How to Build a 48-Drawer Tool Chest
Storage being at a premium in my basement workshop, I designed and built this tool chest according to my current needs, while keeping my future needs in mind.
The material I used was what I had on hand. Both available workshop space and convenience dictated that my tool chest would sit on the wall bench behind my main workbench, under the wall-hung tool cabinet I built a while ago. It meant that I would have to be committed to keeping the benchtop clear to provide both access to the drawers and room to temporarily place things while I work on projects. You probably know what I mean!
To make three identical chests, I machined six identical tops and bottoms and nine identical sides and middle partitions out of a few 3/4" thick solid pine glued-up panels I purchased on clearance 10 years ago. What a great deal it was!
To cut a series of rabbets and dadoes on all above-mentioned parts, I temporarily added a shop-made sacrificial fence (shown) to the table saw rip fence and installed a full-width stacked dado blade set. Both ends of the top and bottom require rabbets cut to half thickness and center dados cut to the same depth.
The sides and center partitions require a series of narrow 1/4" deep dadoes to match the thickness of the drawer bottoms. To get evenly spaced dadoes, I took the time to make a template on a sheet of grid paper to show where to set the rip fence to mill the latter-mentioned dadoes. Cut the dadoes to the center, then spin the workpiece around 180° and cut from the edge to the center again. As shown in the below right photo, rabbets should be cut to accept the back panel, and center partitions ripped accordingly.
