Storage - How to?

As some of you have (rather unkindly () remarked, I am a pretty tidy person. Continuing in this persuit I have aquired myself one of those very nice Office quality filing cabinets - you know, the ones with loads of small drawers, like this:

Mine is the middle sized one. The drawers are (approx) 91/2" x 14" x 2" and there are ten of them. I would really like to divide some of the drawers up for the storage of milling cutters and lathe tools because I just wont have things rattling around. I have looked at the plastic drawer inserts you can buy but frankly they are expensive. Just buying one I would wear it but at 14-18 pounds each (plus VAT) I could become poor pretty quickly!

Anyone have any creative ideas? I already have a couple of rolls of Drawer Liner in a very fetching Cream Colour

graham.

Edited By Oompa Lumpa on 21/03/2014 17:39:32

Edited By Oompa Lumpa on 21/03/2014 17:53:20

Hello Graham - I like those sort of cabinets. If you were going to keep milling cutters in them (small ones) I wonder if some cheapo corrugated cardboard placed flat in each draw might stop the cutters from rolling around?

Rik

The foam drawer liner works well to stop stuff flying around and I have found the trick is to use a bit of spray contact adhesive on the liner so that doesn't move either.

There has got to be something simple, some plastic moulding from something. Even if I ripped some 18mm plastic pipe down the middle and making some sort of washboard affair.

graham.

Graham,

I had exactly the same problem with the smaller set of Bisleys shown in your pic. My solution was to obtain some reject (4mm) strip wood from my local DIY , and then to ceate different sized egg boxes in each drawer. Because I have a low manual skill level , all half housings were cut on the miller with a slot drill. Bases of drawers were lined with hardboard and then ecause of the return edges on the drawer sides , the crosspieces were dressed on their top edges so as to be a firm fit under these return edges before being positioned as appropriate. The longditudinal pieces were then slotted into place , with the half housings held together with a strong water-proof wood glue. This arrangement has worked well for me for almost 5 years.

Trevor

Ikea sell synthetic rubber DVD holder material, which can be easily cut to size, http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/10105370/ .

I have used these in a similar Bisley cabinet. Also a very similar Ikea 'CD holder' sheet with narrower slots which I cannot currently locate on the Ikea site.

It works usefully for separating cutters, other tools, or materials, but the the relative size of the Ikea sheets and the Bisley drawers result in a lot of offcut material!

Martin

PS I think I originally found these somewhere on this forum

Edited By Martin Whittle on 21/03/2014 19:55:50

My friendly advisor at my local Barclays Bank gives out her business cards to customers which she gets in strong semi opaque small plastic boxes about 4"x 2 1/2" x 1/14". I have obtained dozens of these and fitted them in the drawers of my toolchests as dividers. Any small surplus space around the edges I fill with foam strip.

Hi Graham

I too find the Bisley cabinets very useful for small tools - mine was "obtained" by serious negotiation with the dragon lady at our local tip! As far as storing milling cutters etc. a few years ago I found some small plastic racks at an engineering exhibition and these are ideal in a Bisley drawer. ( I think it may have been Machine DRO that had the racks - but I don't see them listed there now.) To line many of the drawers I have cut up some surplus cork flooring tiles and these work well. Smaller cutters ( and other items) I keep in those small "RACCO" cabinets. In both cases the drawer can be taken to the job - this encourages me to replace the tool on completion of the operation!

Regards

Norman

i have used flooring mats the ones that fit together like a jigsaw

kids use them as playmats and you can get them in black for garage floor anti stress mats

i cut it to line the bottom of the drawer then cut strips 10mm wide and stuck them to the base with a hot melt glue gun

i must say it works a treat no rolling round and touching each other

did it for my reamers as well

regards

paul

I like the Ikea rack, this is what I ave now in some other drawers. Please note, this is a layered drawer with the tray on the right sitting on rails over the lower layer. Trying to cram as much as possible in there:

I don't like the idea that the cutting edges can crash against each other as the drawers are opened and closed hence the new cabinet.

graham.

I do this for the presentation boxes for the Pistols John, but I use a couple of layers of industrial strength cling film as the barrier. It works well. This would be good for a drawer full of chucks or specialist tools but it isn't as easy as it looks or as straightforward. If you put something in which was cylindrical for instance, if you filled the whole thing with foam you can't get it back out. I usually make a sort of false bottom where much of the article pokes through and the foam only encloses one half of the item. Also what is useful, if you make some wedges from plasicine and strategically place them on one or two edges, when removed they make those very convenient finger gaps to pick the item up out of the pocket created from the foam.

Sheet of thin ply in teh bottom and glue some strips of MDF or timber to it.

My cheapest and simplest drawer dividers are made from lengths of plastic angle section, available from builders merchants as corner trim. Available in various widths, and colours. Cut to size and fixed to the bottom of the drawer with double sided tape.

I have been using ice stick trays from the pound shop for some time (two for £1 ) and find them excellent for storing milling cutters. I also have a number of the type shown by Norman, but I found the cutters tended to hop out of them if the drawer was closed too abruptly. The ice stick trays have deeper grooves with solid ends which prevent the cutters riding up and out.

Doug

I made these from old HDPE cutting board, one of my friends now brings me offcuts of "Stoneplas" which I now make them from.

It's not my idea I came across it on one of the Garage forums.

Another Idea I came across but not tried yet is placing your chosen tools/tooling in a tray to suit your drawer size cover with suitable cloth (i'm told an old tee shirt works well) and fill with expanding building foam thus creating an exact tool shape in your insert.

Paul

Son-in Law gave me this Waterloo tool chest (empty of course) recently and I am in the process of stocking it up.

What I did find was that three small plastic compartmentalized boxes ( ten compartments in each box) fit in the shelves, comfortably side by side. They are obtainable from CPC for about 99p each.

These will accommodate most of my milling cutters without fear of cutting edges getting damaged.

Len. P.

P.S. Haven't finished the labeling yet.

Well Len

That certainly is the deluxe set-up. I'm quite envious!

Norman

Very nice Len.

Good idea with the cutting boards Paul, they are cheap enough from Ikea, I will definately be doing that for my reamers.

So, off I went "into town" today to have a look around. On the way back to the car the heavens opened and I was absolutely drowned! I found nothing suitable, though I did pick up another couple of rolls of that non-slip mesh as I use it for drawer liner. I found a chancer in the indoor market selling Paraffin for £11 for FOUR LITRES. Not even an Imperial gallon.

It wasn't a total washout though as I found some really delicious Liquorice

graham.

I'm paying £5.00 a gallon [ real gallon ] for paraffin. Don't know whether that's good or bad but just grateful to get some without having to sign the poisons register or the sex offenders act.

B&Q 6.98 for four litres, or you can pay £5.95 a litre fo this

Back in the 80s my mate used to use paraffin to run his MZ because it was so much cheaper than petrol.

"Boom - boom - boom - boom - Esso Blue"

Neil