Skip to main content

Current projects

I am currently finishing up the shop workbench and beginning a series of tool boxes for all the odd ball tools hanging out in various locations in the shop.  The workbench needs 4 drawers and since tool box drawers are going to be built the same way I figured it was time to make tool boxes. We have way to many paper boxes and buckets full of tools. In this process I am making a couple of tools to make these builds possible.

I am making a micro-router table to try out some ideas for a more capable router table and to make the drawers of the workbench and toolboxers. I intend to use a router lock joint, a locking rabbit, to hold the drawer corners.

On the tool boxes the drawers will be about 16" deep and 30" wide. With a wide drawer like this  I will use a half inch bottom with some under the drawer stiffeners. For now the box in planning is for six drawer where each is around 3" to 6" deep. I figure on making a dado for the bottom 3/4" up from the bottom of the drawer side and then 3/4" stiffeners under the bottom in two places at 4" intervals. This should support a fairly large weight over a fairly wide drawer since the bottom will be the equivalent of 1 and 1/4" thick. The drawers will be fairly shallow and are meant to hold the flatter more mechanic like tools that seem to be bouncing around the shop. I want to shadow box the drawers for tools with a closed cell foam to give each tool a home.

The second tool I will be making is a box joint jig for 3/4" plywood with 3/4" fingers. I plan on using the table saw with a dado blade and a table sled set up for the particular plywood I will be using. I do know that I am using a 3/4" plywood equivalent that is not quite 3/4" inch but for the sake of this text I will stick to the designation I have given it. If I need to get down to print level details I will use actual measurements.

The tool boxes will have the side joint made with box joint fingers. It seems to me the leanest and strongest joint for 3/4" plywood boxes. I looked at using the router lock joint and a modified butt joint with a hardwood joiner. All of these would work in their own fashion but the box joints should be even less problematical than the router lock when used over a long piece. A router lock will work very well in drawers but I am less certain over a yard of sheet stock. A modified  butt joint with a
hard wood joiner would work well but there are lots of screws and pockets to drill. Once a box joint jig is set up it seems so straight forward to just slide it all together with some glue! If I make the fingers overlong I can use a flush trim router bit to get it all perfect at the corners. I don't mind the plywood stripes when used in a box joint since the pattern is there anyway....

The tool box itself will be the height to accommodate the 6 drawers on sliders. It will be as minimalist as I can make and be sturdy. The top and bottom will be attached with pocket screws since this will be only on piece in a larger stacking tool box. I imagine it will look something like one of the larger mechanics style tool boxes.

Along the way I am getting the drawers for the big table built too.

That is it for now.... I guess I am using this blog to document my process at the moment.
Cee 08-20-2017

Comments

  1. Thanks for sharing such a beautiful information with us. I hope you will share some more info about closed cell foam. Please keep sharing!
    backing rod foam

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Recumbent tadpole trike: Posts on Velomobilforum p.8

Hello Hein, Titan Wolf, trike like (Martin?) and Stephan (shs2_de) It has been a couple of weeks since I was able to remark on what I have been doing with the idea of a tilting space frame trike and I have some things to share. I have built another new prototype of a tilting mechanism and have already come up with a new version. Interestingly enough my newest designs bears a great resemblance to what Stephan (shs2_de) worked on with his suspension system at the beginning of this forum file. It may be interesting to Stephan and others to see a modification of that suspension system. I have also spent a considerable time with my husband and a friend remodeling our 2 bathrooms as well as working overtime… Sigh real life… enough said on that subject. Before I much go on I want to address a couple of comments from Wolf. I read your comment on obstacles in the road and thought about that in terms of tilting and locking the tilt mechanism. First I think that a tilting trike (1 st te

Recumbent tadpole trike: Posts on Velomobilforum p.6

Recumbent tadpole trike: Posts on Velomobilforum p.6 Hello sheng-fui, I understand about translations since I must use one for German! I think I would miss so much without the translation as I found out the first time I looked at the forum with the machine translation. So German on Velomobilforum and American on my blog… Perhaps I will get it right the first time! ;D So on to leaning trikes. I think I came up with a better geometry for the XYZ Leaning trike than what I presented but I am having real difficulty putting it into 2 dimensions. To solve that I am making a prototype in plywood. It will hopefully help me visualize. Maybe my prototype will let me take pictures that make sense instead of sketches and text descriptions. I believe what I have in mind is a bit like the Chike trike without suspension. I think the Chike trikes are awesome! I think these trikes use a fairly common geometry. The nose rotates and with a modified wishbone they are supporting balance wi

Recumbent tadpole trike: Posts on velomobilforum p.7

Recumbent tadpole trike: Posts on velomobilforum p.7 Hello! I have been doing some fast prototyping in plywood. I glued up a strip of 3/4" plywood and  1/4" plywood (they are actually metric ply close to those measurements) to get a small sheet of 1" thick plywood. So I then cut this to made some 1" square plywood dowels about 8 foot long.  From these dowels , some wood screws, and a couple of bolts I put together a proof of concept tilting trike frame. I want to play with it a bit and will buy more hardware to hopefully put on some wheels.  Nothing I built is usable for riding. This is literally just a full scale model and a poor one at that. Mostly I want to see the full size geometry and how the machine functions. So here are my pictures from shortly after the sun was up so forgive the shadows. Now tilting Right Now Tilting  Left Now a couple of close ups of the middle. I will post more as I bui