply to make the drawers recently. Because it is a narrow space, butted up against the wall one side, and wanting to get 5 drawers, I decided to use only 9mm ply for the casing., the same as the ‘backs/bottoms’ of the drawers.


    I wanted 2 deep enough to hold one liter solvent bottles and the like - meths, turps, kero, linseed oil…. And other liquid type bits and pieces - shellac, wax, Balistol. Cleaners polishes,…. A bit like a spray can cupboard. The shallower three, I intended one for odd hand tools (pliers, files…), one possibly for saws or maybe drill bits, and one for rulers.


    I had been thinking if the full height drawers were actually necessary. Full 2280-ish might be a bit flexible with only 9mm rails/stiles/backing. The tipping point was the blue plastic waste bin. It wandered around the floor, always in the way wherever it was, until I thought I could stick it under the drawers. It would always have a ‘home’ and be out of the way, and effectively free up it’s floorspace footprint into the bargain. I ‘test drove the bin in place rather than full height drawers for a month or so while I made a bunch of other stuff. It felt like a good idea.


    2_home for the bin.jpg


    Other stuff included a couple of test run smaller sliding drawers that I have posted about previously, plus a Woden vice rebuild, a plane cupboard, and hangers for my main tool cupboard.


    I finally got back to it, and made the first drawer. 95mm depth just enough to hold the one L bottles, and a bit. I had thought that there wouldn’t be a problem with them falling out, as they would be retained by the back of the next drawer, but having a retaining strip across each shelf would probably be a good idea. Either a bit of 5mm dowel rod, or a strip of 3mm ply recessed into the front edges would be enough.

    3_first drawer.jpg




    I screwed on the backing ply, gave the inside a couple of quick brush coats of shellac, and cut and fitted shelves to the first of the two deeper drawers.

    4_shelves.jpg
    5_shelves.jpg


    Sitting in place, it was a goer.


    6_drawer one in place.jpg


    The Second drawer didn’t need to be quite as wide as the first, so 82mm depth. It would hold smaller bottles and cans. I made the first of the shallower drawers to see if it was stiff enough, and to measure the resultant free space.




    I was planning 3mm gap between each, but wanted enough units in place to takes some measurements to confirm the results before cutting the final two. As it was, there was a bit of bow in the shallow drawer, it doesn’t take much to screw a planned 3mm gap. I had just laid the ply backing on the assembled frame, and screwed it down. This approach accommodated the bit of bow in the backing - I later dissembled it and clamped it all down to some straight boards before screwing it together, which took almost all the bow out.


    7_second and third drawers.jpg


    Once up, and sliding them back and forth it was obvious it needed some horizontal bars to retain things. It wasn’t that things fell out, but the bit of inevitable vibration sliding iout and back, would cause a couple of boxes ( hard edges unlike the round bottles) to move out just a. Couple of mm, enough to catch the back of the adjacent drawer when it was slid in. Play when soothing actually fell down into the gap at the back, it was a bugger to get out.


    Ran out of material, so knocked up the last two drawers with temporary short backs. 3 mm gaps seemed to work ok.





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  3. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Adelaide
    Posts
    259

    Default Ball bearing drawer runners

    I had cut the heights to allow for enough gap at the top, in conjunction to lowering the bottom shelf enough, to fit drawer runners.


    Initially I had decided to screw lengths of 40x20mm pine to the tops of each drawer, so that the runners would be in the middle of each. I was thinking that for the two larger drawers at least, this would give a centre of gravity almost below the runner centrelines, and so sideways torque moment would be minimised. Overthinking it springs to mind.


    So I cut a top plate, marked out the runner locations, drilled for mounting sews and started to assemble the bits.


