Making a XXXL offcut storage drawer

[ryanjg117]

I've been tidying up the shop and got rid of my old offcut storage cubby on casters. I made the mistake of making the walls on the cubby far too tall, which made it a huge pain to "dive in" and find anything of value. I've since learned the value of accessibility, which got me to thinking...

I'm repurposing a good-sized Madix shelving unit, rated to 1400 lbs per shelf. A bit lighter than a full-sized pallet rack but not my much. The rack measures 8 feet long, 2 feet deep and about 6 feet high overall. Pictures below.

I'm aiming to reserve the bottom shelf for a massive, single drawer, dimensioned 8 feet long, 2 feet deep and 18 inches high. I'd like to keep this one long drawer because I often have long but narrow offcuts and no place to really put them. This will solve that, plus accept all the really small stuff.

I could build a cabinet to house this drawer, or just keep it open and use under-mount slides, which I think is what I would prefer. Undermount slides would also solve the problem of sagging, which over a 8-foot long stretch is something I need to consider.

I was considering using something like Blum Tandem 569A under-mount drawer slides until I realized they are really intended to be located in the bottom corners of a cabinet carcass and can't be mounted in the middle underside of a drawer due to their flange.

It looks like there is an "under-mount drawer slide" classification but I'm not coming up with much in the way of specs.

Update - Looks like Accuride makes a (very expensive) under-mount, Model ST8201. Still has a flange though, so it wouldn't be possible to mount center-bottom. About $200 for the pair but they will take 400 lbs of static load. 

I don't see this holding more than 500 lbs of materials fully loaded, so I would like to aim for overall capacity in that range.

Starting to realize the flange in most drawer slides lends a lot of strength, and "center mount" slides, because they don't have those flanges, are incredibly weak. So I might have to go for the Accuride option above or similar, and perhaps stiffen the underside of the drawer with some metal angle embedded into the bottom.

Any ideas?

Picture of the rack and the sketch of the drawer pull-out:
[attachimg=1]

 

[gunnyr]

What about making 3 drawers?  My concern about storing off cuts in drawers is that they are out of sight.  Once the drawer gets filled then what? [embarassed]

I keep way too much 'stuff', what I really need to do is get rid of it rather than trying to figure out a way to store it.

Good luck!

 

[Spandex]

Have you taken into account the fact that this will want to tip your whole rack over when opened fully?

 

[nvalinski]

I'll second the opinion to be cautious of it tipping, and maybe offer the thought of "just throw your scraps out already!"

On a more serious note, if it is something you are looking to definitely move forward with, maybe look into linear bearings? Expensive, but it'd hold a load for sure. You will need to secure the particleboard base to the metal shelves so that it doesn't tip forward as well.

 

[4nthony]

I'll second the opinion to be cautious of it tipping

I'll third that. Thirding? Thirded?  [tongue]

Maybe some kind of a leg that is hinged under the drawer bottom and drops down to support it when opened? I don't know what mechanism you'd use to make sure it does fold back up under load, but I think it could be solved without too much work.

You mentioned getting rid of a storage cubby on casters, but I think if weight/tipping is a concern, I'd raise the bottom shelf and fit a storage cubby on casters into the space.