HOW TO? Trying to build a horizontal strip stock rack... hundreds of cubby holes

[rustyclockwork]

Hello all,

You've seen these at hobby shops and some hardware stores, they are the multi cubby hole cabinets, open sided, rather deep, with the strip stock mounted horizontally.

I'm wanting to build a very large one of these, tired of looking on craigslist for a store display to come up for sale and at this point, it wouldn't hold all that I have anyway.  Mine will need around 350 to 450 cubbys... about 2"x2" openings and others about 3"x6" openings... the cabinet will be 36" deep.

I don't want to go the easy route, (i.e. gluing a bunch of square or round mailing tubes all together) as this is going in my restoration shop and I would very much like to make this look rather old-fashioned.  I'm fine with using the brown chipboard that's around 1/8" thick for most of the interior cubby wall construction, but I will build the exterior in oak.

Does anyone have an established method of making something like this?  Or have seen plans before for something similar?

Thank you!

Jason

 

[Wooden Skye]

[welcome]

Do you have a picture of something similar you can post or a link.  A picture says a thousand words!  I am sure there will be plenty of responses.

 

[rustyclockwork]

Thanks!

Sure thing, here's something I found on Google.

Jason

 

[rustyclockwork]

looks like that one has some MDF, I guess I could just cut strips of that for verticals...

 

[Marshall Monnett]

I built something similar for storing all different sizes of steel stock for a small welding company I am friends with, It was 8' wide 4' tall and 4' deep, and all of the cubbyholes were 6"x6". I used 3/4 plywood to build all of it, and it was similar to the bottom part of the picture you posted. I datoed every horizontal section and cut strips for every vertical piece, started with the bottom row, glued and screwed together, then went to the next row. Took a couple of days but it ended up looking good and they were happy with the storage.

 

[wow]

I built something similar for storing all different sizes of steel stock for a small welding company I am friends with, It was 8' wide 4' tall and 4' deep, and all of the cubbyholes were 6"x6". I used 3/4 plywood to build all of it, and it was similar to the bottom part of the picture you posted. I datoed every horizontal section and cut strips for every vertical piece, started with the bottom row, glued and screwed together, then went to the next row. Took a couple of days but it ended up looking good and they were happy with the storage.

The materials could vary, but that'a exactly how I'd do it. Dado's for each vertical divider, and build it up from the ground.

The easy way to do this with your Festool's would be to line up your horizontal stock pieces (shelves) with the long edges touching, then lay your guide rail over them and use your router with a dado bit to cut dados across multiple 'shelves'. You could probably cut 3-4 at a time (depending on the length of your rails) and they would line up perfectly since they were cut all at the same time.

 

[rustyclockwork]

Sounds good!

Thanks for the suggestions!

Jason