Electronic Workbench Tool Organiser Part 1

I was getting a bit irritated at not having enough space to work in on my workbench, mainly due to to many concurrent projects, but also not having effective tool storage. Shelves are unfortunately out of the question, so some form of desk tidy was needed, consequently I made this from some damaged wood, it had been discoloured due to damp.

It holds commonly used tools on magnetic rails and a shelf for meters and other test equipment. It's also intended to house a power supply and be a mounting point for a mains extension multiway socket, but I'm leaving that to a part 2 instructable to reduce the length of this one.

The supplies section lists wood with dimensions, but some adjustment as desired by the maker is expected to make it smaller, wider taller etc. The dimensions given were dependant on how much wood I had available at teh time.

Almost all the wood used is shown in the picture, the pieces shown are :

9mm ply

Base board 400 x 200mm

Back board 400 x 500mm

Sloping front 400 x 210mm ( the edges are cut at 45 degree angles to give a better fit, see picture)

Support Rail 400 x 35mm

End cheeks, triangles cut with 138mm sides

Several short lengths of 15mm square wood to form the support for the backboard and for fitting the end cheeks

A 340mm long, 40mm square piece of wood sawn diagonally to form the front and rear supports for the sloping front

A lot of 25mm screws

Two magnetic tool holders

Mark a line across the 400 x 200 base piece 150mm from the long edge and drill three pilot holes to make inserting the crews easier later. Glue a piece of 15mm square wood, 360mm long centrally on the line so that it is on the line as shown in the pictures. Then insert the three screws to fix the two together.

Fit the slope supports to the slope, in this case an example is shown of positioning them on the slope and clamping them in place using the base board and three clamps. The slope is then drilled and the slope supports are attached to the slope using six screws. The supports are not glued as the intention is that the sloping front can be removed later to fit power supply circuitry.

Mark the back board with a line 150mm from the lower edge

Test fit the slope and supports against the base and back boards, making sure that the top edge is on the drwan line and the lower edge of the slope is on the edge of the base board. Check which way round is the best fit, and mark the slope board with top and bottom so that it can reliably fitted later.

Mark the base board with correct position of the front slope support, the picture shows using a pencil, and then unscrew it from the slope, and glue and screw it into position.

Do the same for the top slope support and the back board.

Once the glue has dried, test fit the sloping front.

Test fit the end cheeks to verify that they fit snugly, they may need some adjustment. Mark each with a left or right hand side mark so that they can reliably be refitted.

With the front slope removed, hold each end cheek in place and mark with a line where it fits on the base and back plate.

Cut blocks of 15mm wood about 50mm long, and glue and screw these to the base and back board so they fit the lines drawn. The end cheeks must be fixed in place by screwing into these blocks.

Fit two longer blocks to the sloping front but do not glue these, only screwing them in place.

Draw a line 60mm from the lower edge of the sloping front and drill three equally spaced pilot holes 64mm from the same edge. Glue the slope rail on one edge along the line drawn, clamping it in place, and then drill into it through the pilot holes and screw the rail in place.

Fit the end cheeks in place, drill pilot holes into the support blocks and fix with screws. Decide on the best position for the tool rails based on your toolset and fit them to the back board. I used bolts for this purpose as fixing with screws into 9mm ply can be unreliable.

The picture shows the tool holder in use, but it will be expanded in part 2 to fit dual power supplies, together with a mains extension and USB block to remove yet more clutter from my workbench.