Building Guido Henn's Chaos Wall - Any Advice/ Feedback

[BMH]

Guido,

I am making a smaller version of your "Chaos Wall", great introduction to the LR32 system. Everything is ready for the hardware but my local store is our of rafix hardware and the online store is back order. Everybody in the USA must be building a Chaos wall!

I like your design as it doesn't waste any space and if the lid opening become an issue I will go to full extension. What is the height of the first shelve in your system after the systainer pull outs ?

My next project is a Chaos wall for the garage. I want to build large drawers on the bottom and shelving on the top. What is the maximum depth and length of a drawer using 19mm plywood and the rafix system that will still give you a stable structure.

Thank you for your great videos and I wish I spoke German to understand all of the great information you present

Bruce

 

[Guido]

Hi Bruce,

the height of the sidewalls is 2750 mm and the height of the doors is 1392 mm, so the height of the sytainer area and the two drawer front rows under the doors is 1358 mm. That is for me maximum, because I want to see and get out things comfortable. A basketball pro can vary the height

If the depth of a cabinet is more than 450 mm you should use one more rafix connector in the middle of the board, so you have to make a third row of 32 mm holes in the middle of the sidewalls. But you should keep in mind that more depth also means less overview in the cabinet, when you store smaller things. For the systainers more depth is not necessary. I would not make a cabinets depth more than 620 mm.

By the way - I gave the german text of the video to Festool-Germany to translate it in english. I dont know how far they are, but as soon I will get it back, I will make an english voice over.

Regards Guido

 

[rookie08]

Hi Guido,

Don't mean to flood you here with questions.  [embarassed]  I'm building the jig you show on the video for the rafix connectors and I'm trying to follow the drawing from your magazine article with the measurements.  Maybe I'm just not very good at it but I'm having the hardest time getting the measurements to line up correctly.

Any thoughts/directions?

Thanks!

James

 

[Guido]

Hi James,

the best way to get a perfect template is to start with Pos. 1 the 9 mm thick plywood template (500 x 230 mm). Mark all holes with long straight lines across the whole template you need this lines later. Use your drill press with a fence to align the holes in a straight row. Start with the smaller 17 mm holes (here for a 17 mm guide bush for german routers) if you dont have a 17 mm guide bush use the next near available in inch with a perfect matching forstner bit. The center of the hole should be "about" 121,5 mm. Dont worry when the center is 121 or 122 mm from the long side of the 9 mm template board but take care that both holes are in a line or row (dont know the right term). The distance between both holes should be "about" 154 mm. To get this perfect use a left and a right stop block on your drill press. So for now you have a left and a right stop and a long fence mounted on your drill press. Dont move these stops and the fence to make the other two bigger holes (30 mm or what ever you have in inch) but put a 32 mm scrap piece against the long fence to move the template abolutely parallel to the first two holes. Dont try to move the fence, because its nearly imposible to get it absolutly parallel moved!!!

Now you have all holes perfectly parallel aligned to the side edges of your template board. Next step is to make and mount the fence bords Pos. 2 and 3. Start with the easy to make fence board Pos. 2 (500 mm x 80 mm x 18 or 19 mm plywood). Mounting this on the template is a little bit tricky because the offset between the center of the bigger holes and the fence must be exactly 9,5 mm (not 10 and not 9!!!). This very important because the rafix need a hole wich is open on the edge of the board and you get no opening with 10 mm and a too big opening with 9 mm offset. The best method is try and error and first only use two screws to mount the fence.

Next challenge is the fence in the middle of the template, which separates the left and the right holes. Now first you have to measure "your" distance between the holes. If it is perfectly 154 mm you can make a 80 mm wide fence, if it is e.g. 153 mm you have to make the fence only 79 mm wide (37 mm left + fence width + 37 mm right). You see you can only vary the width of the fence and you have to stick perfekt to 37 mm left/right!!!

Mounting this fence is the same tricky like the longer fence, so use the try and error method and move it when necessary and fix it again with screws. Keep in mind its a template not a furniture masterpiece, it has to work perfect but need not look perfect 

Hope you could understand what I mean, its not so easy to explain this in english ... otherwise ask again

Good luck and best regards

Guido

 

[BMH]

Guido,

Thank you for all of your answers. The garage project will have large deep drawers on the bottom for storage of our winter and summer seasonable stuff. Upper part narrow cabinets with doors for easy access. In the next few years the garage is going to go through a couple of remodel, so I will need to take everything down and reassemble in a different area. The rafix system will be perfect for this and 620mm will give me the depth necessary for the bottom drawers.

You gave a good description on how to make your template. Laying out all of your lines before you start is the key step. Using screws has permitted me to use the same jig on another project by modifying the center piece and adapting it to a 42mm separation from the edge.

Bruce

 

[Rocky]

is there a set of plans for this with dimensions, cutlist and complete parts list. I'm new to woodworking and this would be a good start project for my garage.

 

[BMH]

http://www.festool.de/Aktionen/Festool-fuer-Heimwerker/Holzidee-Heimwerken/Documents/holzidee/Holzidee_11.pdf

Around page50 plan with cut list in German.

Greatmproject, Good luck

Bruce

 

[Rocky]

Thanks, Bruce that helps a whole lot.  I can read it, I spent 17 years in Europe in the Military.

 

[hrrb]

http://www.festool.de/Aktionen/Festool-fuer-Heimwerker/Holzidee-Heimwerken/Documents/holzidee/Holzidee_11.pdf

Blimey!  [eek] (Said with a rough woodworkers voice) I love the transformation on page 46 (44 in a printed version).

From a tool rack with very few pieces of Festool stuff, it suddenly transforms to a nice wall with humongus loads of systainers!  [blink] I got to build such a wall! The cabinets are nice but the increase in Festool stuff is the initiator!

/Henrik

 

[Rocky]

Height of the sidewalls is 2750 mm.  Is this correct?  I thought the panels come in 48 x 97.

 

[txrpls]

Height of the sidewalls is 2750 mm.  Is this correct?  I thought the panels come in 48 x 97.

All I have been able to find around here is 49x97. I'm going to shorten mine to the nearest 32mm spacing.

 

[BMH]

You can make them any height you want, you just need to find the material. I decided to use 18mm shop plywood for the complete project as my ceiling height only permitted 1970 mm cabinets. It has been a great project. My shop is better organize, it  convince me to go back to metric system for all of my builds. Great introduction to the LR32 and the Rafix system. I will be building a set of garage organizers base on the Rafix and the LR 32 this weekend. Buy the end of this second project I will have paid for all of the tools I got.

Bruce

 

[Gene Howerton]

I am a bit confused on the height of the cabinet.  2750mm is not divisible by 32.  It is an odd number.  I thought the height of the cabinet would have been divisible by 32.

 

[greg mann]

I am a bit confused on the height of the cabinet.  2750mm is not divisible by 32.  It is an odd number.  I thought the height of the cabinet would have been divisible by 32.

By making the overall length divisible by 32mm gives you the option of working from either end of you material without compromising the 32mm pattern in between. That is just a nice advantage, especially if you have the shorter rail.

 

[madmaguire]

Hello,
Does anyone that has fabricated this unit or any thing like this chaois wall, have any pics to share??
Thanks
John

 

[webfarmer]

I built a version a year ago, and a picture is posted under the "member projects" tag.  The post is Chaos Wall.

It's still holding up well.

Good luck

BB