"John McGaw" wrote in message
...
On 10/4/2019 4:24 PM, Bob La Londe wrote:
This might be metalworking or wood working. I'm seriously thinking
about removing the work benches from along the back wall in my shop
and replacing them with a single continuous monolithic steel plate
top work bench. Beveled, welded, and ground flat at each joint.
Apx 54' long. Ok, that part is definitely metalworking.

Here is the part I am undecided about. I want drawers from the
bench top to about 3 inches above the floor from end to end. No.
not a 54' long drawer. LOL. Banks of drawers, to eliminate all my
roll away tool boxes and sort a lot of tools with their related
parts. ie: Snap rings with snap ring tools, etc...

Appearance is a non issue for me. Strength and speed of assembly
probably rank 1 & 2 for importance with cost coming in at number
three. Not all drawers would need to be super strong of course, but
I would like to make them all the same. Right now I am thinking
about wood drawers or folded/welded sheet metal drawers. I have a
decent finger brake and various metal cutting processes in my shop.
I also have all the wood working tools I could need for making wood
drawers. No matter which way I go I'd want to make them all the
same way.

I looked at roll away bottom cabinets as an option under the bench,
but they are either way to light duty, don't have drawer
configurations that I like, or way to expensive.

For 54' of drawers, I'd take neither of the routes you named. I'd go
straight to an industrial source of pre-fabricated drawers and buy
what I need and then adapt the framework of the bench to suit. Maybe
in the case of some that need to be extra strong I might do some
reinforcement but no more than absolutely necessary. Metal drawer
boxes with decent slides are already plenty strong for most uses.

In the 1980's I rearranged my shop and bought some cheap yard sale
painted wooden chests of drawers to cut down for temporary tool and
pipe fitting storage under a bench, until I found something better.
The knobs broke and needed stronger replacements but the drawers stood
up to heavy loads very well.