Ryobi battery toolbox for the shop

[Mark Kosmowski]

Ever since running into Scott Spencer at the Rochester (Henrietta really), NY Woodcraft and being told that I should think about storing my cordless tool batteries out of the cold I have thought it would be nice to have a box to carry them all in for easy transport to the heated basement from the cold shop when not being used anymore.

So I have started making a little Ryobi battery toolbox.

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The holes are for the "hot" male part of the battery to sit in. Eventually, I plan to add a drawer on the front and back in the bottom of the box. I think I will head to Lowes and if I can find some drawer slides on clearance I'll give them a whirl. Otherwise I'll just add a strip more of plywood to either side on the inside as a runner. The drawers will have a divider to the top of the space before the first battery hole and will have a shallower end to allow for movement past the batteries (with the male power delivery part projecting through the holes). At any rate, I'm letting the glue dry for this stage of assembly before moving forward.

I played around with rabbet and dado joints for this project. They were made mostly on the router table. The end pieces had the sides cut out on the bandsaw. What I should have done was to put my stacked dado set on my RAS, but I was feeling lazy last night as the cold shop was sapping my strength, with the wind outside sounding like a pack of hungry wolves. As it is, I'm spending a couple hours in the shop then coming in to play on the computer for a couple hours to warm up.

My next project for the day (after I can feel my feet again!) are a couple of clamp storage ideas. When I get those done I'll add them to my shop organization thread.

[Jonathan Shively]

Neat idea Mark!
Now I assume the drawer will be from end to end? Or two drawers, half the length of the box, one from one end, one from the other end? Anyway, what started my question, the drawer won't be as wide as the box will it? Was thinking of all the stuff that could be put in a drawer that could get caught in the battery ends sticking down and shorting out batteries, fires, etc. So, will the drawer only be as wide as the width between the ends sticking down? (don't know if I can explain this better, been reading Ashman's story and deciphering Larry's codes gave me a headache this morning!! )

[Bill Simpson]

I agree, great Idea!!! I also label my batteries with my name and a number so I can distinguish which are mine and how old they are. (a problem when my son & worked on the same project and we both have a Ryobi kit. )

Also I have my charger(s) plugged into a lamp timer, I remove the ON pegs and use only the OFF. Simply turn the dial till it comes on then walk away and forget it. 24 hours later it is turned off and no fear of overcharging (any battery that won't charge in a day is beyond help) I started doing this with my fishing boat, of course you hook up the charger when you come home from a fishing adventure but then you have to go back to work and Humdrum of society and toil and trouble and forget to go out and disconnect the charger, before long you find where you cooked the water out and ruined the batteries. This put a stop to that. My son has an onboard charger in his boat but he also plugs it into a timer (never trust Murphy's law) (Suspenders & Belt attitude)

I am going to take from you idea and build similar to fit my needs. Thanks for the inspiration and post.

[Mark Kosmowski]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Shively

Neat idea Mark!
Now I assume the drawer will be from end to end? Or two drawers, half the length of the box, one from one end, one from the other end? Anyway, what started my question, the drawer won't be as wide as the box will it? Was thinking of all the stuff that could be put in a drawer that could get caught in the battery ends sticking down and shorting out batteries, fires, etc. So, will the drawer only be as wide as the width between the ends sticking down?

Yes, two drawers, one on either end. They will go all the way to the middle, but will have a tall divider before the first battery hole. So each drawer will have two compartments, one can hold tall stuff, the other can only hold half-height stuff.

Hopefully the glue will set soon and I can go back out to the shop and just make the drawers to show pics.

[allen levine]

neat yeah, but I thought my hoodie front hand warming pocket was to hold the extra batteries?

[Mark Kosmowski]

I took off the two corners of the handle piece. While setting up my RAS I figured I might as well test out the H. O. Schumacher & Sohn 10" 80 tooth HATB-VP (high ATB variable pitch) -6 degree hook blade I picked up for a song from one of the semi-regular Leitz excess tooling sales. I made this cut after the box was assembled and, once again, needed to leave the guard off to make the cut. Even I am looking forward to putting the guard back on for cutting operations at this point.

So, I am making a miter cut at 45 degrees. The plywood is leftover free exterior grade plywood from a buddy's home improvement project. I think the stuff is less than a year old (from purchase date). I clamped the box to the fence so I could keep my left arm behind my back while operating the saw. The cut was unsupported by the table - the piece cut was literally hanging into the air and the offcut was allowed to freely fall off when the cut was complete. The cut was an anti-climb cut, as my setup required a push cut with respect to the RAS carriage. My RAS has been used and operationally changed enough that I want to confirm the settings before doing fine work again - I have no idea how much or little my blade might be heeling at this point. I think this is about the most demanding test a blade can be subjected to in terms of looking at cut quality. I set the blade height to be such that the bottom cut had ~1/4" teeth visible underneath the wood.

Here is the top of the cut, where the blade made the initial entry into the wood.

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And here is the bottom of the cut.

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Other than the large splinter where the offcut broke off (which likely could have been avoided if I zipped through the cut with a higher feed rate instead of going slow to not smack into the rest of the box with my arbor nut) the cut is remarkably clean in my humble opinion. I can't think of a more stressful way to observe cut quality and therefore am willing to recommend this blade without hesitation even for the market price of $70 - $80 (I can't figure out whether this or this is my blade from Hartville tool). For the price I paid for mine (not so stealth gloat), $25, I am ecstatic with my purchase and will be putting this blade on my saw whenever I want the highest quality finish cut for plywood projects in the future.

[Bart Leetch]

I have a charging station on the wall.

This is an older picture.
I now have my Ryobi drill & driver in where 2 of 2 speed Makita drivers were & still have the 2 variable speed Makitas there too.

[Royall Clark]

Bart I don't think I'll ever have that much organization in my shop. There is never enough time to do it

[allen levine]

thanks for saying that Royall. I have never seen such organization in a shop.
Is that a timer on the wall for the chargers?
If it is, you are one of my new heros.

[larry merlau]

naw that where he punches in when its time to go to work again after settin in his new chair