Festool's Sortainer range offers another storage solution. Products like the classic Sortainer provide storage drawers that can be easily divided to fit the profile of your accessories. They work well as an accompaniment to our tool boxes, or you could choose a fusion of the two like the SYS-Combi. I’m now deep into the project of clearing out our garage to the best of my ability. I will have one bay of 3-car garage for permanent use for tools, with shelving, eventually cabinets, around the outside walls. Given multiple hobbies and wife’s storage needs, there remains little room for a Chaos-Theory wall of systainers.

One thing I changed after building my first cabinets was the top. I switched from a full piece to two cleats, simply to stretch my material. I’ll be putting a countertop over the whole bank of cabinets so I don’t need full tops. I have a large HD Husky “mobile workbench” with very nice drawers, but they’re full without using any drawers for the Festools. This may sound funny, but my solution to this are systainers and - in general - standardized cabinets/shelfs/containers etc. This wall is wonky as all get-out so I had to shim the wall cleat so it would be flat. More Drawers I didn’t spend too much time configuring drawers until I got all my cabinets built and installed on the wall. I just put in enough drawers to put in some Systainers and see if I’d planned well and I could open the lid and easily get to the tool inside. Once I tested out my initial cabinets and drawers — I built 2 more “double” cabinets and what felt like a gazillion more drawers. Installing Cabinets on French CleatsWe also offer combination toolboxes with space for cordless and corded power tools along with accessories like screws, cables and nails. You could opt for a fusion of tool box and accessory container like the SYS tool box, or go for the SYS-StorageBox, with its swivelling components tray and adaptable range of plastic containers. One of Festool's most popular innovations, the Systainer product line features plenty of different sizes of toolbox, with various mobile options and extra features to choose from too. Find the ideal container for your tool collection at our online store. It seems to me that the use of Systainers—as satisfying to the OCD part of us as they are—are not a good use of precious workshop space, and make the tools less accessible than if they were in one or two wide, deep drawers in a tool cabinet. After all, we don’t need all those Plug-It cables; and the needed tool accessories may well not fit in the tool’s systainer. Again, I used the simplest construction method possible to get the first batch of drawers built. 1/2″ plywood, glue and nailed together. It’s easier to prime and paint BEFORE assembling. If you’re using wood glue as part of assembly, don’t paint. Wood glue generally adheres to primed wood though so go ahead a pre-prime regardless.

The cabinets have a center divider so you get two columns of drawers in each cabinet. You could certainly build single cabinets but it would use more material. You could also certainly build a triple column cabinet but once they get too big, they’re hard to handle. A double was about my limit. Sizing the Cabinet for Drawers Width If you want to see more details that you can see on the small photos of my plans in this post, I’ve included full sheet PDF’s for both the Cabinet plans and the Drawers. If you have a disorganised tool collection and want to rationalise your inventory, general purpose tool boxes like the roomy Maxi-Systainer offer more than enough space for most customers. Mark the location for the center divider on BOTH sides of the top and bottom parts. Use the inside marks to align the center divider. Use the outside marks for screw placement.

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Tip 1: marking center divider location on both sides of “top” and “bottom” parts. Tip 2: using corner clamps Tip 3: Painting plywood edges. Tip 4: prime before assembly. If not using wood glue, go ahead and pre-paint too. Alternatives and things to note