Jfitz Posted January 16, 2012 Report Share Posted January 16, 2012 I'm finally going to ditch the ragtag folding tables and shelves I have, and build a permanent workbench with cabinets underneath. Total wall space is about 10', so I'm looking at 5 separate sections, each 24" wide. My intent is to have it mostly drawers, but if needed one or two door-covered cabinets if I can find the right use for them. I'm interested in hearing feedback on cabinet and drawer sizes - what sizes you find most useful, what sizes are useful but only in small quantities (e.g. very deep drawers), and how much you use or prefer open cabinets with doors, versus drawers. I know deep drawers tend to accumulate a lot of stuff, but some items (e.g. circ saws) just require more space. How many deep drawers do you have?what do you think are the optimal sizes for drawers? I'm thinking of a few deep (10" or 12") but mostly 4" and 6" deep drawers, and would like feedback on your experience.I am in dire need of drawer space, but don't want to give up on the possibility of open cabinet space. What do you use open cabinet space (under a workbench) for the most? Other items I've decided on....I am basing the design on what Marc did with his outfeed table - no face frames, cabinet boxes connected with stretchers to create drawer space in between, full extension slides, and overlay drawer fronts.I plan on building a frame on the floor, on top of which the cabinets will be mounted - this will let me get more vertical panels out of a single sheet of ply. any thoughts or suggestions are welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwacker Posted January 16, 2012 Report Share Posted January 16, 2012 Id suggest you just lay out all your stuff and build it custom to fit your needs. Don Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmac Posted January 16, 2012 Report Share Posted January 16, 2012 In my first workbench, I had half of it with drawers and the other half with cabinet space. My second (and current) workbench sounds very much like what you are planning. It has all drawers and no cabinets. That tells you what I thought of the cabinets. In the cabinets that I had before, I tended to pile things on top of each other, and it was hard to get to anything that made its way to the back. Unless you have some giant things to store, I think drawers are much better. The widths of the drawer sides in my current workbench are 3-1/2, 5-3/8, 7-1/4, and 9-1/8 inches. The effective depths of the drawers are 3/4" less in every case due to the thickness and position of the drawer bottoms. These sizes work pretty well for my particular collection of junk. If I could magically change anything, I would make the top drawers maybe 1/2" deeper and the bottom ones shallower by the same amount. If you have a CAD program that will display DWG or DXF files, the drawings here show another guy's variation on the same theme that might give you a good head start towards working out some of the details: http://benchmark.20m...s/cad-bench.zip -- Russ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jfitz Posted January 16, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 16, 2012 Don - actually my wife suggested that too, so I started to inventory all the stuff I might like to store in this area. It also goes with advice I read on some post somewhere - just build it! Unfortunately I think I am analyzing it too much. Russ - Thanks for the feedback. I think I already decided I didn't want to go any smaller than 4", which matches your experience. I just can't think of anything right now that I'd want to put behind a door - drawer space is my urgent need. I will be making upper cabinets too, which will be my chance to put in some open space. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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