Followup: Custom Foam Systainer Tool Holder

In my previous post I had made a custom foam insert for my Milwaukee drill/driver set into a Tanos Systainer 2.

Since that post I had added one more battery to my collection (the "extended capacity" battery for the M12 system) - so I needed to adjust the foam for the new battery. Luckily the layout afforded me the room to do this, but I needed to move a few things around to do it.

My original layout looked like this:

After making the adjustments, cutting out a little more foam, moving some things around, and getting it all fit nicely, the end result looked like this:

(Above: Small changes - but fits a lot of stuff)

Previously I had used the 'construction adhesive' to mate the two sheets of foam together.

(Above: Worst. Glue. Ever.)

After cutting out more foam from the insert - I realized that adhesive was a terrible choice. Why? It never hardened. When I cut out a cube of foam - the glue was still wet. This made a huge mess, and was a pain to clean up after the fact.

In retrospect, I should have used slow-set hot glue for this instead, or spray-adhesive since you let it 'dry' first before mating the two pieces. Live and learn I suppose.

Project: Custom Foam Systainer Tool Holder

Organizing tools is almost a never ending job for most of us. Even if you have a large workspace with the best organization systems available, unless you're seriously devoted to putting everything back immediately after use - you're bound to have a few tools laying around now and then.

Over the years I have collected a number of tools, and am starting to feel a bit overwhelmed by them. The plan as it stands is to donate some of my unused or duplicate tools to a local non-profit maker space for kids, and whittle down my assortment of tools to a more manageable size, keeping mostly things I need with a few things that I don't really need.

After doing a lot of research about toolboxes, storage systems, and the like - I ended up gravitating towards the German-designed-and-made Tanos Systainers. They are durable, robust, work very well together as a system, modular, and very flexible.

The folks over at Festool have been using them exclusively to house their power tools, and while Festool goods are very much outside of my budget - the idea of well packed tools in Systainers stuck with me.

So I popped down to Lee Valley and snagged a few Systainers, and some "Kaizen-style" foam. (Kaizen foam is an exclusive brand to Fast Cap, the stuff Lee Valley carries in limited stock is similar)

The project started by laying out the tools in such a way where they made the most out of the space, and made the most out of the least foam. The foam was inexpensive, but I prefer to not waste what I don't have to.

Thankfully Lee Valley had templates specifically for Systainers, so I cut those out, and traced the pattern onto the foam.

The Systainers have some odd shaping inside, so there were two patterns, one for the bottom of the box, and one for middle layers. I cut out the pattern into the foam, and checked the fit as I went, making adjustments along the way (and adjusting the pattern, which I found out wasn't perfect.)

After the foam was cut, it was time to draw the cut lines into the foam. This is where the Fast Cap 'needle nose' marker pen came in handy. I placed the tools in the layout I liked, and traced around them with the marker, which resulted in a pretty close outline to the layout of the tools.

After spending a good amount of time cutting out the foam (of which I didn't photograph, I was too focused on cutting everything correctly) - I did a test fit of the tools in the foam. They seem to fit nicely, which was good news.

Now came the part where planning ahead would have been a good idea. The foam sheets are stacked, the bottom sheet and the middle sheets needed to be adhered together to make the cut-outs more stable. But what glue should I use? Hot glue is out. Wood glue? Nah. I had two options (with the adhesives I had at home) - CA glue, or 'construction adhesive' - I opted for the latter.

In the end, I also used the CA glue as well because it held better, and tightened up the edges nicely.

Once everything was glued together, I wanted to make use of some of the excess space in the foam, and since I had some bits that never really had a home in my toolbox, and I didn't want to lose - I made provisions for storing those with my drills.

The charger cord also needed more room, so I made a cutout in the base layer foam for it (as you can see in the picture above). Things are starting to shape up nicely. The construction adhesive takes forever to dry, so I had to wait a while until I could get everything put nicely into the Systainer.

(Above: Almost ready to go)

(Above: I made a custom label for the Systainer)

(Above: In the box and ready to go!)

For about an hour worth of work, I'm very happy with the end result. This will keep my tools organized, safe, easy to transport, and I'll always know where they are. Now I just have to do the same thing with the other Systainers and my miscellaneous power tools.

Thanks for reading!

Project: Medicine Cabinet Catches

This particular project isn't really a "project" per se, and technically I didn't "make" anything for this either. But that isn't the point. It isn't always about creating something, more often than not, it's about improving things you already have. 

In this case, the medicine cabinet in my parents bathroom needed some improving. Well, it didn't need it but I felt it could do with an improvement. 

The latches on the cabinet doors were from the 1970's. (As seen below on the right) They worked okay. Problem is, the spring steel catches didn't grip well, and some were even broken off. And then there was the catch pins. They were worn flat in places. So overall they were pretty much worn out.

I picked up some replacement catches. I wanted them to look nice, but also provide a positive engagement, and hold the doors securely. A quick trip to my local improvement store, and I spotted these nice brass ones. The seemed very solid. They engaged well. And they looked good. Sold!

I started by removing the old catches. That was a bit tricky since the screws that held it all in were painted over many times, and whoever installed them in the first place stripped most of the screw heads.

Measure, measure, measure... I measured where the new catches would mount to the frame, and secured them in. Here's where I discovered that brass screws are basically the worst screws to exist. Made even worse are phillips brass screws. Okay, okay... I don't really hate brass screws, it's just that if you're not careful, the heads will strip. Which is what I did to a few of them when installing.

Next up was mounting the receiving catches on the doors. Measure and measure, and measure some more. These were a bit tricky since I couldn't seem to wrap my head around how to properly measure the correct position for them.

But then I remembered an old trick. I put the catches in the latches, and coated the backsides with something that would transfer to the door when I closed it all up. I dug through the drawers and found lipstick. Haha, yep, that'll do. And it worked. And I was able to line up the catches and screw them on.

Now for the catches, I opted to use a screwdriver and put them in by hand, instead of using a power drill. And that prevented the heads from stripping. Sweet.

So with that, I closed all the doors up, and tested them one last time. They close properly, and better than the old catches. I'm happy, and I'm sure my folks appreciated it too.

Strandbeest

Still one of my favorite builds in the last little while was the Theo Jansen "Strandbeest" build. 

It wasn't especially challenging, or overly technical, but instead was a lot of fun. One thing that was enjoyable about the build was knolling out all the parts beforehand, which made the build go very smoothly. 

I ended up getting the kit for $11 off of eBay, and while I'm almost certain that it's a knockoff kit, it's still really well made. Only one part has 'broken' since the build first happened, and that was a rubber band to help hold the two body halves together. It's a non-critical part so I didn't bother replacing it.

Theo Jansen's work is fascinating, and I highly recommend checking out his work - kinetic sculpture is really interesting, and there are many variations of the design, including the Rhinoceros Strandbeest.

Welcome, Makers!

Welcome!

I originally was running www.whiskeythemaker.com on Tumblr and for the most part that platform was totally fine. But it lacked customization, and a lot of other features that I wanted, so I've moved here!

My older projects can be found on my original Tumblr page, since I don't want to re-write all the old articles. But going forward, all my projects and updates will be located here.

I hope you enjoy my builds, insights, projects, and everything I post here.

Stay tuned for more!