Lathe turning tools rolling cabinet

[sprior]

I just finished my rolling lathe turning tools cabinet.  Overall I'm quite happy with how it came out, it was my first complicated 32mm system project.

I got confused with mounting the drawers and the drawer faces which then caused problems with the door.  The drawer boxes are a multiple of 32mm high.  I wasn't sure where on the drawer box the slide was supposed to attach so I put it in the middle.  The drawer fronts are also a multiple of 32mm high, but with the amount it reveal I left at the top and between then plus the thickness of the edge banding left me with space for the doors which was not a multiple of 32mm.  I tried cutting the door to the height that fit and then referenced the 35mm holes in the doors from the bottom edge, but that left a larger than desired gap above the doors.

So if erock is listening I could really use at least another video on how to plan out the drawer boxes, drawer fronts, reveals, and allow for the thickness of the banding.

One general question I have is that if you cut all pieces to a multiple of 32mm you have to drill holes with the LR32 system before you put the edge banding on or the end stops won't fit.  So unless you know for sure what the edge banding thickness is and allow for it during your cuts you're faced with drilling all holes before you put the banding on (domino holes get drilled after the banding), and then allow for the fact that everything is slightly over-sized.  What's the "right" way to deal with all of this?

 

[erock]

Steve,

  first thing that I caught was you made the drawer boxes in multiples of 32.  You don't need to make the drawer boxes in multiples of 32.  You could

if you have the room make them a little deeper if wanted.

The height of the cabinets sides, door height and drawer fronts is where you're looking for the multiple of 32.

Minus the reveal you are looking for.  For me, I like a 3mm reveal between doors and drawer fronts.

I like to draw a sketch of what my cabinet will look like.  That way I can figure out my multiples of 32, size of doors, size of drawer boxes first.

After I come up with my door height I figure out the size of my drawer boxes.  I figure the spacing needed for the drawer slides to work properly, mostly by

the instructions that come with the slides. Once the cabinet is  all together with the doors install and the drawer box installed,  I can then figure the drawer

fronts.

I like to find the height of my doors first.  Because I'm using the LR32 to drill the cup hinges.  The drawer fronts start out in multiples of 32. 

but once I start subtracting for edge banding and reveal, well, that increment of 32 is quickly lost. 

So I think the mishap you had was making the drawer box a multiple of 32.  This isn't a bad thing.  Nothing wrong with it.  But if you were trying to keep

your drawer front centered with the drawer box, this may have led to the gap? 

An easy fix for you is to ship me the cabinet and start a new one.  [tongue]

Or,  if you have the plywood, make a new set of doors and drawer fronts.  Make the doors first, edge banding and all.  Install the doors.  True up the doors. 

Measure from the top of your cabinet to the top of your door.  Figure out your multiple of 32, subtract the reveal and thickness of edge banding. 

If the gap bugs you that much.  Over all, it's a nice cabinet.  Nicely done!

Chalk this up as a learning experience.    I created a nice pile of scrap plywood when I was teaching myself the True 32 system. 

Eric

 

[fdengel]

Curious as to why you put what appear to be nailers on a rolling cart?

It's shop furniture so that's not really a problem or anything, it works... just curious.

Personally I prefer putting pegboard on the backs of things like that when I build them.

The cart is a great idea though - I kind of like the way you used the tubes in the back on top (not sure what else to call them) - out of curiosity, is that painted PVC pipe or did you use wood for those?

I think I'm going to need to do something similar for my own lathe tools.  Probably a bit smaller though, as my space is rather constrained.

 

[NERemodeling]

Nice looking cart,

if the gap is bothering you ive got two ideas for you 

do your door hinges offer vertical agjustment?  cheat them up a bit

second, if your drawer front applied onto the drawer box or is it integrated into the box, what im getting at is if it is applied with a few screws to the drawer box, why dont you just re mount the drawer face a bit lower,    it will widen the gap between the two drawers but that is no problem especially if everything matches in the end

doing this will probably get your horizantal gaps to match your vertical gap between the two doors better.. its a win win!

third option could always be to just pat yourself on the back for making such a sweet cart and put it to work!!

 

[sprior]

The box was constructed like an ordinary base cabinet with a floating back and felt a little wiggly, so I added what look like nailers in the back to stiffen it up enough to be freestanding.

The hinges I used were from a big box store and caused a couple of problems, one being that I drilled 5mm mounting holes and the hinges came with slightly smaller screws which wouldn't grab those holes well, and the 5mm screws I had were a little oversized for the holes in the hinges - I ended up drilling them out a little.  The hinges didn't have as much adjustability as I needed.  Next time I'll know better than to use anything but Blum, but they're more of a pain to get.

The drawers are a 1/2" ply box with the 3/4" ply face added to the front so I could adjust the drawer fronts.

Mostly what bothers me is that I was trying to follow the 32mm system well and went astray.  I made the drawer boxes themselves a multiple of 32mm high which ended up causing problems.  My other mistake was starting with the drawers and working down to the doors when I should have gotten the doors to a multiple of 32mm and worked up from there.

 

[sprior]

I forgot to answer, yes that's 30 feet of PVC pipe cut into 2 foot lengths.  I decided to spray paint them to clean them up and have them blend into the background more instead of being a bright white distraction.

 

[fdengel]

Thank you!

My own experience with PVC is that all the sawdust in the world tends to cling to it.  I suspect the paint should help with that as well...

"Pure" 32mm or not that cart looks like it should serve you well.

 

[sprior]

I've turned two bowls since I built this cart so I'm just starting to really test drive it.  Having the full extension drawers is really nice.  The PVC pipes are working fine, but I'm glad they're not any taller - anyone even a little shorter than me would need to adjust them.  Having a little open space in front of the slanted front board is nice, I might add a little edge to prevent stuff from rolling off.

The other thing I've learned for stuff on wheels is that the wheels make all the difference between something you only move when necessary and something you'll easily move for any reason.  Buy good wheels!  I'm now using 3" double locking casters and they are just so much nicer than the black double wheeled awkward locking casters I had used on some older projects.  This lathe cart is amazingly easy to move when you want to, and locks solid when you don't.

 

[NMacK]

Great idea; I will borrow your idea. How did you fix the pvc pipes to the cabinet? What are the dimensions of the triangular tool stand?

 

[sprior]

The pipes are screwed to the triangular section and heavy enough that I wasn't too worried about them going anywhere.  I don't remember the dimensions of the triangular section, I'd have to measure it if you need, at the time I sketched something out on a large sheet of paper and cut directly to that.

 

[NMacK]

Thanks;  I'll do the same.