Trailer: Test Fitting the Racks

This morning I am back at work on David B’s storage trailer.

My first task of the day is to sand the racks smooth.  Here I come up against my first quandary; how much sanding should I do?  The furniture-maker in me wants to hunker in and sand until it is all satiny smooth and a pleasure to touch.  But that means investing a lot of time and effort; and time is money.  I don’t want to gouge my customer by investing more time than is needed and running up the bill.  This is, after all, not a piece of furniture but a storage trailer.  Although I have seen many articles about woodworkers who built a workbench or cabinet for their shop and employed all the finest furniture making techniques in building it – yielding a very classy, show-piece, piece of shop furniture and an immense source of pride – no one was paying them an hourly rate to do so.  Perhaps here “utility” is the key phrase.  So, I sand away all the fuzzy bits and knock sharp edges off to help prevent splinters, but don’t go crazy with it.

Next I drill pocket holes in the uprights of the racks.  The blue jig clamps to the wood and guides the drill bit, chucked into a portable drill,  at the proper angle and to the right depth.  The special bit is stepped, the wider part drills the main pocket allowing the screw head to be sunk below the surface of the wood.  The smaller stub on the end of the bit drills the pilot hole for the screw shank.  The flat end of the larger hole provides a shoulder where the washer headed screw seats.  Because it is flat, not V shaped like a normal flat-head wood screw, there is no tendency for it to split the wood when tightened. 

I drill two pockets at each attachment point, one from each side of the rack.  This will prevent any tendency at all for the screws to twist the rack around to the side.  This is not normally a problem with pocket hole screws, but in this case a little overkill won’t hurt anything.  And since I’m not gluing the rack in place (David may want to move them some day) I want these connections to be as sturdy as possible.  A little touch-up sanding and I’m ready for a test fit.

Using yard tools I have on hand, I determine how far in from the ends each rack needs to be, check to be sure I won’t hit any steel ribs inside the plywood wall covering, and mount the racks.  I am pleased with the rigidity that this system gives the racks.  I install some tools to check the fit.  Wide headed tools, like a leaf rake, could cause problems by encroaching on the space for other tools, but that can be gotten around by simply flipping the tool above and below around so the handle end is adjacent to the rake head.  (I actually planned it that way) Vertical spacing seems to have worked out properly as well.  Each implement can be lifted clear of the hook without running into the tool above it, yet little space is consumed as excess clearance.  I believe the hooks are deep enough to contain the tools even as the trailer bounces along a rough road.  Within reason anyway!

I’d say this is going to work.  Therefore I need to make four more racks just like these, then I will turn my attention to the swing wall they will mount on.

One last note: D-handle tools (grain scoop, short spade, etc) do not go in this rack, only long, straight handled tools.  The D-handle tools will go elsewhere.

Trailer – Getting Started.

Today I formally start work on fitting out a trailer with storage devices so that David, a landscaper will be able to better organize the trailer and have improved access to his tools and equipment.

I’ve had possession of the trailer for a while to take measurements, work up a plan of attack and order the supplies and hardware I’ll need. As you can see the interior is now quite empty. Equipment storage was just a matter of tossing everything inside and digging out what he needed when he needed it.

I also have a list of landscaping tools and equipment he will be wanting to store in the trailer to help me design appropriate storage. The problem with custom designing storage for a set of tools is that if you don’t allow for expansion or some flexibility, the whole thing becomes obsolete as soon as a new tool is purchased. Also, if I rig it so that it is a system of “this tool has to go here and no where else” then that can be frustrating when a number of tools have been taken out and have to go back exactly where they came from or they won’t fit.

I start by designing the “rack” that I’ll use to hold the tools and making a template out of thin plywood. After it’s laid out I cut away the waste with a jig saw and sand the cuts smooth so my pencil will run along the edges without snagging. I leave the bottom of the hooks as solid circles with a hole in the center that will be used to punch the center of the circle so I can use a Forstner bit to make a nice smooth, round bottom of each hook.

Then I cut some four foot blanks from a piece of ¾” cabinet grade birch plywood. This plywood is solid birch (quite hard), has many thin layers and is solid all the way through, unlike construction grade plywood which is made of fir or pine (quite soft) does not hold together well when cut up and has many voids inside. The birch plywood is very expensive, but will do the best job of these hook racks which need to be dimensionally stable and lot susceptible to snapping off if banged with a tool as solid lumber hooks might be.

I use the template to lay out the shape and mark the center of each hole, then use a Forstner bit to bore the holes. This bit bakes very clean, smooth holes with little or no tear-out.

Then I take the blank to the work bench and cut out the hook shapes with a jig saw. It is slow going in this ¾” thick birch plywood. I spent the afternoon making just two racks.

  

But that is enough to test them out and make sure they’ll work as predicted. Looks good. By alternating tools so that the “head” on alternate levels are pointing in opposite directions, there should be little difficulty on storing tools of various sizes in these racks. The arms of the hooks are tall enough to keep the tools from jumping off the hooks while the trailer is being towed over rough roads or off road.

Time to call it quits for today, two more sets to make tomorrow. See you then!