Building under-the-bed storage.

[JohnnyEgo]

Day 3

Started out by locking down all the face frame styles.



I was going to put in a couple 1x2s between each shelf to provide bed support, but that would have meant another trip to Home Depot and didn't strike me as being strong enough for my purposes. So I made three more support frames similar to the ones on either panel.



Did another mock-up before routing holes in one of the panels.


Then began the one part I couldn't come back from on this project: cutting the door openings in the panel. I saw a 1/2" panel cutting bit from Freud on sale the last time I was at Home Depot. I like Freud bits, I prefer 1/2" shank bits, and I thought this might make a clean cut through the ply.




I was very wrong. It mostly burned the ply and then started burning into the cut-out framing it was supposed to ride against. It did not want to cut without great force, at any speed. It mostly just sat there burning itself up. I switched to a two-flute trim bit that ended up cutting like butter, even though I had to drill a pilot hole for it.

[JohnnyEgo]

Day 4

It was ridiculously hot outside, and I only had a few hours to work on things today, so not a ton of progress. Started out trying to salvage something of value out of the panel cut-outs. The track-saw makes getting that first straight cut pretty easy, and from there, the table saw handles making the rest of it parallel and perpendicular.




My goal is to use as much if the plywood as possible. I have a long off-cut that is about 11.5" x 60", and is a fine candidate for the drawer sides. I start by splitting it on the table saw.


Going to route a groove for the floor base with the router table. I set the depth for 3/8", and the width to 1/4" with a set-up bar. If I had to do it all over again, I probably would have set the width to 1/2". I don't think the 1/4 will blow out when assembled into the drawer base, but 1/2 would have been a lot more stout.




A quick check just to make sure.


I was able to use one of the salvaged panels to make some additional sides:


And that was all the time and desire I had to be in the shop today.

[JohnnyEgo]

I did enough sheet waste to build a larger drawer for the right-hand side. One piece of scrap was wider then I could cut with my compound miter, and longer then I wanted to try and cut on my table saw, so I set up my cutting table for cross-cutting. The advantage of this set-up is that I can space the cross members wherever I want them, and have full support for both the panel and the off-cut.



The larger drawer was assembled in the same manner as the smaller one.




Starting to take shape.


Last thing I did was shim the left-side cabinet and trim it out with some dust panels.

[JohnnyEgo]

Unfortunately, work expected me to actually work for a couple days last week, so I didn't get quite as much accomplished by this point as I had hoped.

Finished working on the center drawers. These are shop-style drawers, built for speed and durability over beauty. Pocket holes facing the front and back, because the front will be covered by the face, and the back won't be easily seen.




Cut some spacers to get the drawers aligned correctly. I have a bunch of unused 28" full extension slides. I needed three pair of them for another project, and it turned out I could get 10 pair online cheaper then buying three individual pairs at Home Depot or Lowes. So they are free, which is good. However, I do not have enough sheet stock to make all the drawers 28", and I do not intend to buy another sheet of ply for this project.




Next day was mostly dedicated to router work. Rounding over all the sharp corners and such.