I’ve had my cutoff cart for a couple of years now and other than my tendency to overload it to the point I can barely move it, it has been great. Except for the open area under the clamps. It is a total mess.
I always intended to put drawers down there, but I never felt I had the time. I have a block of vacation time over the Christmas holiday, so it is time. I went back to Fusion 360 and worked out a design based on materials I had or could easily get. My steel supplier sells sheet metal in partial sheets sizes, one being 12″x48″, so that became my drawer size.
I picked up several pieces of 16ga and used my Pexto shear to cut them to length. I bent them into a short U shape on my brake, each one got a 2″ strip of 16ga welded to the back, and piece of 3″x1/8″ flat bar welded to the front to make a drawer box.
For the sides and the top shelf, I had water tank mount made from 1/8″ steel that looked to be big enough. I used my plasma cutter to chop it up and got the sides all squared up and tacked in place on my welding table. I attached the drawer slides to the drawers with some 1/4″ 8-32 screws and made a wood jig for marking the hole locations on the sides.
I used a 1/8″ transfer punch to mark the steel, then center punched those marks to give me a good center point for the drill. The jig not only has the hole spacing, but references off the previous slide for drawer spacing. You can see in this photo the welded on drawer back.
Each hole was drilled with a 7/64 bit, then finished out with a 8-32 combination drill/tap. The 1/8″ steel is almost as thick as an 8-32 nut, so I am not giving up much strength, and it is a cleaner look.
Once all the drawers were installed, I tacked in the top shelf, then the entire assembly was bolted into the space on the scrap cart. Once everything was in and aligned correctly, I fully welded the shelf and loaded it back up. The drawer pulls are the standard 4″ wire pulls I use on all my shop cabinets.
Much cleaner and more organized. I’ll add labels on the drawers once I get a better idea for what to put in each one. For now I have brass, bronze, and delrin in the top, aluminum in the 2nd, 4140 in the 3rd, 1018 tubes and shapes in the 4th, and basic 1018 cutoffs in the bottom.