Table Saw Blade Storage Cabinet
I am continuing the process of building cabinets and fixtures for the shop. After completing the shop build about two years ago I still have very few of the cabinets built that I need. This cabinet is for storing table saw blades and other table saw accessories so I can get them off the floor. I designed the lower drawers for my saw blades so that each saw blade has its own carrier that can slide in and out easily. While I ended up with a cabinet I could use, I made many mistakes build mistakes along the way.
The cabinet is all about saw blade storage so I started off the build by making the saw blade carriers that would go in the drawers. My design called for ten blades per drawer meaning I needed to make twenty carriers. I setup my router table to cut out a slightly larger than 10” hole. I didn’t want to get too big as too much slop and the blade may fall out of the carrier. I laid out a jig on the router table using the tape and CA glue trick. I was surprised how well it worked out.
This picture shows a finished saw blade carrier that is made up of two pieces of quarter inch plywood. The first piece had the hole cut out and the second piece was cut five-eighths inch wider. The first piece is then center on the wider piece and the two are glued together. I found that stacking several carriers together and evenly applying weight was a good way to clamp everything down.
Now I know I built this project backwards. By that I mean I started where most people finish. I had good reason though. Everything about this cabinet was based on two factors. One being the saw blades and the other was fitting under the table saw.
My next step was making drawers to fit the carriers. In my design I felt that by putting the carriers at a 45-degree angle would allow them to slide in and out easily and make the drawer shallower than a stepper angle. To make the angle cuts I used the miter gauge. Everything went well except I didn’t keep my spacing equal.
Once the sides were made, I put a couple of carriers in the groves and measured the drawer width.
With the drawers made now I could turn to the carcass. For this cabinet I chose to use pocket screws. I had not used pocket screws before, and this was a good project to see if I liked using them. Pocket screws have their own challenges that must be overcome. For example, when tightening the screw down the piece the hole for the screw is in tends to move at the last moment. I learned quickly that pieces must be clamped in place first and in some cases a stop block must be used to keep the piece in place.
With the four sides of the carcass glued and screwed. I checked for square and added some corner blocks to hold the carcass square while the glue dried. After the glue had dried and taking the corner blocks off, I checked for square again and the carcass was still slightly out of square as it was previously. I figure one of two problems for this. Either the tension created by the pocket screws could not be overcome during clamping or my panel edges were not square. My gut feeling is that it’s a pocket screw thing.
I needed to put in a center divider that would support the right side of the drawers. But before I could do that, I had to be able to keep the carcass square. To accomplish square and rabbeted the back of the carcass to put a quarter inch thick plywood back in place. The back would force the carcass into square and hold it there.
I measured and cut for the center divider. I creeped up on the height to make sure I didn’t end up with a bow or sag in the top braces that might not allow the top to sit flat. After a few cuts I had the height just right. To place the divider in the right position for the drawers I stacked the drawer slides and the drawers along with some playing cards as spacer shims and put the divider on top. I attached the divider by using glue and putting screws through the top and bottom of the cabinet.
I like to edge plywood when the edges will show. I’m not in favor of using face frames because to me that waste space and make it more difficult if you want slide-out shelving in your cabinet. When I attach the edging, I cut solid wood slightly wider than the thickness of the plywood and between a quarter and half inch thick. I determine the thickness based on the project and look I am after. To attach the edging, I only use glue and clamp the edging in place. I always allow the glue to dry overnight. One thing I liked about using the pocket screws is that I could apply all the edging prior to assembly making exact trimming a cinch. If I were to use dado joints then the edging would have to be attached after assembly.
I used a trim router freehand to trim the edging on each piece. The way I did this was a huge mistake as I was unable to hold the router steady enough to not get any gouging because of tilting the router. My temporary assembly table doesn’t have a vise and I failed to add thickness to the top and bottom help keep the router steady and hold the piece upright.
The right side of the cabinet needed a door. I like the Shaker style door, so I started by cutting my door trim pieces to length. I cut these a little long so I could trim them back to a perfect fit later. Then cut them all to the same width. My original rough cut left the pieces a bit wide but now I could bring them all to a two and a quarter inch width. Each piece then needed a groove for the panel down the length of each piece followed by cutting the tenons. I don’t have a fence for the router, so I had to do the routing freehand. When I cut the tenons I entered the cut at too steep of an angle leaving a small cutback which showed in the corner during final assembly. With shop fixtures I am willing to have imperfections. I look at building for the shop as practice for different techniques. Had this cabinet been for anything else other than the shop, I would have had to remake many of the pieces.
I put the door frame together and made sure I had cut everything to the right size by laying the assembled frame on the opening. Then I cut a panel to fit out of half inch plywood, rabbeted the edges and assembled the door. Glue was only applied to the tenons allowing the panel to float freely within the frame.
The drawers now needed faces. I like a slab face on the drawers as I feel a Shaker style front has too much frame and not enough panel in relation to the frame. To make the faces I took a piece of Poplar and milled it down to three-quarters of an inch thick. Then cut several pieces to an oversized width and glued them into a panel. Once the glue had dried, I could then cut the panel down to the correct height for each drawer. The trim the length accordingly.
Here is a picture of the completed cabinet. Let me point out that the cabinet did not end up under the right wing of the table saw. When I measure for the width, I measured at the bottom of the right wing and forgot to consider that the outside leg had an angled brace at the top. That brace meant the cabinet wouldn’t fit. Yes, my shop cabinets will all be red, white, and blue. This cabinet will hold my table saw related tools and I now plan on putting my sanders on top.
I looked around the shop for somewhere else I could place the cabinet and still be close to the table saw. I already had plans for everywhere except for one spot on the side wall in front of the dust collector/air compressor closet. Because the cabinet has wheels, I felt that would be a good place as I could easily move the cabinet if I needed.
Now keep in mind that when you put something where it wasn’t already planned that there is probably something else that will need to be moved. In this case the space now waiting for the cabinet was full of clamps on the floor. I cleared the floor by putting all the clamps on the assembly table and deciding to get them hung on the wall as my next project.
My mistakes
This is not an exhaustive list but many of the important ones.
Didn’t measure the intended location properly.
Tried to put too many carriers in one drawer.
Should have put the carrier at a steeper angle and allowed the drawer to be taller.
Did not allow for a finger hold on the carriers
Set the carriers too close together not allowing for fingers to get ahold to pull out the carrier.
Use better support for a panel and the router when freehand trimming edging.
My Conclusion
Overall, I am happy with the cabinet. While I haven’t filled it up yet with everything, I have put the saw blades in the drawers. I used fourteen of the eighteen carriers available. I had to leave the first carrier out of each drawer, leaving nine per drawer, so I could get ahold of a carrier to pull it out. I like that the cabinet is on wheels. Now that I decided to put my stationary sanders on top of this cabinet, I can roll to cabinet out of its space if I need more room for sanding.
If I were to build this again, I would redesign the drawers to ensure getting the saw blade carriers in and out easily. A quality saw blade adds enough weight that at least I need a better grip on the carrier.
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