Monday, December 3, 2018

I've wanted to use the 10" tall bottom right drawer in my toolbox to store drills and impact wrenches.  Snap-on makes these drawer organizers, but there are a few things I don't like.  With full size 18v batteries, the rack will only hold 7 tools, not 8 as shown here. Also, they were out of stock, so I couldn't buy one even if I wanted to spend the extra cash.


As I do, I decided to make my own!

I started with two 12" x 48" sheets of 20ga #4b brushed 304 stainless steel from onlinemetals.com and some 1098APA03 and 1098APA02 holsters from Snap-on (replacement parts for their organizer).




After some holes and rivet nuts, I got the holsters squeezed in place.  Four 3-1/2" wide holsters fit perfectly in the 14-3/8" drawer after I installed the stainless steel walls.

I drilled holes every 1" to make it flexible for the future.  The hole patterns in each holster are 1/2", so this gives me quite a bit of flexibility.

I cut some bars of 1" T-slot framing, made a few brackets (keeping the grain direction of course), and bolted it all together!



I also folded up a second panel for the back side of the center rib. This will allow me to add organizers without drilling through the main holster panel.

Here is a close-up shot of the hemmed edges, I'm trying to keep all the sharp edges away from my reach.


I started with this little organizer to hold my most used bits: two 1/8" drills, a 1/2" x 90º 6 flute countersink, a magnet bit holder with #2 Phillips bit, a combination drill/countersink for wood, another #2 Phillips, and a No. 4 60º center drill.


And here it is all filled up!  I still have my old 18v NiCd stuff in the back row, so this will move out as I continue to expand.



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