Graduated drawer sizes for a tool cabinet

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

So I've got some drawers to make for my tool cabinet (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?193722-Well-it-s-on-the-wall). I've got two spaces, the faces being about 9 x 11 3/8, and being about 10-11 inches deep. The plan is to divide these two spaces into some graduated drawers, side hung. (Grooved sides running on small cleats nailed to the sides of the cabinet) Yes, I should have planned a little more ahead of time, (if for nothing else, than to have the runners for the side-hung drawers installed while it was easier) but it's not an insurmountable task to make these drawers after the fact and in-situ.

I'm curious as to how you folks would size these. Obviously the answer is to figure out what I want to put in the drawers and size them accordingly. I'm not 100% certain what I want to actually put in those drawers, I'm still figuring out what belongs in the tool cabinet and what belongs elsewhere - (Do my houeshold hammers go in there? What about pliers? Things I use for both woodworking and electronics, or general household tools?) I'm not sure where I'm going to end up with tools as I purchase a few more here and there. Someday I would like to get some nice rasps - do those go in the drawers? The doors? What about all my files? (And where the heck do I put my 12" file? If I hang it by the handle, will the file fall out?)

So I've got a few ideas, and whatever I decide on, I'll try and mock up and be thoughtful about. And if I change my mind, it's not the worse thing to build some new drawers. But I'm curious as to what other folks have done, or the considerations they made.

I'm thinking so far, I would at least like a couple of very shallow drawers for storing thin items, like some of my specialized files, small blade, and dividers.

I'm also thinking of lipping a piece of plywood and making a pull out shelf, just because I think it might be handy at times. Any thoughts on that? Just thinking plywood because it might be more stable than solid wood, and if I lip it with thick enough edges, I could groove it for runners in the long grain rather than the end grain.

[Andrae Covington]

There are a variety of proportional systems to graduate drawers for aesthetic purposes. But you may want to balance that with the practical considerations of what you'll be putting in the drawers. When I designed the three sliding trays for my tool chest, I graduated them by one dovetail, two dovetails, three dovetails. I like the progression visually, but the middle tray is deeper than it needs to be for what I put in it (mostly chisels and rasps). As for the very shallow drawers... consider whether you plan to store files and rasps with or without handles... if they have handles, you probably won't want the drawer to be any thinner than about 1-1/2", or maybe 1".

[Bill Houghton]

This was clearly built (and nicely!) as your go-to-first tool cabinet. What small items do you reach for frequently?

I like the "lipped plywood" idea. Consider using the plywood itself as the component on which you suspend the drawer - instead of grooves in the edge and cleats on the sides, make the plywood wide enough to be a sliding fit in the opening, then install cleats above and below, so the plywood slides in a groove. This will allow the sides on the plywood base to be thinner, slightly increasing storage space. You could build all the drawers this way, given that you'll probably have small/light tools in them.

What I don't see in your existing box is drill bits/auger bits. Maybe they're stored in one of the boxes. If not, a drawer, or even two, dedicated to this purpose would be good. But, again: what do you reach for a lot?

Understand, too, that no matter how carefully you think this out, you'll acquire tools that won't fit (this testimonial brought to you by someone with SO many such experiences).

[Tony Joyce]

I don't know if it's any help, but here's a good online drawer sizer for progressive heights.

http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/drawsizer_arithmetic.htm

Tony

[glenn bradley]

I use progressive drawer heights on furniture pieces. I use functional heights in the shop; I still go small on top to larger on the bottom. The one thing that always seems to get missed are the shallow drawers that Andrae mentions. The drawer units I built for my dad has them but, mine do not. I wish they did :(.

[Rodney Walker]

Is it possible to remove the center divider without butchering things too badly? The reason I ask is the 11" width you currently have gets too small very quickly with handled tools like files unless they're small. Full width drawers would be much more useful in my opinion.
With a 9" height, as a guess I'd start with 3 graduated drawers around 2 1/4" top, 3" center , and 3 3/4" bottom. Allowing an inch for the pull out shelf you mentioned, maybe go with 1 3/4 top, 2 3/4 center, and 3 1/2 bottom. Deeper drawers may be useful for some items, then maybe just two drawers, say around a 4" top and 5" bottom.

It may be a good idea to draw the drawers out full size on cardboard and see how it looks to you before you start cutting actual wood.

Rodney

[Glen Johnson]

A good way to size the drawer is to make each drawer 3/5th the size of the drawer below it. That is close to the Fibonocci sequence.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Good tips all around, thanks folks.

Certainly any approach will be mocked up in some fashion or another before implementation.

The center divider is actually the only part of the case that isn't glued in, so it could be removed, although 22"+ seems a bit wide to be ideal. I've got some shelves that really need to be more organized as well, so I'm thinking another little chest of drawers needs to be made for that part of the work room, and that will be a good place for some of the longer items. (Although I've probably got room on my doors for some more handled tools.)

