Homemade Fossil Storage Cabinet

[Sagebrush Steve]

2 hours ago, -AnThOnY- said:

Man, Cali is expensive, haha. I made this one for right around $350, and used some soft close full extension drawer slides off of ebay.

 

Plan on making a second. They are replacing the 3 metal flat file cabinets I currently have storing everything. Top is 28x42 with 4 (ea) 3" deep drawers and 4 (ea) 5.5" deep drawers. I used some salvaged Pecan (from hurricane Katrina) for my drawer fronts, still need to plane and run some 1x6's through the jointer for the bottom drawers that are missing.

 

Even at $350 you cant beat the price. The particle board version sold by Martha Stewart (@Home Depot) is up around $550...

 

Nice job, I’m impressed!  I guess one difference between surviving a hurricane and surviving a wildfire is that after a hurricane you can salvage things like pecan wood.  After a wildfire it’s all cinders.  Just today I drove through part of Santa Rosa that burned and for several miles it looked like a bombed out city from WWII.

 

And yes, as soon as they see you are from California they jack up the price 20%   I wouldn’t be surprised if the next time I drive through Texas I find the gas stations direct CA cars to a separate line with prices jacked up accordingly. 

[erose]

1 hour ago, Sagebrush Steve said:

Thanks, erose.  I thought about adding insert dividers but didn’t for a couple of reasons.  First, from a practical perspective I don’t have a table saw to easily make the dado cuts in the drawer sides.  There are ways to get around that, but since I am still in the early stages of my collection I am not too sure about what I will be collecting or the range of sizes.  So I thought I would have more flexibility by using a variety of trays salvaged from things like packaged meats, various food containers, old drawer organizers, etc.  Not the most elegant solution but should work for now.

I also don't care for fixed dividers. They never work for the actual fossils. Mine are also full of shallow cardboard boxes for the specimens.

 

[-AnThOnY-]

Something to consider for organizing are the cardboard jewelry boxes with the cotton in them. I buy them off of ebay and they come in a ton of different sizes. Most of mine are 3.5x3.5x1" and I end up getting a box of 100 for like 35-40 bucks.

[BobWill]

Amazing, the drawing of your cabinet looks almost exactly like the one I made a couple of years ago except that I made the drawers with progressively shorter height toward the top to store larger, heavier fossils in the bottom for stability. Mine don't have proper slides though since they don't really get all that much activity. They just rest on hardwood runners and that is working fine so far.

I had a real tough time finding those label card holders though. I wanted the ones with an attached pull so I wouldn't need separate knobs like you used to see on library card files. I had to have a hardware store special order them, so even if you use the plain ones you may want to do this in advance unless you already found a source.

[Sagebrush Steve]

23 minutes ago, BobWill said:

Amazing, the drawing of your cabinet looks almost exactly like the one I made a couple of years ago except that I made the drawers with progressively shorter height toward the top to store larger, heavier fossils in the bottom for stability. Mine don't have proper slides though since they don't really get all that much activity. They just rest on hardwood runners and that is working fine so far.

I had a real tough time finding those label card holders though. I wanted the ones with an attached pull so I wouldn't need separate knobs like you used to see on library card files. I had to have a hardware store special order them, so even if you use the plain ones you may want to do this in advance unless you already found a source.

Hi @BobWill, thanks for the suggestions.  I made the two bottom drawers an inch taller than the rest of them for the same reason. I’ve looked at the label card holders with the attached pulls (there are lots of choices on Amazon).  My main obstacle is that my process for aligning the front dress panels so they have exactly 1/8 inch gaps between them depends on having two holes in the dress panels exactly where I’ve drawn the knobs.  I use 1/8 inch spacers resting on the top of the drawer below to set the dress panel at the proper height and temporarily run screws through the holes from the front to hold it in place while I run the permanent screws in from the back.  But I’m sure I could come up with a different alignment scheme (using clamps?).  And I’m not completely satisfied with my ideas for knobs, so the built-in pull might be a good idea. 

 

I’d love to see your design, can you post a photo here?

[Sagebrush Steve]

It's been slow going, but I've been making progress on the project.  I've now got the cabinet pretty completely assembled (in the previous photos everything was held together with clamps).  Next step is to cut out the front dress panels for the drawers and mount them to the drawer frames.  I also need to apply iron-on oak veneer to the front sides of the cabinet to hide the ends of the plywood, stain everything, apply a final clear coat, and attach the drawer handles.

