I'm planning to build a new entertainment center to accomodate a large
screen TV. One of the details I'm looking at now are the drawers I'll be
storing our CD's and DVD's in.

Because of the depth of the cabinet, the disk cases will stand on edge in
rows running front to back. Everything is fine and dandy when the drawer is
filled to capacity, but I'm looking for ways to keep a partial row of disks
from toppling over as the drawer is opened and closed.

Would appreciate any ideas you can share.

Thanks!

Anthony

Because of the depth of the cabinet, the disk cases will stand on edge in
rows running front to back. Everything is fine and dandy when the drawer is
filled to capacity, but I'm looking for ways to keep a partial row of disks
from toppling over as the drawer is opened and closed.

A few things I thought of...
1. It'd be a bit complicated, and might affect the size/design/
construction of the drawer, but you could do a file-cabinet type thing
and put a length of threaded rod just under the floor of the drawer,
or along each side. Many file cabinets I've used have a piece of rod
with a friction-fit plate of some kind that holds up an end piece to
keep file folders upright. A piece of threaded rod with some nut/
upright holder contraption might be easier if you didn't want to
design a friction-fit system. (Sorry if this is just confusing - hard
to describe, but look at an old metal non-hanging file cabinet and
it's not a complicated concept).
2. You could drill holes for pegs along the sides or bottom of the
drawer, and use removable dowels to hold the back DVD upright. Kind
of like the adjustable shelf supports. You could either do both sides
and the bottom, so 3 short dowels would hold up the DVD, or 1-2 rows
of holes on the bottom with longer dowels, or holes just on the sides
with some kind of DVD-sized panel to create a back.

Just a few ideas, let me know if I didn't explain them clearly,
Andy

HerHusband wrote:

I'm planning to build a new entertainment center to accomodate a large
screen TV. One of the details I'm looking at now are the drawers
I'll be
storing our CD's and DVD's in.
snip

SFWIW, just finished a project like this within the past 6 months.

Used the NYW plan as a guide with the following exceptions:

1) Added a row of drawers, thus it became a 3Hx3W grid rather than a
2Hx3W grid.

2) Increased the width of all drawer spaces to accept DVD packaging.

3) Increased height of bottom row of drawers to accept DVD packaging.

Stores about 100 DVDs and 200 CDs and everybody is happy.

$10 for a good set of plans is a good investment, IMHO.

Lew

On Sun, 13 May 2007 13:03:06 -0500, HerHusband
wrote:

I'm planning to build a new entertainment center to accomodate a large
screen TV. One of the details I'm looking at now are the drawers I'll be
storing our CD's and DVD's in.

Because of the depth of the cabinet, the disk cases will stand on edge in
rows running front to back. Everything is fine and dandy when the drawer is
filled to capacity, but I'm looking for ways to keep a partial row of disks
from toppling over as the drawer is opened and closed.

DIY Network is running hatcheted reruns of The New Yankee Workshop,
and among the Season 13 offerings (the only season they have,
apparently) is a CD storage case. Fortunately, they've left enough of
the original intact to give you an idea of how he did his. I think the
episode has a couple more airings this week (13 May 2007).

It's a pretty elegant system. In the drawer itself, sized to a
slightly greater width than a standard CD jewel case, he has two small
rails let into the sides of the case, approximately 1" above the
bottom. The rails support the CDs, so the vertical dimension of the
case will have to be sized to include the space below the CDs.

There is a piece of wood on the bottom which runs from front to within
about 3/8" of the back panel, and is shaped like a dove tail (widest
part on top).

Then a piece of ply (Baltic birch would be great), about 1/4" thick,
with a notch cut out of the bottom slightly larger than the dovetail
shaped board in the drawer, and two notches on each side to clear the
rails is used as a back stop.

It's function is that when held straight up and down it slides back
and forth easily over the dovetail strip and along the rails. When it
is tilted back (as with a partial drawer of CDs leaning against it)
the dovetail slot jams along the sides of the dovetail strip and
prevents movement.

The gap at the back of the drawer is so you can insert and remove the
sliding panel after the drawer is assembled.

That may not be particularly clear, but if you see it in action on
DIY, it will be.

Good luck.

--
LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999

http://www.woodbutcher.net

Proud participant of rec.woodworking since February, 1997

email addy de-spam-ified due to 1,000 spams per month.
If you can't figure out how to use it, I probably wouldn't
care to correspond with you anyway.

On Sun, 13 May 2007 13:03:06 -0500, HerHusband
wrote:

I'm planning to build a new entertainment center to accomodate a large
screen TV. One of the details I'm looking at now are the drawers I'll be
storing our CD's and DVD's in.

