Homemade chest of drawers for a self-built MFT workbench, by Roel

In this DIY project, Roel shows how he made a drawer unit for his workbench. He had various materials (MDF and plywood) cut to size for this purpose. Read more about his approach and experience here!

Description of CUSTOMER NAME

To make my MFT workbench even more functional, I wanted to install a modular chest of drawers, based on the idea of ​​the YouTube channel 'Hooked On Wood'. A beautiful system where all drawers are interchangeable throughout the cabinet. In this chest of drawers I can now keep a lot of my tools within reach! For the design, all visible panels are made of black moisture-resistant MDF. I made the bottom of the drawers from regular MDF V313 (green), so that you can see better what is inside and the walls of the drawers are 18mm plywood for strength.

How I made this project

First I made the cupboard conversion. I milled 10mm wide slots in the side walls, through which the base plates of the drawers slide. These slots obviously had to be aligned very well, otherwise the drawers would quickly get stuck. I then screwed the sides to the top of the cabinet, after which I screwed the whole thing into the existing workbench. The perpendicularity and the distance between the side walls were crucial for the drawers to work properly. I then joined the 6 edges of the drawers together with wood glue, dowels and screws (using the Kreg pocket hole jig) and screwed these edges to the bottom plates. Because the bottom plates are slightly wider than the edge of the drawers, they slide neatly into the grooves of the side walls in the cabinet. I gave the fronts a hole that has a concavity at the back, so that they are completely flat, but you can still easily pull out the drawer with your finger. Because the hole is in front of the plywood edge, the drawer is otherwise closed and will therefore not collect dust through the hole. Another handy carpentry tip: if you want to make the drawers slide a little more smoothly, you should wax the edges with a tea light!

Dimensions of my DIY project

The cabinet is 60.0 cm deep, 105.0 cm wide and 52.0 cm high.
The 6 drawers are approximately 60.0 cm deep, 40.0 cm wide and have a raised edge of 5.5 cm.
The low drawers are 6.0 cm high and the high drawers are 13.0 cm.