Bench with Storage

**Blu_Rock** · 3rd September 2013, 10:41 AM

Picked up an old 6-drawer map cabinet for free on Allclassifieds, not bad as a few months later I saw someone else trying to get $350 for a similar unit. Although it was a bit beat up with most of the rear drawer rollers either bent out of alignment or worn out, I thought it would make a great bench with plenty of storage, it’s about 1m x 1.5m. The drawers are a bit flimsy and you would not want to be storing plate steel or heavy tools in them, but for lighter stuff they offer a lot of convenient storage space.

I began by straightening up the tracks on the drawers and removing all the rollers from both the carcase and the drawers and soaked them in kero. This was followed by a blow out with the compressor and lubrication with lithium grease. I kept the best for the carcase and replaced the ones on the back of the drawers with new bearings.

The rear of the drawers was a bit flimsy so I welded up all the joints and replaced the nutserts with coupling nuts.

Cabinet 2.jpg

For the top, I made a 40mm RHS frame and screwed it to the carcase and topped it with 19mm MDF. I was lucky enough to pick up some used quality castors for $10 for the lot and the bench height ended up a shade under 900mm... perfect.

Cabinet 1.jpg

The whole project cost $15 for the used MDF, $10 for the castors, $35 for RHS, $10 for the bearings and another $20 odd for nuts, bolts and washers… not bad for a total of about $90.

Cabinet 3.jpg Cabinet 4.jpg

**KBs PensNmore** · 3rd September 2013, 02:03 PM

Looks like you've got yourself a really good storage/workbench set up there. You might want to look at setting up a locking system on it, as when you roll the bench around the drawers might roll out, or I might have to come around and help myself to it

. Just joking, but would really love a system like that.
Kryn

**GTVi** · 3rd September 2013, 02:23 PM

Thats a great score. Well done.

**simonl** · 3rd September 2013, 07:22 PM

Nice score. Those map drawers will come in handy for many low profile tools etc.

Simon

**delbs** · 3rd September 2013, 08:00 PM

Oh awesome!, what a pick up. good stuff! plenty of storage room

**variant22** · 3rd September 2013, 08:27 PM

A really neat find! You can never have enough storage. I find that I am always running out of space. Especially for nuts and bolts!

**C-47** · 3rd September 2013, 08:27 PM

Blu_Rock,
A good deal there. I have a similar set up, but I find the draws do not come out fully (suppose they don't have to for maps) loose about 25% of the depth so small items seem to migrate to the rear of the draw and become lost from sight, a bit like sheep. Thinking of putting a barrier /fence across there so I can find things. Alan.

**eskimo** · 4th September 2013, 11:14 AM

Originally Posted by variant22

You can never have enough storage.

well I reckon you can.....thats why I have to much stuff stowed away...now i'm beginning to run out of floor space...knew i should've built a bigger shed

**azzrock** · 4th September 2013, 10:22 PM

nice one mate. ive been after some for ages, at the right price. The can be dear.
well done
aaron

**Blu_Rock** · 4th September 2013, 11:49 PM

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out

Alan, We are thinking alike here. I will get around to partitioning off the rear of the drawers (and maybe across the width of the drawers too) with some wood (probably some slats from an old timber venetion blind) to solve that problem of stuff migrating to the rear of the drawer.

**Ueee** · 4th September 2013, 11:58 PM

I really like the idea, and you have executed it very well

Some months back there were some map drawers on Allbids, they ended up going pretty cheap and i managed to miss them

Allbids is worth watching they often have old steel office furniture, lockers etc that go cheap.

Ew

**Jim Ferrous** · 5th September 2013, 09:36 AM

Very cool, a massive amount of storage!

**Stustoys** · 5th September 2013, 10:54 AM

Nice, I've got one of those myself, they do normally run in the $300+ range so you did well to get one for free. They arent light lol
I've thought about adding some ribs to stiffen them up a little, but the tracks seem to be the weak spot
How did you get the bearings out of the carcase(and get them back in)? Mine needs some new ones but I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to drill holes in the sides to get at them as removing the cover isnt really an options. (I'd say yours have been replaced already.

Mine also doubles as a counter weight for a counter lever shaft I have along the back.

Stuart

**BobL** · 5th September 2013, 11:30 AM

I rescued mine out of a skip where I used to work and I reckon they are the bees knees for storage.
The outer shell was bent and split open so I had to straighten and pop rivet the shell back together.
I welded up a frame out of 32 mm SHS and used and old 32 mm tassie oak lab bench top.

I don't move my benches or machines around that much so I mainlyuse HDPE feet on my benches - this means they can still be slid around on the floor without digging big gouges out of the concrete but once they have a bit of weight in/on them the benches don't move.

This bench has become my main assembly/fix it table - problem is it is usually covered in shyte so there is no room to do anything.

**Christos** · 5th September 2013, 11:40 AM

Great job on the rebuild/reuse.

Thread: Bench with Storage

Thread Tools

Search Thread

Bench with Storage

plan draws

Similar Threads

Old Cabinet possible tool storage/bench

WIP - SWK storage bench.

MC1100 Lathe Cabinet/Bench with storage

Planning Tool storage - under bench

Bench and storage in a small shed

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions