My wife for years has wanted a kitchen drawer organizer. We were still using the cheap plastic utensil organizer I had purchased in 1990 when I moved out on my own. The biggest challenge was the timeframe. I was busy making a bunch of other Christmas gifts and I didn't have much time to make it. I planned to keep the construction simple with butt joints, glue and nails. For it was, it didn't need fancy joints.
I was taking a woodworking class at Mount Diablo Adult Education (MDAE) and had access to machines. My plan was to use machines to get the 1/2" cherry stock I purchase at Rockler cut to width. For the length, I opted to use hand tools. I wanted to have one side true and one end at a perfect 90 degrees and didn't trust the chop saw at the school to give me that. As such, I cut the boards to 24" lengths via handsaw and used my shooting. It only took 30 minutes or so to do the bulk wood.
When I arrived at MDAE, I had the wood all organized the same way. It was then just a matter of ripping all stock down to 2.75" widths. It went really quick - less than 30 minutes. It would have taken me much longer by hand. Normally I wouldn't mind doing this, but I was time constrained.
When I got home, I cleaned up the cherry burn marks from the table saw. I also smoothed all of the interior surfaces with a hand plane. I sorted out the specific widths I wanted and cut all the various pieces to length. The beauty of this project is that it could afford some discrepancies in lengths given what the project was. That helped quite a bit.
To make it easier to reach into the drawers, I cut some curves into some of the pieces using cross cuts followed by chisel, spoke shave, rasps, and sandpaper. With that all done, it was a matter of glue up. I was also going to be using nails to help secure everything in place and I predrilled the holes.
Glue up was a bit tedious but went well. Only minor cleanup was needed with a hand plane to flush the bottoms. Then, I glued and nailed on some cherry plywood for the bottom. I didn't have time to finish it prior to Christmas. I planned to finish it on 26Dec. My wife liked the natural wood look and figured it would get a bit beat up from use no matter what, so she wanted it unfinished. Happy wife happy life. Oh, and my wife really loved this gift. She didn't expect it and it was a pleasant surprise for her. It took about 20 hours to make and the wood cost about $50.
Hi Joe
ReplyDeleteis that long thin opening at the top of the insert dead space? And where did you get the 1/2" cherry?
Hi Ralph, The thin opening at the back/dead space (at least my wife hasn't found a use for it. Is on the order of 22 inches. As for the 1/2" thick cherry, I got that at our local Rockler. They had quite a selection of 1/2" stock in the "popular" woods. Woodcraft also has 1/2" thick stock but not in long pieces; limited to 24" lengths at Woodcraft.
ReplyDeleteVery nice. I've been wanting to do something similar, but don't have as much real estate, so my compartments might be narrower. Have you found any difficult getting your fingers in to pick out a utensil? Anything you would do differently?
ReplyDeleteReaching in the drawers has been fine. The one issue we are having is the weight. The drawer rails are very cheap ones and it doesn't open easily. If I had to make it again, I'd consider using 1/4" cherry. Of course, that would have some challenges to construct as well. Likely will change out the drawer to some sort of Bloom rollers/sliders. The other thing I would change is that narrow slot in the back. It's possible we could store something in there but not likely. I'd just make the utensils sections a bit longer.
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ReplyDeleteFor tiny workshop
ReplyDeleteA good thing is the dividers are glued to the bottom. I have an IKEA wooden organiser and thin things like knife blades tend to pass under the (very) small space under the dividers and get stuck. I think the space appeared because of the weight of the cutlery.
Now, after all, I can do something about it.