Shopsmith Forums

Once upon a time when I was between my childhood home and having a shop to when I was building up a shop up it was sometime necessary to make do with what tools I had. Like wise a friend of mine was in the same situation. We both wanted to have some shelving for our garages so we got together and pooled resources and time and got materials enough to make six shelves.

I've since lost contact with him but I would guess that just like me he still has those rather ruff built shelves. I can't see me ever parting with them because they are very utilitarian in nature.

However I'm now in to reorganizing my space and going from storage containers for tools to cubbyholes. One thing I have been thinking about is how I might come up with a way of redoing the old shelves with cubbyholes and not have to rebuild all of what exists.

One of the options I looked at before when I first started this cubbyhole idea seem like a reasonable way to go for this application. This is cutting strips, in this case 2" wide and the depth of the shelf (15"). I did this using my guide saw system for rip cuts then set up the MFT to cut the strips to width.

I removed one shelf from above the area and one from below. The strips go on the bottom of the top shelf and the top of the bottom shelf.

I used my battery powered brad nailer and 5/8" brads to attach the strips to the shelf starting with the top one.

I spaced the first strip 7/8" from the end and then used a strip with masking tape to get the correct spacing for the vertical divider.
Tacking them goes really fast and I leave a larger area on the right side without the option of a vertical divider.
Now it time to do the same thing to the top of the bottom shelf. Now you have to matching shelf units.
Now it just a matter of installing the first shelf, in this case the bottom one.
At this point I wanted to point out that we built the shelves with one fixed shelf and the rest on a standard grid that allows you to change height by 1/2" increments. They are recessed so the shelf can fit full side to side.
And now when I put the top shelf in you can see why I started out 7/8" from the edge. The second part of that story is that while I could have just let the shelf set on the spacers it would have messed up something else. We will get to that in a moment.
Now I could have adjusted the distance between shelves to a lot of different spaces provided they fit the grid that is established. I wanted however to use the same height as I have been using for my other cubbyholes. So that is why I wanted to not have to deal with the spacers under the brackets.

So I'm sure you are wondering it that idea worked out??? We will get to that soon. But first I wanted to show you both shelves in place and to mention that you can see the "tan line" where there is a light band on the sides and back where the shelf had lived for many many years.
Now I'm going to take a short intermission and get an ice tea then back to answer the question if the height can match the "standard" height I picked for the other cubbyhole projects.

Ed

I have some extra dividers so I tested it out. I knew it would be too long but the height was right on. Love it when a project works out.
I then cut some of the correct length dividers and fit in some pieces on the lower shelf on both the right and left sides. Not sure how many I will need but I used up the material I had on hand for the project so if I need more I will have to shop for it.
Ed

Nice!

That open space on the right provides a place to store 'extra' dividers.