Heh, you must not have very many CDs and DVDs. I built custom cases
for all of mine, I have floor-to-ceiling units that hold nearly 800
DVDs each and 1400 CDs and I'm 90% full in my CD unit and just about
full in my second DVD unit. Gotta make some more!

"HerHusband" wrote in message
...
I'm planning to build a new entertainment center to accomodate a large
screen TV. One of the details I'm looking at now are the drawers I'll be
storing our CD's and DVD's in.

Because of the depth of the cabinet, the disk cases will stand on edge in
rows running front to back. Everything is fine and dandy when the drawer
is
filled to capacity, but I'm looking for ways to keep a partial row of
disks
from toppling over as the drawer is opened and closed.

Would appreciate any ideas you can share.

Thanks!

Anthony

I have a similar set up. Because I record most of my DVD's and store them
in Jewel cases I simply fill the row with empty Jewel cases.

"Brian Henderson" wrote in message
...


Heh, you must not have very many CDs and DVDs. I built custom cases
for all of mine, I have floor-to-ceiling units that hold nearly 800
DVDs each and 1400 CDs and I'm 90% full in my CD unit and just about
full in my second DVD unit. Gotta make some more!

Rookie!

I have 3 rooms filled with rows of rack storage for my collections. A
different room for each language.

In article ,
says...

Because of the depth of the cabinet, the disk cases will stand on edge in
rows running front to back. Everything is fine and dandy when the drawer is
filled to capacity, but I'm looking for ways to keep a partial row of disks
from toppling over as the drawer is opened and closed.

Would appreciate any ideas you can share.


An l-shaped strip of stainless (say 2"x6", bent around 2/3 of the way down)
will do this in and attractive and simple way.
Slide the longer end under the cd cases and the short upstanding end will act
as a stop. Good idea to round over the corners...

Since I've been too lazy to drive 140 miles to organise a few of those so far,
I just use a few blank CDs in 'crystal cases' as backstop, lying on the flat
;-)

-P.

--
=========================================
firstname dot lastname at gmail fullstop com

Andy,

2. You could drill holes for pegs along the sides or bottom of the
drawer, and use removable dowels to hold the back DVD upright. Kind
of like the adjustable shelf supports. You could either do both sides
and the bottom, so 3 short dowels would hold up the DVD, or 1-2 rows
of holes on the bottom with longer dowels, or holes just on the sides
with some kind of DVD-sized panel to create a back.

Thanks, I was thinking of something similar.

I didn't mention it in my original post, but whatever design I end up using
needs to be removable. In other words, I want to be able to use the drawer
for other purposes until I need the space for DVD/CD's.

The dowel approach would let me cut a board to fit inside the drawer and
drill a series of holes in that. I could simply remove the board if I
didn't need it, and there wouldn't be any need to modify the drawer itself.

But, I'm still investigating other ideas before I make a decision.

Thanks,

Anthony

Leon,

I'm looking for ways to keep a partial row of disks
from toppling over as the drawer is opened and closed.

I simply fill the row with empty Jewel cases.

Yeah, I suppose the simplest approach would be a series of spacers, whether
those be empty cases, wood spacers, or something similar. I actually do
that with my current entertainment center using old cassette tapes. But,
it would be nice to find a more elegant solution.

Anthony

Peter,

I'm looking for ways to keep a partial row of disks from toppling
over as the drawer is opened and closed.

An l-shaped strip of stainless (say 2"x6", bent around 2/3 of the way
down) will do this in and attractive and simple way.
Slide the longer end under the cd cases and the short upstanding end
will act as a stop. Good idea to round over the corners...

Kind of like a standard bookend? Hmm... Simple idea, easy to implement, and
no modifications needed to the drawer. Sounds like an option worth
investigating.

Heck, I could probably pick up an ordinary bookend at an office supply and
use one of those. I may give it a try with my current entertainment center
and see how it works.

Thanks for the idea!

Anthony

This does not respond to your question directly but may be of use. I
recently completed an entertainment center and bought hardware for cds
storage. These came from Lee Valley. It was not until the project was done
that I realized it was impossible to view the titles of the CDs. The racks
hold the CDs with the title edge vertical; several rows of CDs and ......you
see the problem. Next time I would make my own hardware!
Dave
"HerHusband" wrote in message
...
I'm planning to build a new entertainment center to accomodate a large
screen TV. One of the details I'm looking at now are the drawers I'll be
storing our CD's and DVD's in.

Because of the depth of the cabinet, the disk cases will stand on edge in
rows running front to back. Everything is fine and dandy when the drawer
is
filled to capacity, but I'm looking for ways to keep a partial row of
disks
from toppling over as the drawer is opened and closed.

Would appreciate any ideas you can share.

Thanks!

Anthony

Dave,

This does not respond to your question directly but may be of use. I
recently completed an entertainment center and bought hardware for cds
storage. These came from Lee Valley. It was not until the project
was done that I realized it was impossible to view the titles of the
CDs. The racks hold the CDs with the title edge vertical; several
rows of CDs and ......you see the problem.

