Hardware organizer bin cabinet

Hi - just finished a piece of furniture for the house so now I can build something for the shop! I’ve got 72 of these Akron plastic Bins - 4” wide by 3” tall by 5” deep. Seems simple enough....I plan for 4 per row and 18 rows. So it’s about 62” tall and I’m thinking 3/4” ply for the cabinet with a 3/4” divider at row 6 and 12. The rest of the rows and the back panel will be 1/4” ply fitted into dados In side panels.

im looking around the inter webs for what other people do and all I’m seeing is metal frames for this number of boxes. Gives me pause if I may be underestimating the weight and structure needed here. Worst case scenario each bin would hold 2lbs - so 144 lbs total. I used the saggolator and the 1/4” is just fine for each row.

think I’m ok with my plans for 3/4” ply cabinet for this purpose?

I'm not following. You're planning on using 1/4"-thick shelves, 16" wide, loaded with as much as 8 pounds? I'd expect that to sag quite a bit.

Yep was thinking 1/4" shelves for this - I've got 15 shelves so wanted to minimize height wasted on shelves. I guess its only ~4" difference so i could be conservative and go 1/2".

My thinking is that for most of my shop drawers i used 1/4" for the bottoms and those hold much more weight - although not as wide. I also used the "Sagulator" and it showed acceptable deflection over the span.

http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator/

I could also put 1/2" or 3/4" in the back panel and route a dado there so i have support on 3 sides for each shelf.

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Originally Posted by Dave Rosner

Yep was thinking 1/4" shelves for this - I've got 15 shelves so wanted to minimize height wasted on shelves. I guess its only ~4" difference so i could be conservative and go 1/2".

My thinking is that for most of my shop drawers i used 1/4" for the bottoms and those hold much more weight - although not as wide. I also used the "Sagulator" and it showed acceptable deflection over the span.

http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator/

I could also put 1/2" or 3/4" in the back panel and route a dado there so i have support on 3 sides for each shelf.

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Got a piece of 1/4" plywood around? Try it, rather than relying on a calculator.

Yep will give that a shot for sure.

I was more worried about the overall cabinet strength but as i think about it more 200 lb cabinet should be fine with plywood...

Just my opinion, but 2 lbs as a worst case scenario seems a bit light. A box of screws seems like it could be heavier than that. I would design for heavier loads in the bins.

Did a bunch of tests yesterday and if i support the shelves from the sides and the back it can hold quite a bit before sag is introduced. With 3/4" all around i'm thinking this thing will be plenty strong.

I just have to come up with some sort of clever jig to line up the 3 dadoes and spacing perfectly for 18 shelves....

The hospital where I work uses Akro bins in all the stock rooms all over the whole campus and some kind of corresponding Akro punched metal attached to the studs in all the stock rooms. The bins just hang by the lip on their back face from the metal tabs sticking out of the wall.

The main issue I see is weight. We have, on my unit, a big bin with 8 liters of normal saline in it, about 16 pounds. How much would something like this be worth to get out of cutting all those dadoes? Plus you could add other sized bins later no problem?

https://www.globalindustrial.com/p/s...oor-rack-36x61