Retrofitting Another Metal Cabinet

[glenn bradley]

This one is 24" deep and while it have lots of volume, things seem to go into another dimension in cabinets that deep.

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I emptied one of the shelves and came up with way more stuff than should be stored in such a space. Obviously I found a lot of things that had gone "missing" in the belly of the beast as well.

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I have some ply from an old bed frame that was gifted me for the material I could strip off of it. That and some BB ply, some drawer-lock joints . . .

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. . . and a little time gets me some of these.

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And you can see where I am headed with this . . .

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[John Patric]

Excellent idea ! How are you attaching the drawer slides to the cabinet ?

Cheers,
John

[John K Jordan]

Glenn, I rotated the photo. I copied it to my computer, rotated it in Photoshop, inserted the edited photo and deleted the original from the message. I didn't remove the other one completely so it shows up as the attached thumbnail. I can remove the attached thumbnail if you want.

I like your cabinet modification. Your thread reminded me of one I modified a few years ago. I had a short steel roll-around cabinet, really a cart, with open shelves and three wide, shallow drawers. I think I must have bought it a Northern Tool, can't remember. I set a piece of plywood on the top to use as a work surface between two lathes in my shop. After a couple of years I took off the wheels and built a wood frame around it, extended the length, and fastened a laminated maple top and mounted a bench vise on the end. Building the bench around the cabinet made it easy to keep everything square. It makes a great workbench. I use the three built-in drawers for calipers, compasses, and small lathe tools. After seeing your cabinet I want to put some drawers where the two open shelves are.

JKJ

[glenn bradley]

Excellent idea ! How are you attaching the drawer slides to the cabinet ?

Cheers,
John

I framed it out with 2x4's milled to the thickness I required. This frame work is attached to the sides with construction adhesive and a few screws in key locations (screws may be belt and suspenders but, I'm making this up as I go). If I did it again I would use strips to space plywood from the sides as it would be more versatile.

Glenn, I rotated the photo. I copied it to my computer, rotated it in Photoshop, inserted the edited photo and deleted the original from the message. I didn't remove the other one completely so it shows up as the attached thumbnail. I can remove the attached thumbnail if you want.

I like your cabinet modification. Your thread reminded me of one I modified a few years ago. I had a short steel roll-around cabinet, really a cart, with open shelves and three wide, shallow drawers. I think I must have bought it a Northern Tool, can't remember. I set a piece of plywood on the top to use as a work surface between two lathes in my shop. After a couple of years I took off the wheels and built a wood frame around it, extended the length, and fastened a laminated maple top and mounted a bench vise on the end. Building the bench around the cabinet made it easy to keep everything square. It makes a great workbench. I use the three built-in drawers for calipers, compasses, and small lathe tools. After seeing your cabinet I want to put some drawers where the two open shelves are.

JKJ

Thanks for the fix John. It sounds like your version will just keep getting better.

[Jim Becker]

That's a really excellent example of adapting the cabinet to better serve your needs!