Today we’re making a drawer shop cabinet
to store a bunch of small parts boxes and organizing the drill bits and various abrasives. Recently I purchased a few of those Sortimo
boxes you see behind me to nicely store hardware components, screws and other small parts. They have been simply stacked on top of another
and the fact that I always need the box that is positioned at the bottom, started to make
me mad, so I finally stopped the other projects to solve this annoying issue. I made the whole project using left over pieces
of plywood and MDF, so the cost for this one was really low. I also had the casters laying around and 3D
printed the drawer pulls so the only thing I purchased was the drawer slides. The cabinet itself was made out of 18mm plywood
and the drawer sides out of 12mm. To make them all the same length, I clamped
a block of wood to the fence to serve as a stop block since my cross-cut sled is pretty
small. For the drawer bottoms, I went ahead re-purposing
some 6mm MDF sheets I had from the booth I built to represent the GET HANDS DIRTY on
a show recently. There’s a video about that if you’re curious
and I will link it below. I cut them to width and then used the same
stop block trick on the fence to cut them all to the same length. This way I assured that they got 90 degrees. If you simply cut them against the fence without
a cross-cut sled or a miter gauge, if corners are not square to begin with, they won’t
end up square. Ok, so now I can start assembling the cabinet. I did it very easily by simply butt jointing
them with screws with their heads countersunk that I can later plug with wood dowels. Even though this is a shop project, I like
things to look reasonably good and always take my time measuring and spacing the holes
evenly so they look nice in the end. I can start putting it together and this corner
clamp came out super useful. I’ll leave the link below in case you are
interested as well as for the Sortimo boxes and the drawer slides. I really wanted to make drawers so that I
can slide them out and open each case individually without having to pull it out and sit it over
a pile of junk to get the parts I want. I made this cabinet the smallest possible,
leaving minor gaps between the drawers and adapting it perfectly to the size of the plastic
cases. I’ve got plans available for this project
in the description below, so make sure to check them out if you are needing a similar
storage solution. These are ball bearing full extension drawer
slides and came in a 10 pair pack that was super cheap for the quality. They seem to hold the weight of the boxes
just fine, without any wobble. Some of the boxes are full of metal parts
and weight quite a few kilograms. The installation was pretty simple, I started
from the bottom up and used a scrap piece of MDF cut to a specific height to evenly
space them. I didn’t have to think, just screw them
in place one after the other on both sides of the cabinet. These are 40 cm long and they need to be longer
than the boxes in order for them to fully open. I can now start putting the drawers together
and I also butt jointed them with screws. I made sure that the heads were sitting below
the surface to not create any problems with the slides installation. For the fronts of the drawers, I designed
a shape to custom fit the boxes. This shape provides front support for when
the box is pulled and the notches allow for fully operation of pulling the handle and
opening the snap locks. I sent the design to my X-Carve from Inventables
and let it carve them for me. You can still make this using a router and
a template but for repetitive work, a CNC really comes in handy and opens up a lot more
possibilities. I left a few tabs between the pieces that
now need to be cut. Next step is to fix the fronts to the 3 sided
assemblies and for that I cut a couple of blocks with a specific measurement that, when
clamped to the front piece, leaves in the middle the correct distance to receive the
sides and bottom. You could simply drive screws from the front
or pocket holes from the sides but I went with glue and pin nails. I mixed bits of epoxy glue at each time and
applied it to the front edges of the drawer sides. I pin nailed them and went ahead attaching
the bottom with wood glue, nails and screws to reinforce everything and make sure they
can hold the weight of the boxes. To install the drawers, the procedure was
very similar to the slides installation. I got two spacers upon which I could rest
the drawer, while screwing the inner section of the slide. I will now attach 4 casters to the bottom
because I might need to move the cabinet around in the future. At this point I realized that the lid doesn’t
stay open completely vertical because I didn’t predict the fact that the handles occupy some
space past the front faces of the drawers, so maybe you would like to make the whole
assembly slightly deeper with longer drawer slides. But anyway, it stays in place, even if not
fully at 90 degrees, which is a great relief. To make the drill bit storage drawer, I needed
thicker material than what I had, so I found scraps of coloured MDF and glued them together
with contact adhesive. I was on a rush and this type of glue gives
you good results pretty fast. So, after spreading the glue, you just leave
it to dry for about 15 minutes making sure it is dry to the touch. Then you press them together the stronger
you can and they are bonded. This is the template I made specifically to
hold the amount of drill bits that I own but I also made a more universal version that
might work best for you. To carve these pockets, I will ask my good
friend X-Carve again to do so using a ball nose spiral bit. This bit will leave the inner cornes rounded,
which is a nice feature mostly for smaller bits that can get stuck in a sharp corner
when you try to grab them with your finger. I secured the board to the wasteboard and
positioned the bit at the zero point. Now, let the magic happen. This a great machine to get you started on
the cnc world and it’s fairly inexpensive for the quality it can provide. The Inventables software is free and super
easy to work with as well. You can find all the information about the
X-Carve in the description below as well as the link to open this project on the Easel
software. In the meantime I can start working on the
top super thin drawers. So I went ahead finding more wood on the wood
library that could work for this purpose and found some pieces of yellow and blue MDF. These will be the bottoms and their edges
will slide in a couple of grooves, so no hardware will be necessary. Since the bit has a rounded tip, some ridges
are left at the bottom of the carve but it doesn’t matter at all for this purpose and
it kinda looks cool. The super thin drawers were assembled with
screws and 5 pairs of grooves were made on these side pieces using a dado blade. I can now screw them in place at the top area
of the cabinet, making sure that the heads are below the surface. And this is how the drawers will work. Right below these grooved pieces, I attached
the last set of full extension slides and these will hold the drill bit drawer. I can finally fill in those pockets with my
drill bit collection and enjoy some real storage. To make the thin drawer pulls, I ended up
using my 3D resin printer. I wasn’t sure of what I wanted first, but
since this is mainly a tool case storage unit, I went ahead making pulls that look like tool
box handles. The printing process on the Zortrax Inkspire
printer is very easy and the outcome is great and super smooth out of the machine, so it
has been giving me more comfort and confidence in testing these newer methods of creation. After curing the resin parts in the sun for
a couple of hours, I spray painted them to match the existing box colors. I could then assembly the resin hardware using
some button head black screws. Those cylindrical shapes will be embedded
on the drawer fronts and I tightened the screws just so that the handle could spin freely. I can now attach the fronts just like I did
for the other drawers. The pulls were glued in place with epoxy as well
and I suppose it will hold just fine. But if they start getting loose in the future,
I can always put a screw from the inside into the plastic cylinder. For the final touches on the cabinet, I plugged
the holes with a wooden dowel and attached a thin backer board to help with the integrity. I wanted to give it a distinct look since
my walls are all wood, so I dyed the plywood black using indian ink. This is very different from painting it black
because the ink is absorbed and keeps the grain of the wood visible, unlike paint that
simply sits on top creating a film. As you can see I left two empty drawers at
the bottom for future Sortimo box expansion. All is left to do now is create dividers inside
the top drawers to keep all the sandpaper, sponges and sanding disks organized. I also identified all the drill bit sizes
and sanding grits. Alright, I hope this video brought some good
ideas for your next project! Take a look on links bellow if you’re interested
in building this storage cabinet for yourself. A big shoutout to Inventables and my Patreon
members for making this video possible! If you want to support my work, head over
to my online store and grab a t-shirt or a notebok and visit my Patreon page. Thanks everyone for watching, keep safe and
go get your hands dirty!