    I had sourced 5 pairs of 350mm ( 14 inch) ) 45kg runners from Dunn & Watson for $16 AUD a pair. These seem quite well made, and are smooth action. Just plain ball bearing runners, nothing fancy.

    runner top - 1.jpg
    runner top - 2.jpg


    Had to plane down the rails that were going to be screwed to the tops of the drawers to get some running clearance.

    runner top - 3.jpg


    Then I stared to think, I am going about it the hard way in terms of getting precise alignment of the runners and mounts to the drawer tops, and the bit of inevitable wobble leverage on the rail mount screws is probably not sound design. I know, there are 5 8g x 50mm screws per rail… getting carried away in the white coat time.


    Then I thought why not screw the drawer mount rails to the backing boards? Gets rid of the alignment fuss, and will be stronger. This required cutting down the assembled drawer fronts and backs 50 mm at each end, and refitting the top and bottoms, but no biggie. Not being convinced the 9mm ply drawer backs was really enough to secure the runners to long term, I glued the pine runner mounts to the drawer tops and bottoms and screwed them on as well for good measure.
    runner top_mk2.jpg


    After some trial fits and looking at the clearances, I decided a consistent one mm backset of the runner from the runner mount edge would allow fitting the mounts to the top panel squarely. Going by feel had resulted in just enough variation to slightly cock the runner mounts against the cupboard top. I was in a bit of a faffing around loop. I had thought to hold the runner in a clamp, against an also clamped vertical edge, in order to butt the runner too, in order to square it against the side of the runner mount, but screwing up the clamp tended to just cock the vertical stop a bit, resulting in the rolled edge of the runner just overhanging the runner mount a tad, and hence no truely flush mounting… …. So lateral solution offset the runner back from the from the stop a mm, and problem solvered. Confused?

    offset runner.jpg





  4. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Adelaide
    Posts
    259

    Default Working drawers, fitting out

    I got another sheet of ply to finish the drawer backs, and despite the weight inherent in the pallet of sheets at Bumblings, and the presumed flattening that would effect, the bloody thing was bowed. So I figured if I clamped the drawer back, from the centre out I could counter the bow, and screw it flat. This worked. I clamped the backing to a length of 65x35 (all I had) with some deep throat C-clamps, then working from the centre out clamped the drawer slides to the back. Sort of like torquing a head down.


    With 1700mm height and only 9mm ply for the back, sides and tops, the bits unscrewed together are a bit flexible. A couple of mm of bow, will affect the clearance between drawers. So a bit of effort expended to get it as flat as possible, within the limitations of the material.
    clamped to rail.jpg

    clamped side - 1.jpg

    Did one side at a time, flipped it over and screwed it centre out.
    screwed down.jpg


    With the first drawers installed to the top of the cupboard, I could set the final position of the bottom brace mounting board. I had also fitted a back to the cupboard frame in order to stiffen it up a bit. Initially I didn’t want to sacrifice the 10mm depth. The constraint was fitting 4 one litre bottles per shelf, the drawer depths were cut accordingly, and that with allowance for facings to be added to each drawer front, brought the cupboard face flush with the brickwork. So adding a back give 10m projection I can live with that.

    Five smoothly sliding full extension vertical drawers at last.

    5 sliding.jpg



    drawer one - 1.jpg
    drawer two - 1.jpg

    I decided to move the rulers from the vertical drawer I had knocked up a couple of weeks ago, into the end drawer of the new cupboard. This would give a bit better access due to being slightly wider/deeper and smoother - being on ball bearing runners. Hanging the rulers on dowels I had come to realise didn’t really work well enough in a sliding drawer, and they swung back and forth.
    drawer_five - 1.jpg


    So I made some new mounts to capture the top and bottom. These are all from the Mahogany scraps I had left over from the French Bookcase shelves build few weeks ago. Router the recesses, some Tung Oil… A couple of untidy edges to re-do.

    mahoghany - 1.jpg



    mahoghany - 2.jpg



    I was expecting to make a plywood waste bin to fit in the space at the bottom, but quite fortuitously a stainless steel bin I had in my main shed, fitted like it was made for it. I’ll make a sliding mounting board for the dustpan and bannister brush.

    bin.jpg




  5. #4
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Adelaide
    Posts
    259

    Default

    The plan is to cut and fit some 8-10mm or so something aesthetic to the front faces. Currently there are 30mm holes in each I drilled in each to act as finger pulls, these work well. But I am thinking I might use these:

    s-l300.jpg


    It is working out well. Close at hand, only 3 get from the end of the bench, the solvents and oils are more accessable than ever, no more ferreting around in the bottom of a cupboard...

