My latest build is completed. It’s a cabinet for holding router bits. 1 
I don’t own anywhere near enough router bits to fill it, but my meager collection was already in chaos. I couldn’t find the right bit, and they can get dull when they are not stored correctly. 2
If there’s enough room between shelves to see and reach them, the case gets too big. I didn’t like the idea of shallow drawers, or deep narrow drawers. Instead, I decided to make them swing out on a tall shaft. 3
Each shelf is suspended from a steel armature that spins on a vertical shaft. I machined the components of the armature and then welded them together. 4
The bit-holding portion of the shelves are hollow boxes made of thin plywood. Keeping everything precisely aligned took a lot of attention. There’s a lot of leverage at work. 5
The tolerances were tight. For the vertical shaft, I used 3/8” drill rod, which is machine ground to +-0.001 inches. Each shelf has an oil-impregnated bronze bushing seated in a steel housing I turned on the lathe. 6
The vertical shaft is held in place by three gudgeons (look it up!) bolted to the side of the cabinet. I created the complex gudgeon shapes on the milling machine. 7
I’ve made stuff out of wood, and stuff out of metal, and stuff out of wood-and-metal, but this cabinet is a first for me because it includes 3D printed plastic parts! 8
Each swinging shelf has a knob and a landing gear made from PETG on my Prusa i3 mk3 3D printer. The landing gear supports the free end of the shelf when it’s closed. The knob is actually a press-fit shell over a hex-head 1/4-20 bolt. 9
Each shelf has a front made of 3/32” acrylic. I used a sharp, 72-tooth blade on the table saw to cut the rectangles, followed by a little sanding, then buffed the edges with Tripoli on a muslin buffing wheel. 10
The whole cabinet is suspended on a French cleat through bolted (and glued) to the plywood cabinet back. 11
Here's a short video showing it in use. 12
I machined the six holes in each shelf armature just to reduce the weight, but they give the cabinet a kind-of steam punk look. 13
There were other firsts for me in this build, including blackening the metal parts. I used a chemical blackener on all of the steel parts, including the machine screws, nuts, and washers. 14
I assumed that scrupulous cleanliness would be necessary for good blackening. I not only washed the parts in TSP but ended up wiping them down with denatured alcohol just before the chemical blackener went on. 15
The really unexpected thing about blackening is that the chemical treatment is water based! The steel changes color almost instantly, but if you let it dry, the steel rusts! 16
After some experiments, here’s what I found works best: As soon as the steel blackens, wipe it dry w paper towels, then coat it with Camellia oil (from Lie-Nielsen). Wipe the excess with more paper. With a little buffing, the oil gives the black steel a beautiful, dry sheen. 17
I made the cabinet box out of some luscious Apple plywood, held together with dadoes and rabbets and some Titebond III. It’s trimmed in front with 1/4” thick strips of cherry. 18
Yo @threadreaderapp please unroll #unroll #sushiroll #jellyroll #rocknroll
