Clean silverware drawer

On my wish list forever, a silverware drawer where all the stuff doesn’t slide all over the place. Here’s the final product, story and learnings from a laser newbie to follow:

The story begins with a standard commercial silverware insert and a bunch of junk that collected around it. Every time I closed the drawer the tray would slide around… ARG

Before:
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Used the Tabbed box maker tool (GitHub - paulh-rnd/TabbedBoxMaker: Inkscape tabbed box generator plugin - quickly design complex "finger jointed" boxes) to make an .svg 6x6 cubby box to the size of my drawer. To save space I removed the side walls, but in the final product some of the dividers aren’t well supported, so I regret that choice. Should have at least kept a wall on the front.

Then I laid out my drawer and played around with how I wanted everything to fit together, making cardboard pieces along the way. Note, my drawer is bigger than the GF foot print, so I identified zones and chopped up my model appropriately in Inkscape. With the .svg file from the Tabbed Box Maker it was really easy to grab a bunch of tabs/slots and move them around or delete them. My only booboo there was I forgot to delete some slots where I removed some of the partitions. That’s ok, it’s my first tabbed project, it will be a conversation piece.

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Key tip, keep making cardboard mock-ups until everything is perfect. Can’t tell you how many tweaks I made in cardboard land (e.g. adding scallops so it’s easier to remove the silverware from the tray.

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One of my favorite bits was making an L shaped space for the bottle brush. Don’t find those in commercial products. :sunglasses:

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Final oh-@#$% was I didn’t run the tabbed box maker for the final material thickness. So in final assembly everything was super loose (lots of glue followed). Of course I didn’t have the right clamps for this, but everything is better with some wine and nice oil and vinegar. One more newbie mistake, I didn’t think through my gluing order very well and had to pull apart and re-glue a few parts.

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But super happy with the final results in proofgrade cherry plywood:

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56 Likes

This is on my list of things to do.

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Mine too, and I never would have thought of scooping the dividers so it makes it easier to get to the utensils! That’s just brilliant! :sunglasses::+1:

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Fabulous! I deal daily with the same problem. :wink:

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The project came out very nicely! I started doing my drawer mock ups in Fusion last night (total over-kill) so might get ours done in the next couple weeks.

2 Likes

Really nice job! I want to do this too. Also, love the clamps! ha ha

How much proofgrade ply did this take for one drawer?

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I used 3 sheets of proofgrade ply for this one. Biggest use was the bottoms of course.

Love your oil & vinegar clamps!

2 Likes

Nicest drawer insert ever, and the L shaped slot is inspired!

1 Like