Project Information
I was talking to a friend of mine about storage solutions for screws and nuts in the shop. I was getting frustrated with using the original the boxes or putting them into the plastic bins you can buy. He sent me a video from an estate sale showing an antique octagonal bin that probably came from an old hardwood store and I was inspired to come up with a way to build it so that I can vary how many levels of drawers it had. The orginal had 10 levels. It sits on a lazy susan base with 8 triangular drawers per level. I used the opportunity to figure out how to use Sketchup which I used to work out a really cool way to make make interlocking dividers by cutting just 2 different patterns. I also used Sketchup to design the drawers, including rabbets.
The frame is made entirely of 1/2" sanded plywood. I had to make a jig to make cutting out the octagons for the horizontal dividers and I also used a simple jig to route grooves for the vertical pieces to nest in. I used a website calculator to determine the easiest way to layout and cut squares into octagons by trimming off the corners to get the radius I wanted for the unit. For the drawers I decided I wanted to use some really inexpensive wood and planed cedar fence pickets down to 1/2" thick (they were less than 3/4" rough) for the drawer fronts. The cheap cedar pickets have some really nice grain once they are planed. For the drawer sides I re-sawed white wood 2×4" slices and planed them to 3/8".
The slots for the dividers (see the Sketchup drawing) were cut on my table say using a dado blade stacked to 1/2". I used an auxiliary fence on my miter gauge to reduce chip out for the various cuts at different angles and depths. Note that the height of the drawers was determined by the deepest cut I could make with my 6" dado blade and shop made dado insert on my old delta contractors saw. Unfortunately, while I was ripping and cutting the plywood the bearing on table saw motor went out. After trying to fix it myself for a while, I finally decided to buy a new saw. The new one can actually cut about 1/4" deeper and I could have made the drawers slightly deeper but I had already started cutting out the dividers so I didn't want to throw away what I had already cut (about 80% was done on the old saw). I cut enough to make 11 layers but decided to make 2 units instead of one really tall one. I glued one layer at a time until I reach the desired height (second picture).
I cut thin strips of the same 1/2" planed cedar pickets to trim out the edges of the plywood. This also had the added purpose of hiding some of the imperfections in the alignment of some of the pieces caused by the grooves routed in the horizontal pieces not being quite exact enough. On one unit I stained the trim but on the other (and all the drawer fronts) I used a polyurethane to seal it. I was originally going to paint the plywood but because the trim grain looked so nice I decided I didn't want to cover it up.
I cranked out the pieces for the 88 drawers in production mode. Because the fronts and one of the side pieces also had an angled rabbet on the ends to make glue up easier, I had to set up several different angled cuts to get them all made but all in all it only took about 3 hours to cut all of the pieces to size including rabbets. You can see the crude assembly jig I made to glue up the drawers in the 4th picture. Instead of clamping, I used a pin nailer to hold it together while the glue set. Note that there was a rabbet in the bottom of each board to accept the 1/4" plywood bottoms which was also glued and pinned into place. Because I didn't want to sacrifice any depth in the drawers I decided not to use a grove and floating drawer bottom. It took me about 8 hours to assemble all 86 drawers. The reason that there aren't 88 is because I made 2 double drawers by leaving one of the dividers out on one of the units. I made the fronts to look like 2 drawers with a divider between them. I finished the drawers by adding antique bronze label pulls that I bought from D Lawless. At 54 cents each plus screws, the pulls cost more than all of the wood combined. Next time I might design one out of wood.
This turned out to be a pretty ambitious first project in 20+ years but It was a blast to design and build and I am very pleased with how it turned out. I am glad I decided to make 2 smaller towers because it can fit one of those standard metal and particle board garage shelf units you can buy at the big box stores. It was really fun designing everything and it really challenged me to learn Sketchup. Using Sketchup, I was able to workout all of the various angles before I cut some prototypes. I only made a few minor refinements after the prototypes were cut.
The frame is made entirely of 1/2" sanded plywood. I had to make a jig to make cutting out the octagons for the horizontal dividers and I also used a simple jig to route grooves for the vertical pieces to nest in. I used a website calculator to determine the easiest way to layout and cut squares into octagons by trimming off the corners to get the radius I wanted for the unit. For the drawers I decided I wanted to use some really inexpensive wood and planed cedar fence pickets down to 1/2" thick (they were less than 3/4" rough) for the drawer fronts. The cheap cedar pickets have some really nice grain once they are planed. For the drawer sides I re-sawed white wood 2×4" slices and planed them to 3/8".
The slots for the dividers (see the Sketchup drawing) were cut on my table say using a dado blade stacked to 1/2". I used an auxiliary fence on my miter gauge to reduce chip out for the various cuts at different angles and depths. Note that the height of the drawers was determined by the deepest cut I could make with my 6" dado blade and shop made dado insert on my old delta contractors saw. Unfortunately, while I was ripping and cutting the plywood the bearing on table saw motor went out. After trying to fix it myself for a while, I finally decided to buy a new saw. The new one can actually cut about 1/4" deeper and I could have made the drawers slightly deeper but I had already started cutting out the dividers so I didn't want to throw away what I had already cut (about 80% was done on the old saw). I cut enough to make 11 layers but decided to make 2 units instead of one really tall one. I glued one layer at a time until I reach the desired height (second picture).
I cut thin strips of the same 1/2" planed cedar pickets to trim out the edges of the plywood. This also had the added purpose of hiding some of the imperfections in the alignment of some of the pieces caused by the grooves routed in the horizontal pieces not being quite exact enough. On one unit I stained the trim but on the other (and all the drawer fronts) I used a polyurethane to seal it. I was originally going to paint the plywood but because the trim grain looked so nice I decided I didn't want to cover it up.
I cranked out the pieces for the 88 drawers in production mode. Because the fronts and one of the side pieces also had an angled rabbet on the ends to make glue up easier, I had to set up several different angled cuts to get them all made but all in all it only took about 3 hours to cut all of the pieces to size including rabbets. You can see the crude assembly jig I made to glue up the drawers in the 4th picture. Instead of clamping, I used a pin nailer to hold it together while the glue set. Note that there was a rabbet in the bottom of each board to accept the 1/4" plywood bottoms which was also glued and pinned into place. Because I didn't want to sacrifice any depth in the drawers I decided not to use a grove and floating drawer bottom. It took me about 8 hours to assemble all 86 drawers. The reason that there aren't 88 is because I made 2 double drawers by leaving one of the dividers out on one of the units. I made the fronts to look like 2 drawers with a divider between them. I finished the drawers by adding antique bronze label pulls that I bought from D Lawless. At 54 cents each plus screws, the pulls cost more than all of the wood combined. Next time I might design one out of wood.
This turned out to be a pretty ambitious first project in 20+ years but It was a blast to design and build and I am very pleased with how it turned out. I am glad I decided to make 2 smaller towers because it can fit one of those standard metal and particle board garage shelf units you can buy at the big box stores. It was really fun designing everything and it really challenged me to learn Sketchup. Using Sketchup, I was able to workout all of the various angles before I cut some prototypes. I only made a few minor refinements after the prototypes were cut.