Mxtras Custom Fabricated Shop Cabinets, Workbenches and Toolboxes

Scott (Mxtras) has put together quite an impressive collection of customer fixtures for use in his shop. He has graciously offered up detailed photos, drawings, and descriptions of how he accomplished putting these together. (Click the images shown below for larger versions)

Scott originally drew these up using 3D solids in Autocad 2005 Mechanical Desktop. While Scott does have Solidworks, he has yet to make the change but said he plans to. Scott has provided DXF files that are being made accessible through the link on the left. I have opened these and generated Adobe PDF versions of the plans for those without CAD packages.

Each cabinet took about one week to finish including painting. There is not an exact cost yet - without time (and without the brushed panels) Scott estimates about $70 in tubing and about $120 in hardware. He is estimating that they actually cost him about $450 each but that is just a guess. Scott originally stated that would be happy to build whatever for whoever but these things would likely cost a bit to ship. He would have to come up with a price, but shooting from the hip, he claims he would sell cabinets like what you see pictured for probably about $650 -$700 each....again, that's a guess. That is less than anything else out there that's comparable. If you are interested in having Scott put something together for you, either the items seen here, or other custom pieces - please contact him at sales@mxtras.com. Scott is located in Virginia, so shipping may be prohibitive for West Coast residents.

Framework

These were made with 1" steel tubing frames (.083" and .125" wall thickness) and 1"X.125" angle iron. They were cut with an abrasive blade on a compound miter saw, de-burred and mitered for weld prep, then welded with the MIG. Scott used a flapper wheel on a grinder to blend and clean everything up and then they were wiped down with mineral spirits and acetone, then sprayed with Sail Blue paint from Rustoleum with a pressure pot and DeVilbiss gun.

Drawer Construction

The drawer patterns were cut out on a CNC router from the Aluminum Composite Material. Other options would be to make the cuts with a CNC Plasma, Laser, or even Waterjet from sheet metal - which is how Scott will make the drawers for my upcoming tool box, then either spot weld or weld the corners. Making the drawers the way Scott did took about 1.25 minutes to cut and about 10 minutes to rivet together. The pattern took about 4 tries to make it the way he wanted it. After the patterns were cut, the drawers were folded, clamped, drilled and riveted together. Then the drawer slide was attached to the frames of the cabinet and the bottom of the drawer - Scott had pre-drilled the bottom of the drawers on the machine to position the slide the same on each drawer and to save him some time. After the slides were mounted, the drawer was slid into the cabinet and the face was positioned into the reveal or opening. Scott mounted the 4" wide handle (MSC, $2 each) first since it has screws - this allowed him to mount the face and make adjustments with the drawer closed. The handle held the face in place then it was transfer drilled through the CNC cut holes into the drawer then the face was riveted. He used 3/16 aluminum rivets with a #10 washer as a back up.

The door and drawers are faced with a clear coated, brushed aluminum composite panel. This stuff sells for almost as much as sheet aluminum but it's lighter and pre-finished with an industrial clearcoat from PPG. Scott got the sheets direct from the manufacturer several years ago - they were off-quality or edge damaged and were slated for scrap. If you are building these yourself, you could use almost any material for the drawer faces. The drawers are riding on the cheapest drawer slides money can buy. Scott could not afford to buy so many of the ball sliders so he bought the kitchen style, self closing jobs and they work extremely well. The drawers open and close silently and effortlessly and stay in near perfect alignment. They are rated for 75 or 100 pounds per pair and you can get them for around $3 a set online or $6.50 at Lowes or HD. The ball slides are $14 a set on line or $18 at Lowes or Home Depot.

You notice that one side of the drawers is green. This was ACM I got for free so I did not turn it down. I have about 23 sheets of this particular material left - I started out with 75 sheets of the white/green material. Almost all drawer slides take up 1/2" per side, so if your opening is 19.5", your drawer should be 18.5" wide. The same is true for the ball slides - 1/2" per side.

The Finished Product

Here's how everything looks finished up in the shop:

Disclaimer: If you choose to reproduce these items, in whole or in part, you do so at your own risk. If you choose to follow any of this advice, you do so at your own risk. TOOLandFAB.com and Mxtras Racing assume no liability for use of the above material. All links included were done for convenience and do not indicate endorsement by any of the linked entities.

Please support our sponsors: