I wanted a way to organize hardware in the drawers of my concrete workbench, so I decided to make some simple boxes to fit in the drawers, all sized on a common increment so they would fit and fill the drawer no matter how they were arranged. But I have some experience with this kind of setup, and I know that the boxes tend to slide around whenever you remove one of them and give them the freedom to do so. Initially I thought of simply adding some non-skid material (such as sandpaper or rubber) to the bottom of the boxes, and while that should keep the boxes from shifting when one is removed, it would not keep the boxes from cramming against one another and making them difficult to remove. The grid system I came up with, inspired by Lego, maintains a 1/16″ gap between each box. This not only gives a nice amount of clearance for inserting and removing boxes, it also gives it a very neat and tidy appearance. To see how it was made, take a look at the video below:

It has since been pointed out that when making the grid I could glue in the full-length strips in one direction, then cut the dados in the other direction (hence cutting through all the first set of strips) and glue full length strips in those dados. This is a much simpler solution and I am still annoyed that I didn’t think of it, but I’ll pass it on to you anyway!

If you would like to make a set of these boxes yourself, you can get my Sketchup model for free below. The system shown is designed to fit in the drawers of my workbench, and includes one blank row at the back to give clearance for the pull on the drawer above it. The model does not show the grooves on the inside of the boxes, but they are simply 5 shallow blade kerfs from an alternating top bevel blade, and the grip starts 1/4″ from the edge.

Download model: drawer boxes.zip

Note: The .zip file above contains a Sketchup (.skp) file, so you will need to un-zip and extract the .skp file before opening it. You will need the latest version of Sketchup in order to view this model.

I do not ask for any payment in return for my Sketchup models. However, if you would like to help out, you can make a one-time donation using the PayPal donate button below, or support me on a monthly basis on my Patreon page.