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Brian Gaff Brian Gaff is offline
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Default seeking ideas for low cost sheet material for tool drawer separators

Used to be able to get door slotted runners in wood and plastic that can be
fixed too the bottom to add strength to dividers at the expense of some
width at the bottom of course.
Brian

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"Bob Minchin" wrote in message
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On 20/01/2019 12:29, jkn wrote:
Hi All
I have a nice large tool chest with sliding drawers, bought via
Gumtree a
while ago. It has eight drawers of depth varying from about 50mm to about
200mm.

I am using the shallower drawers for small tools, but want to separate
the tools
out and stop them rolling around. The edge of the drawers have useful
slots
(about 2mm thick) at 20mm or so intervals. So you can put thin inserts in
these to
mark out areas in the base, as it were - a bit like an adjustable cutlery
drawer,
if you get me.

The (italian) manufacturer of this chest charge a fortune for the
'proper'
spacers, but I am after doing something on the cheap. So I am looking for
ideas
as to what material I might be able to ... find in a skip, type thing.

Some sheets of 2mm Alu would be nice, guillotined down, but that looks a
bit
pricy unless I happen across some. Thin MDF would be too weak, I think.
FR4 PCB
material might work, but the offcuts I see at work are only 10mmdeep or
so, and
some treatment would need to be applied to the edges - GF splinters are
not nice!

The drawers are quite large, so I would need lengths of something like
700mm.

Any thoughts as to other sources of cheapskate materials I might
consider for
this?

Thanks, Jon N

Almost anything 2mm thick and 700mm long will not be stiff enough to stop
is pinging out of the slots when the centre flexes as it will do
inevitably.
Cheapest/easiest will likely be some U channel of ali or hardwood fixed to
the base and ends of the drawers, with ply dividers slotted in.
You used to be able to buy ramin U channel moulding for bookcase glass etc
but since the demise of Woodwork DIY and ramin being classified as
endangered species, these useful mouldings are like hens teeth in the diy
sheds now with only cr4p softwood ones.
If you are stuck and want to go the wooden route, I can make hardwood
mouldings for you? I'm near Southampton. you can pm me about it if you
like.
Bob