My most used bits, (my Jennings bits) are in a box sort of under the jack plane. Originally it was to go in the tills below where it's situated, but I screwed up somewhere and it doesn't quite fit. But the spot it's in now works out quite well - I pull the box out a half inch to clear the cleat holding the jack plane, and I can open the box and remove any bits without having to remove it from the chest. My Irwin bits don't really fit anywhere right now; the box is just a little too large to fit conveniently. The box I've got is in pretty bad shape as is, I've been considering rehoming those bits; putting them in a drawer is actually a good idea.

Thanks for all the help guys.

I think I might splurge on some skew chisels, so I can make the drawer dovetails half-blind with a little more ease, but that means waiting until the next paycheck before I can justify spending some cash.

I've got a nice board picked out for the drawer fronts, so I can get a continuous grain pattern. Same nice grain I have on the sides, which will be nice, because where the cabinet is hung you don't really get to see those nice boards.

[Andrae Covington]

Is it possible to remove the center divider without butchering things too badly? The reason I ask is the 11" width you currently have gets too small very quickly with handled tools like files unless they're small. Full width drawers would be much more useful in my opinion...


...The center divider is actually the only part of the case that isn't glued in, so it could be removed, although 22"+ seems a bit wide to be ideal...

Since the doors are already asymmetrical, consider making asymmetrical drawers to match. Then one set of drawers would have room for longer items.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Not a bad idea. Although I don't really want to try and make dadoes for the divider with the thing up on the wall . . .

Had the asymmetrical doors been the original design plan, (rather than simply the two main storage spaces being asymmetrical) I probably would have followed all the way through to the space for the lower drawers.

[Todd Burch]

When I graduate drawers, I use a pretty simple formula.

Let's say I want 5 drawers, graduated evenly, inside an opening 20" tall. First, I pick the graduation, say, 1". The formula would be

x + (x+1) + (x+2) + (x+3) + (x+4) = 20 or, more simply, 5x + 10 = 20, or, 5x = 10, x = 2. The first drawer is 2", second is 3", etc. 2+3+4+5+6 = 20.

But, that leaves no spacing between the drawers. So, if I want to leave 1/4" above and below every drawer (that is 1/4" in 6 different spots), then instead of 20", use 20" - (6 * 1/4"), or, 18 1/2". Then, solve for x just like before.

If I wanted 1/2" graduations, the formula would be

x + (x+1/2) + (x+2/2) + (x+3/2) + (x+4/2) = 18.5, or, 5x + 5 = 18.5, or, 5x = 13.5, or, x = 2.7". In this case, I would probably round up to 2 3/4" for the thinnest drawer, 3 1/4" for the second, etc., and have a bit tighter gap between the drawers than the 1/4" already allotted.

2 3/4 + 3 1/4 + 3 3/4 + 4 1/4 + 4 3/4 = (2+3+3+4+4) + (3/4 + 1/4 + 3/4 + 1/4 + 3/4) = 16 + 2 3/4 = 18 3/4, so, the 1/4" gaps are now really 1/5" instead. (20 - 18.75)/6 = (5/4 / 24/4) = (5/4 * 4/24) = 5/24, or, with some fudge... 1/5".

I have a sandpaper cabinet where I used the plywood the sandpaper sits on as the "runner". I've been using it for several years (9 I see...) and it works great.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?7742-After-10-years-I-finally-made-a-sandpaper-cabinet

Todd

[Mel Fulks]

It's a tool storage cabinet ,go with best practical arrangement . Traditional drawer graduation is 1.273 times the drawer immediately above. See recent posts on this subject.

[glenn bradley]

Is it possible to remove the center divider without butchering things too badly?

Good point. I see no need for dividers (webframes) in that space unless you are going to have the drawers ride on them. I would side-hang the drawers and save the vertical space for drawer depth. JMHO.

[Zach Dillinger]

Traditional drawer graduation, on large case pieces anyway, tends to be that each successive drawer is equal to the height of the drawer immediately above, plus the thickness of the drawer blade. This may not help you much in this, but its good for general knowledge.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Good point. I see no need for dividers (webframes) in that space unless you are going to have the drawers ride on them. I would side-hang the drawers and save the vertical space for drawer depth. JMHO.

Side hanging the drawers has been the plan all along. The center divider was just to break up the width of the drawers, the original thinking being I might want a large drawer, but not 22 inches width of large drawer.

Definitely some good info here, guys, but I guess I was looking less for formulas on graduating drawers (although that's helpful info for later projects) and more on what size drawers you folks find useful in tool storage uses. Gotten plenty of both types of replies though, so thanks all around.

[Todd Burch]

Thank you for taking the time to acknowledge our posts!