I've seen several ready-made dividers at places like Rockler, but they all
seemed to leave a lot of space between the CD's. I could probably fit
another 2-4 CD's in the space they waste. In addition, they don't
exactly fit the out-of-sight when not needed requirement.

I don't know if it would work, but I had an idea last night of lining the
drawer with a thin steel sheet (painted black probably). Then I could make
a simple wooden divider with a magnet on the bottom. Easy to move and
position wherever I need it, and easily removeable when I don't need it.

I also thought about insetting one of those T-track bars in the drawer
bottom (or an insert I could set in the drawer), and building a simple
fence that could be moved and tightened in place with a knob. This would
probably work great for partial rows, but I thought I might run into
problems when the row was mostly full and there wasn't room for the fence
at the end.

The more I think about it, a simple system of fillers seems a lot more
inviting.

Anthony

"HerHusband" wrote in message

it would be nice to find a more elegant solution.

iPod ... there epitome of "elegant solutions".


--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 2/20/07
KarlC@ (the obvious)

On Sun, 13 May 2007 22:16:53 -0500, HerHusband
wrote:

Yeah, I suppose the simplest approach would be a series of spacers, whether
those be empty cases, wood spacers, or something similar. I actually do
that with my current entertainment center using old cassette tapes. But,
it would be nice to find a more elegant solution.

The way I ended up doing it on my CD cases and it works fine, is to
take some of the long metal shelf standards like these:
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?actio...2WT&lpage=none

I routed a dado down the length of each shelf and installed the
standard so that it was level with the rest of the shelf. Since
everything is black, it's difficult to see if you're not looking for
it and once the shelf is full, it's completely invisible. I made a
wooden end piece with a flat metal post underneath that fits into the
track and you can move it along the holes as you get more CDs. When
you fill the shelf, remove the end and move it down to the next shelf
to continue filling.

It also does a lot to strengthen the shelves. CDs aren't all that
heavy but you get absolutely no deflection whatsoever. I wish I had
thought about that before I did my first DVD case.

Brian,

The way I ended up doing it on my CD cases and it works fine, is to
take some of the long metal shelf standards
I routed a dado down the length of each shelf and installed the
standard so that it was level with the rest of the shelf. Since
everything is black, it's difficult to see if you're not looking for
it and once the shelf is full, it's completely invisible. I made a
wooden end piece with a flat metal post underneath that fits into the
track and you can move it along the holes as you get more CDs. When
you fill the shelf, remove the end and move it down to the next shelf
to continue filling.

I had thought of something similar also, though with a different type of
shelf standard. In fact, I already have a few shelf standards I bought
years ago for a project and then never used them. So this may be a good
place to put them to use. I'll keep it in mind. Thanks!

Anthony

I used 1/8" plywood to make an "egg crate" that slipped into the
drawer. Each square of the egg crate was the width-of-a-cd X about 4".
Each square is loosely filled. This allowed me to space out the CDs so
I could flip through them and see the fronts. (As opposed to tighty
packed where you can just read the spine. So this is is a good idea if
you expect to have some excess drawer capacity. Of course you may
eventually fill it to tightly packed. (I have a store near me that
buys used CDs. It's better than holding on to CDs that I would never
listen to.)

Mitch

Mitch,

I used 1/8" plywood to make an "egg crate" that slipped into the
drawer. Each square of the egg crate was the width-of-a-cd X about 4".
Each square is loosely filled.

Is your egg crate a series of individual boxes, or do your dividers cross
and interlock to form the boxes?

That's a great idea. Thanks!

Anthony

On Sun, 13 May 2007 13:03:06 -0500, HerHusband
wrote:

I'm planning to build a new entertainment center to accomodate a large
screen TV. One of the details I'm looking at now are the drawers I'll be
storing our CD's and DVD's in.

Because of the depth of the cabinet, the disk cases will stand on edge in
rows running front to back. Everything is fine and dandy when the drawer is
filled to capacity, but I'm looking for ways to keep a partial row of disks
from toppling over as the drawer is opened and closed.

Would appreciate any ideas you can share.

Thanks!

Anthony


I use empty CD cases to fill in the spaces. You can use blocks of
wood or cardboard.

Is your egg crate a series of individual boxes, or do your dividers cross
and interlock to form the boxes?

They criss cross. For example if I wanted 9 squares I would use four
strips of plywood oriented like a tic-tac-toe board. I use the table
saw to create slots halfway across the width of each strip. Then they
fit together and the whole tic tac toe board is dropped into the
drawer. No need to anchor it to the drawer. If you ever need the
drawer for another purpose, you can lift out the tic tac toe board.