 

  I do have one question for you.  My original design shows two round knobs on each drawer with a label holder in the middle.  The knobs might look something like this:

 

But now I'm wondering if, instead of the dual knobs and separate label holder, I go with a single combination label holder and drawer pull like this:

 

Anyone have any opinions?

 

 

[erose]

For hardware I am always balancing cost against design.  I like a more clean modern look and often use satin nickel silver. But there are some items that just don't come in that finish. I often find myself buying from multiple sources to get all the hinges, pulls, trim, etc. that I need for a project. 

 

There are so many different styles and finishes available it is almost mind-boggling. 

 

Look closely at those dual pull and card holders. The card space is often quite small.  I like bigger cards.  Also with wider, heavier or looser glides you may want two knobs at the sides. Your's are fairly narrow so probably a single in the middle is fine.

 

Your cabinets look good. Don't cheap-out on the hardware.

 

My two cents...

 

[Dsailor]

That looks nice. Have you already cut your drawer fronts? If not, going with solid wood would make life easier as you can shape them to fit and fix any irregularities in gap and squareness. In the past I did a lot of work for a client with iron on veneers and you want the plywood edge to be hand sanded as smooth and square as possible. If you don't get rid of the sawblade marks it tends to peel up after a few months. Good luck, that looks really clean so far. ( I'd vote for two pulls with a label in the middle)

 

Dom

[Sagebrush Steve]

1 hour ago, Dsailor said:

That looks nice. Have you already cut your drawer fronts? If not, going with solid wood would make life easier as you can shape them to fit and fix any irregularities in gap and squareness. In the past I did a lot of work for a client with iron on veneers and you want the plywood edge to be hand sanded as smooth and square as possible. If you don't get rid of the sawblade marks it tends to peel up after a few months. Good luck, that looks really clean so far. ( I'd vote for two pulls with a label in the middle)

 

Dom

Thanks, Dom.  Yes, I have half-inch solid oak boards for the drawer dress panels.  This will be the only part of the whole project where I use a table saw rather than my circular saw. I don’t have a table saw so I will be using a friend’s.  I bought a finishing blade for it so I hopefully I get good clean cuts.  He gets to keep the blade when I am done.  Thanks for the tip on the iron-on veneers.  And I think I have decided to do as you recommend—two pulls with a label in the middle.  Now I just have to decide whether to go with black or gold pulls.  I’ve seen examples of both kinds on oak furniture that look nice.  I will probably stain a piece of leftover oak and test them both out.

[Sagebrush Steve]

Making more progress.  It's all together now.  Next step is to make some minor adjustments to the drawer slides so the drawers are all aligned, then stain it and apply a polyurethane clear coat.  After that I'm ready to start loading it with fossils, which means I've got to go out and find some more.  I'll be at the Tucson show so I will probably pick up a few there, but I'm more interested in digging my own.  Now that I have some space I have a good excuse to get out there and dig.

[oldtimer]

That is totally awesome and impressive.  You have inspired me to try something similar.

Huh?  I wonder how many different tools I will need?

[ynot]

Nice looking display case!

[Sagebrush Steve]

34 minutes ago, oldtimer said:

That is totally awesome and impressive.  You have inspired me to try something similar.

Huh?  I wonder how many different tools I will need?

 

You'll need a good circular saw and power drill/driver as a minimum.  A random orbital sander is also nice.  I don't have a table saw so I worked out the dimensions so I could cut everything with my handheld circular saw using a homemade guide to cut straight lines.  But I did break down and go over to a friend's house and use his table saw to cut the drawer fronts.  I could have done it with the circular saw but since they are right out front where everyone will see them I wanted them to look very clean.  I used a handheld trim router to round the edges of the trim pieces and I used a manual miter box and hand saw to cut the 45 degree angles on them.  I did use a combination belt-disc sander to fine-tune the 45 degree angles but that probably wasn't necessary.  I went first class with the circular saw (Makita) and the power drill (Milwaukee), but everything else came from Harbor Freight, including a 4-foot aluminum ruler, a couple of speed squares, and all my drill bits, including a 3/8 inch Forstner bit for countersinking the screw holes.  Of course I had most of this lying around already.

[Tidgy's Dad]

Magnificent! 

I've enjoyed reading this thread, your build and other people's ideas, too.

Thanks, all! 

[Sagebrush Steve]

11 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Magnificent! 

I've enjoyed reading this thread, your build and other people's ideas, too.

Thanks, all! 

