Drawer Height

[Chestnut]

A call out to those who are well organized. What's a good drawer height (depth?) as in the vertical direction. I"m making some drawers for my shop on my outfeed table they are going to be 28"x 23" so large. I'd like to do one bottom drawer at 28x23x10 and then have 18" of vertical height for the rest. I'm not sure if i should split that 18" into 3 or 4 drawers for a total of 4 to 5. I'd like the very top one to be more shallow for small items like marking gauges ect.

I always call this the depth thinking about it like a body of water but the common word is height?

[Woodenskye]

Drew for the bottom drawer, you may want to make that deeper than 10" if you will be storing saw blades vertically.  As for the others I prefer shallow drawers because it is less likely to have junk placed on top of what the drawer is intended for.  The other thought is to make it more flexible, by doing a dado an inch apart and then coming up with a runner to ride in the dado.  This would allow you to do any size drawer.  Look at Ron Paulk or Jeremy Schmidt on YouTube for a better example of what I mean.

[Coop]

I would give considerable consideration as to what your storage needs are and actually measure the items before laying out the drawers. Kev built a table to hold his ds and built drawers below. His bottom drawer held his tenoning jig. I copied it, to the best of my ability, as I also needed storage space for my jig as well. And a top skinny drawer is always nice> 

[Chestnut]

@Woodenskye I like the saw blade idea but i don't have that many blades and i have a really good spot that they just hang from a nail. It's close to the saw but out of the way. I'll probably have a space for bandsaw blades beings i don't have a good spot for them as well as some drywall and electrical tools that i want to have a spot.

I'm doing BB drawer slides So i won't really have that flexibility. That idea is great and i might use it some where else. Though i know from my dad's old bench that dado slides after 10 years get really really difficult to slide in and out unless you frequently wax them.

@K Cooper The thing i really need storage for is wood. I only have a few things that i know i need storage for and that will fit in the 10" drawer. I guess i might as well just do 5 drawers.

[Coop]

In that case, I would. I prefer shallow to deep as I tend to loose the items on the bottom of a deep drawer. Will this be a project journal?

[Chestnut]

1 minute ago, K Cooper said:

In that case, I would. I prefer shallow to deep as I tend to loose the items on the bottom of a deep drawer. Will this be a project journal?

I was planning on just adding it to the shop journal being's that it's shop furniture.

[Chet]

I was just reworking my shop drawers today and have some pictures.  I have 3 long drawers under my out feed table.  

Top drawer is 3 inches deep and has all my fasteners and a couple of mallets.  The other 2 drawers are 5 inches deep and hold stuff like my brad and nail guns straight edges and beater chisels

I have another cabinet that has a drawer that is 2 inches deep for chisels.

One that is 4 inches deep for measure and marking tools.

And one that is almost 6 inches deep that holds my plane tills. 

Empty -

Full -

 

 

[Coop]

That’s about as good as it gets Chet!!!!!!

[RichardA]

Nut, a lot depends on what you want to store and how far out of the way you want to put it.    I have hand saws , jig saws in one drawer, above that is router storage, and my top drawer is for lay out tools. I still have one drawer empty at the moment, but I'm sure that will change.

[Coop]

Let the competition begin. Great job guys! 

[..Kev]

Ultimately, it depends on your work flow and what you need in those drawers.  Like Chet, I do the bulk of my work on that table so, my drawers are split into 2 banks.  One bank of drawers are nearly all fasteners with the bottom drawer of that bank being hinges, latches, and things of that nature.  The other bank of drawers is mostly layout tools and things I use often.  Spare batteries for my drills etc..  You can go to my YT channel and find my OF table build where I really go into more depth on what lives in those drawers. Near the end of the video series.   I'm not trying to plug my channel, there's just more info there in video than I wish to type out

I count steps in the shop.  What ever I use most frequently lives the least number of steps from where I need it.  I find this improves my flow and cuts down on wasted time walking circles in the shop looking for something.  

And, of course, that brings up my last point.  Everything has a home!  Most of my drawers are inlayed (I've talked about this before) so, there's no doubt about where something belongs.  I do find that this actually makes it easier and faster to put things away and I have less shop clutter because of it.  Now, if I still can't find something, then it's my own stupid fault for not putting it away..  Only takes a few years of banging your head against your bench before you learn to put things away

Bottom line is that you need to really consider your work flow to decide what you need for drawer space.  To arbitrarily pick drawer depth numbers will lock you into a space that may not be best for your work flow.

 

[Chestnut]

9 hours ago, TIODS said:

Ultimately, it depends on your work flow and what you need in those drawers.  Like Chet, I do the bulk of my work on that table so, my drawers are split into 2 banks.  One bank of drawers are nearly all fasteners with the bottom drawer of that bank being hinges, latches, and things of that nature.  The other bank of drawers is mostly layout tools and things I use often.  Spare batteries for my drills etc..  You can go to my YT channel and find my OF table build where I really go into more depth on what lives in those drawers. Near the end of the video series.   I'm not trying to plug my channel, there's just more info there in video than I wish to type out

I count steps in the shop.  What ever I use most frequently lives the least number of steps from where I need it.  I find this improves my flow and cuts down on wasted time walking circles in the shop looking for something.  

And, of course, that brings up my last point.  Everything has a home!  Most of my drawers are inlayed (I've talked about this before) so, there's no doubt about where something belongs.  I do find that this actually makes it easier and faster to put things away and I have less shop clutter because of it.  Now, if I still can't find something, then it's my own stupid fault for not putting it away..  Only takes a few years of banging your head against your bench before you learn to put things away

Bottom line is that you need to really consider your work flow to decide what you need for drawer space.  To arbitrarily pick drawer depth numbers will lock you into a space that may not be best for your work flow.

 

I totally agree and I've watched that video and think it's awesome how you have that all organized. The problem is i know i will need storage in the future I have a need for 2 drawers and don't want to leave the other 3 to be made later. This is going to be more like random storage or storage for future items. I have little interest in making shop furniture so when i have the motivation to improve the shop i try and take advantage of it and get the project to completion. I actually hate working on fixtures for my shop which is why none of it looks fancy.

One other thought i had was making the drawer deep enough so i could put a tray in it so i can store stuff i don't use that often under the tray and then lift the tray out for that rare few times i need what ever is under it.

I also didn't know if there was like an Orgo man meeting where all the organized people of the world got together to talk about the important things like a good average drawer depth or vertical storage vs horizontal storage.

Thanks for the help Chet Kev, Rick, and coop the pictures and the advice has given me a direction. It may not be the right one for 5 years from now but i know this stuff is as easily changed as it is created.

Either way this is a good thread that I'll come back to time and time again. It's got a collection of some good pictures of organization ideas.

[..Kev]

59 minutes ago, Chestnut said:

 

I also didn't know if there was like an Orgo man meeting where all the organized people of the world got together to talk about the important things like a good average drawer depth or vertical storage vs horizontal storage.

 

I visit a lot of shops, just depends on my work location

 

[pkinneb]

Here is my table saw storage set up kind of messy but it works for me. The drawers are 2 1/2", 4 1/2", and 14 1/4" from top to bottom.