Workbench Drawer Inserts

Just because I built 10 drawers didn't automatically mean I was organized! So I built a bunch of drawer inserts to organize 10 year's worth of hardware doo-dads.

Back in 2013, I made Sarah a Christmas tree made of wooden slats. I had lots of left-overs that proved to be the perfect height to make my inserts.

I cut everything to length and then set up my dado stack to cut interlocking joints. It took a long time to set the saw blades up correctly because the pieces, while pretty uniform in width, weren't a standard width so I used the paper and cardboard shims that came with the stack to get it right.

Once I got the dado set up, I could start cutting. I cut enough inserts for 2 drawers each time so I quickly ended up with plenty of inserts. As you can see from the photo, I varied the number of compartments so that I had some flexibility as to where I could store different things.

Prior to having the drawers, I had about two dozen glass jars containing nails, screws, nuts, bolts, etc. as well as an old wooden tray. I was able to fit everything into the drawers and significantly tidy up the shop. I'm very happy with how it all came out.

Workbench Drawers - v2

After finishing the first set of drawers for my workbench, I was able to put a bunch of stuff away. That meant that I had another nice space under the bench that I could fill with drawers. I decided to use a different design this time for a couple reasons.
I wanted to try a set of drawers with dadoes for the drawer runners rather than slides.
I was cheap and didn't want to buy $70 or $80 worth of drawer slides.
I went with 3/4" MDF for the carcass, 1/4" plywood for the bottoms, and 1/2" MDF for the drawer bodies. The drawer fronts are......

Rather than buy a big sheet of MDF, I went for the slightly more expensive option of buying 2' x 2' pieces already cut at Home Depot for the carcass. I cut them down to size on the table saw (a 21"x21" cube) and then set up a 1/4" dado stack.

I spent a lot of time figuring out how to make evenly spaced drawers and even more time thinking about the order I'd cut all the dados in because it involved making 4 cuts (1 for the left side, 1 for the right side, 2 for the center support) and then moving the fence. I used painter's tape to clearly mark the bottoms, inside/outside, fronts, etc. This was very helpful while I was making all the cuts. Here's how they came out:

The dados came out surprisingly even and matched, which made me happy.

Then it was time to glue up the carcass. I made some guides to help out.

However, I didn't end up using them - they were more of a pain than they were worth. Here's the carcass glued up and squared off with a square guide I made years ago and another square to keep it all even.

I used a lot of glue and I added 1-1/2" finish nails to strengthen things up. I ended up gluing things up on the floor because it's quite flat and if I had done it on saw horses, it would have been too tall to deal with.

I let the glue set for a while and then started working on getting the center section glued in. I fussed with this for a very long time - measuring, adjusting, measuring, adjusting, etc. When I finally had it the way I wanted, I cut all the drawer bottoms so that I could use those to center the support and give the whole thing some rigidity while the glue set.

This picture shows the carcass upside down as I nailed it from the bottom.  As you can see, 8 drawers are going to be the same height with the top two drawers being just a bit shorter.

Then I turned to building the drawers. Since I had 10 to make, I decided I needed some repeatable set-ups. First, I ripped everything to the right width, then I set up two stop blocks on my chop saw so that all the fronts, backs, and sides would be the same. One on each side of the saw so that I didn't have to adjust anything once I started cutting. Here's the stop for the sides.

Here's the stop for the fronts & backs.

Then I decided to spend the time making a jig for the drawer assembly to help me get them all the same and to make assembly easier and more repeatable.

As you can see, I used some old scrap I had as well as the off-cuts from the MDF sheets. Using this made a huge difference. The drawers all went together easily and they're essentially the same. Nice. Once I got each drawer glued and nailed, I weighted them down so they'd dry nice and flat. As you can see, the bottoms extend way beyond the drawer lengths. I'll trim these up when I'm done.

Here are 6 of the drawers made. I ran out of 1/2" MDF before I could finish.

There's no dado on the bottom pair of drawers, so I'll trim those down to size after I have them built. Again, I want them all to be essentially interchangeable so I'm building them each the same way.

Here are all the drawers made up. You can see (barely) that I've labeled each one where they'll end up. They fit nicely and move in and out smoothly.

Here's the unit with the drawer fronts on. The fronts really neaten up the whole thing.

I thought I'd buy drawer pulls for this set but when I got to the hardware store, it was closed. So, necessity being the mother of invention, I made my own pulls.

I got these out of some old 2x4's I had left over from other projects. I mounted them with glue and 2" brads (here's to nail guns for working alone!).

I'm really pleased with how both sets of drawers came out. I drove a couple long screws through the bottom of this unit into the bench so that they stay put but also makes them removable. We'll see if I decide to take them with us if we ever move but at least that's an option.