Thanks, Adam, glad you found it interesting.  Part of the reason I posted it was to hopefully inspire others to consider doing something similar, which looks to have worked.  But I also welcomed the suggestions that others gave me, they helped make it a better design.  All I can say is I'm glad I'm retired.  If I was still working it would have taken me a year to get this far.

[Harry Pristis]

 

Good job, Steve.  For compartments within the drawers, I prefer plastic organizer boxes.  The boxes come in a variety of sizes, and the larger ones (12 and 24 compartments) have removable dividers to accommodate various fossils.  I often remove the lid and store it under the box in the drawer.  I store surplus fossils in organizer boxes outside of the drawers.  Here's an example drawer:

[Troodon]

Simply a masterful job.   Well done 

[Sagebrush Steve]

8 hours ago, Harry Pristis said:

 

Good job, Steve.  For compartments within the drawers, I prefer plastic organizer boxes.  The boxes come in a variety of sizes, and the larger ones (12 and 24 compartments) have removable dividers to accommodate various fossils.  I often remove the lid and store it under the box in the drawer.  I store surplus fossils in organizer boxes outside of the drawers.  Here's an example drawer:

Very nice!  And how do you organize them?  I have numbered every one of my fossils and have a record of what each one is.  Do you store them sequentially by number or do you put all the trilobites together, all the ammonites together, etc.?

[Harry Pristis]

1 hour ago, Sagebrush Steve said:

Very nice!  And how do you organize them?  I have numbered every one of my fossils and have a record of what each one is.  Do you store them sequentially by number or do you put all the trilobites together, all the ammonites together, etc.?

 

Well, in the example drawer, the fossils are all horse and camelid post-cranials (ankle bones) from one site.  They are individually numbered and there are paper labels in the compartments.  Smaller site collections may have a dedicated organizer box or two.  Some drawers are organized with styrene plastic display boxes, or a combination of organizer boxes and display boxes.  Longer bones are just not boxed at all.  Most of my trilobites are displayed in the glass-top well at the top of each cabinet.

 

 

[Fossildude19]

On 11/26/2017 at 6:48 PM, Sagebrush Steve said:

Well I just learned something interesting about this forum.  If you carefully read the first sentence in the above quote from my first post you will conclude there seems to be a word missing immediately after the word “and.”  It was a verb that describes inserting screws into the sides of the drawers and is a word that ends in “ing.”  I first thought I had forgotten to type it but I’ve tried to edit it twice and both times it won’t insert it.  I guess I understand the reason, but for those of you who are scratching your heads wondering what I wrote, hopefully this helps. 

Steve, I fixed it for ya.     You could also, alternatively use: Securing, Affixing, Adhering , Adding, Linking, Connectingtar ...  

 

The language filters can be a pain sometimes, but there are usually other words you can substitute.    

 

By the way, your cabinet looks amazing!  

Excellent job on that.

 

[Sagebrush Steve]

45 minutes ago, Fossildude19 said:

Steve, I fixed it for ya.     You could also, alternatively use: Securing, Affixing, Adhering , Adding, Linking, Connectingtar ...  

 

The language filters can be a pain sometimes, but there are usually other words you can substitute.    

 

By the way, your cabinet looks amazing!  

Excellent job on that.

 

Thanks!  My thesaurus was packed away with all my other fossils and I couldn’t think of any synonyms without it 

[Wrangellian]

On 11/28/2017 at 6:17 AM, -AnThOnY- said:

Something to consider for organizing are the cardboard jewelry boxes with the cotton in them. I buy them off of ebay and they come in a ton of different sizes. Most of mine are 3.5x3.5x1" and I end up getting a box of 100 for like 35-40 bucks.

The foldable type are a lot cheaper, and come in various sizes. A stack of 100 2x2" is $12.50 on ebay - do a search for 'FB-35' for an example. Of course they don't come with cotton but you can always add it yourself. From a fabric store I get a type of soft cloth that I cut out in squares to fit the boxes, which I prefer over the stuff that comes in the jewelry boxes, as it tends to snag on the fossil and come out with it when you lift it out of the box.

[Bob Saunders]

very nice. as a retired watchmaker I have around 10 wide stacking cabinets with all of the drawers full of obsolete watch crystals. very tempted to empty some and put my rocks and fossils in them but they are only around 1-2 inches deep. I also have smaller cabinets full of watch parts with 3-4 inch deep drawers.  

[flemgunner]

Really cool stuff guys

[Sagebrush Steve]

OK, it's done, just in time for Christmas!  Now I have to make room for it in the house and start filling it with fossils.  Should keep me busy for awhile.