  6. #5
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Blue Mountains
    Posts
    813

    Default

    That looks like a very compact storage system, perfectly suited to the space you have available. As you say, things will fall off those shelves, so best to put some sort of system for stabilising them before it becomes a problem.

    cheers,

    ajw

  7. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Location
    lower eyre peninsular
    Age
    74
    Posts
    3,577

    Default

    Thankyou, that has solvered a problem I had and wanted to use better, narrow gap and tall vertical storage.
    What are your red corner bracers?
    I would love to grow my own food, but I can not find bacon seeds

  8. #7
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Adelaide
    Posts
    259

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Tonyz View Post
    Thankyou, that has solvered a problem I had and wanted to use better, narrow gap and tall vertical storage.
    What are your red corner bracers?
    these are Bessey WS-3 Angle Clamps. I had 4 for about 7 years, and they have been extremely useful.

    4_shelves.jpg


    These are Woodpecker Clamping Squares. Got these before the Bessey, have been useful as well.

    5_shelves.jpg

  9. #8
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Adelaide
    Posts
    259

    Default Drill Bits Storage Vertical Drawer

    Spent some time this week migrating the array of drill bits into one of the vertical drawers. Really handy having them within arms reach of the drill press.
    drill_bits - 1.jpg

    I made an index for the metric drills, from melamine as this seems to give the most accurate hole size. A few brushed coats of shellac helped the Dymo labels to adhere.
    Found more Imperial drill bits than I realised I had, and knocked up a preliminary index for them as well. A number of cycles taking it off to drill another drill size as individual drills were progressively discovered.

    For the moment the holes are drilled using the relevant intended drill bit. Fits are quite snug. I don't have a 0.1mm incremental set, but will borrow one to drill each hole a 0.1mm or so oversize.


    drill_bits - 2.jpg


    Some scraps of Mahogany and cedar came in handy for a toggle

    drill_bits - 3.jpg


    After a few variations on how to get the auger bits to stay aligned, I resorted to a step drill to drill a cone of approximate taper to the tang of the bit, then fitted the relevant bit to each hole and covered the end with a block with a small hole to protect the snail point, and tapped them in so that the square auger shape bit into the tapered holes. You can see the square edge impressions. Have been meaning to get a cone drill, which might make the fits a bit better again.

    drill_bits - 4.jpg



    The lower row of auger bits is a set of Morrison (Sheffield) Pidgeon brand.
    pidgeon.png

  10. #9
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Adelaide
    Posts
    259

    Default Tool vertical drawer

    Made holders for some tools that don't have a home in my main woodwork tools cabinet, and fitted to the third narrow drawer.
    tool_drawer_1.jpg

    Handy leftover small chunks/offcuts from the MahoganyBookcase shelves mostly, a bit of judicious rebating on the Kapex, and a bit of rasping. Held quite securely.

    tool_drawer_2.jpg

    The green handle Wubbers bailing pliers were handy recently for coiling brass wire strings end for a chandelier (Plafonierre) crystals restring recently.

    Short 22mm dowel lengths made easy holders for a few pliers. Used melamine again for the backing as it drilled to good tolerance and a tight fit, so no gluing required. Pliers are held quite securely. If a spacing is a mm too snug, easy to just file the inside faces of the dowel pair for a easier fit.

    tool_drawer_3.jpg

    Same approach with some files, dowels to capture the plastic handle grips. Easier and quicker than drilling and slotting a strip like for a chisel holder.
    tool_drawer_4.jpg


    While I intend to find something to use as facings for the drawers, in the short term, a couple of quick brush coats of shellac tidied them up for now.


    drawer fronts.jpg

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