Ideas for storage under 30 inch X 11 foot bench.

I uploaded a .jpg to alt.binaries.radio-control which shows the drawer units I use.

Not expensive, and I certainly could have built more elegant units, but hobby time is as expensive as hobby stuff.

My main work bench is 44" at the work surface, so the clear space under the bench is somewhere around 42".

The drawer units are stackable and you can mix and match drawer sections to suit you needs or space.

Cheers, Fred McClellan The House Of Balsa Dust home.mindspring.com/~the-plumber

On 5/9/2004 10:45 AM Ted shuffled out of his cave and grunted these great (and sometimes not so great) words of knowledge:

Another thing you may want to add, I recently did this on my work bench. I made a tilt out unit about 2' wide, 2 1/2' deep and 36" high. On the inside, before putting the sides on, I partitioned this off into various sizes using a piece of paneling cut into strips, many 3 1/4" wide by 2" deep, and a couple that were 2' wide by 3 1/2" and 2 that were 2' wide x 1' deep. I have labeled them and put my sheet balsa, balsa sticks and plywood in them. The 1' deep I use for cut pieces of plywood that would be too short to get out from the regular bin. Makes it convenient when you need to get some balsa. Of course, I still have the "scrap box" for the miscellaneous odds and ends of wood.

Drawers are not hard. Build a box without a lid. Get some 1x whatever height the side of the "box" is. Also pick up some corner molding - it is 90 degrees. Fasten one side to the 1x?, fasten the 1x to the underside of the workbench, put the other piece of 1x next to it (leave about 1/8" to allow for humidity changes and fasten the other 1x in place. Slide the "box" in place and attach a cabinet pull handle. Almost instant drawer, "custom" made for the size you need. It sounds harder than it actually is.

I'd suggest putting in a kegerator fridge under there, then when all your buds come over, you can pour them a tall frosty one, and yet the wife will never know how many you are actually putting away because you can just say you need another keg because Rob, Doug, Jack, and Geoff came over last weekend and the tap sprang a leak before you noticed it because you were burn-in-testing Jack's new Cox .049 engine.

Brad

Thanks for all the ideas. I may get a kitchen cabinet and slide it under the bench. The drawers I saw at Home Depot were $25.00 each and the base cabinet has 4 finished drawer just needing to be painted, or stained for $89.00. Either way thanks again the great ideas. The kegerator sounds really good, on a bad weater day you can have a few friends over and have a mini party,and maybe I can have some building help from the ones that have drank the least. Thanks Donald Puetz Hanover RC Club, Mechanicsville Va

K-Mart, Walmart, etc. has plastic drawer units on wheels for around $15-20. I have two of them under my bench. Each has three LARGE drawers. It's where I keep my engines, wheels, spinners, props, etc. They are on casters so they can easily be pulled out and rolled around if need be.

Whatever you use, casters can be a useful option.

I put all my large power tools on kitchen base cabinets, cutting off the drawer section to get the work height correct.

I added casters so I can move the whole lot to the rear of the shed when it's time to hang a large model in Vanessa for balancing.

Cheers, Fred McClellan The House Of Balsa Dust home.mindspring.com/~the-plumber