Extra Under Bench Drawer

[Graham Winders]

So I’ve been wanting to add the small additional under bench drawer to my Coast but I’m not willing to pay the extortionate prices for the parts. After a bit of thinking and rethinking I decided to make my own.
I made the drawer from some 12mm exterior ply, I repurposed the original blanking cover and purchased some heavy duty push to open drawer runners ( so I didn’t need to purchase a new front panel with the lever and lock.)
I also made a small section at the rear of the drawer to fit the tyre compressor which was originally strapped to the rear side corner of the bench.
The project cost me £20 in total for the runners as I already had the plywood in my garage.
Hope you like it.

 

[pchmlk]

Very good!

 

[larrylamb]

Nice job.

 

[KGCali]

Well done, a few of us did this last year with this useful post listing parts and dimensions here ...

Cali Small Bench Drawer - not £550 …!

Thats annoying..! You'll need a right angle chuck/drill to get in there I guess. Worth checking some of the other threads on here re: fitting the drawer to T5s. There may be an answer... Yes I think its either the right angle drill, or lift the bench out job. I have found this post, which...

vwcaliforniaclub.com

 

[Benham]

Great job. Well done.

 

[Graham Winders]

Well done, a few of us did this last year with this useful post listing parts and dimensions here ...

Cali Small Bench Drawer - not £550 …!

Thats annoying..! You'll need a right angle chuck/drill to get in there I guess. Worth checking some of the other threads on here re: fitting the drawer to T5s. There may be an answer... Yes I think its either the right angle drill, or lift the bench out job. I have found this post, which...

vwcaliforniaclub.com

Feel stupid that I didn’t see this before designing mine. It would have made my life a bit easier had I seen it, all I could see was threads about the genuine VW retrofit. Oh well least mine got a little mod for the tyre compressor.

 

[Willfried]

Hi to all, Great idea and job and thanks for sharing. I’ve just been looking all the post for more than an hour, but can’t find the post with parts and dimensions…. Please help. Thanks.
Ciao

 

[Willfried]

Hi to all, Great idea and job and thanks for sharing. I’ve just been looking all the post for more than an hour, but can’t find the post with parts and dimensions…. Please help. Thanks.
Ciao

Sorry, finally found https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/cali-small-bench-drawer-not-£550-….52886/

 

[Chriskend]

I like that a lot

 

[CaliKatt]

Did you also have to break off the knob which holds the front shield? I read in the other post that otherwise the top slide doesn’t fit. I am hesitant to do this.


Verzonden vanaf mijn iPhone met Tapatalk

 

[acer]

So I’ve been wanting to add the small additional under bench drawer to my Coast but I’m not willing to pay the extortionate prices for the parts. After a bit of thinking and rethinking I decided to make my own.
I made the drawer from some 12mm exterior ply, I repurposed the original blanking cover and purchased some heavy duty push to open drawer runners ( so I didn’t need to purchase a new front panel with the lever and lock.)
I also made a small section at the rear of the drawer to fit the tyre compressor which was originally strapped to the rear side corner of the bench.
The project cost me £20 in total for the runners as I already had the plywood in my garage.
Hope you like it.

View attachment 133445

View attachment 133446

View attachment 133447

View attachment 133448

View attachment 133449

View attachment 133450

View attachment 133451

View attachment 133452

View attachment 133453

Very, very nice.
It’s a bit of a basic / non-campervanny question, but how do you make your cuts in the ply? I pre-score, add tape, use a fine saw etc. to avoid break-out, but still struggle to achieve cuts as nice as your work.

 

[Ocean100]

The only way I get decent cuts in ply is with a Festool track saw (or other brands are available) or Table saw with scoring blade. If trying with an ordinary circular saw best chance is with a fine tooth quality blade and maybe lay a sacrificial piece of mdf over the intended piece to prevent breakout cutting through both pieces. You could cut close to line and then rout the edge clean also, or even hand plane it (sharp blade).
There are other techniques set the blade to a millimetre depth of cut and run the saw backwards in the cut to pre score before going forward at depth. This is climb cutting so care is needed.