Having finished installing the next local area network, as always in such cases, a pile of scraps of plastic boxes formed (Fig. 1).
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You can, of course, collect them and use them somehow next time. But... First of all, when will this next time be? Secondly, perhaps then boxes of completely different sizes will be required. And, finally, thirdly, where to store these scraps, the number of which is constantly increasing?.. The answer to these questions suggested itself: it is necessary to “create” something useful from them...
In this regard, my attention - I don’t know why - was first of all attracted by the box shown in Figure 2. Either with its square profile, or with a fairly high rigidity (others had very thin, kind of “liquid” walls), or for some other reason - That. I opened the box (Fig. 3), measured the base and lid.
Rice. 2 Fig. 3
The solution came when, in thought, I “stuck” a laser disc box that was at hand into the base of the box. It fit quite tightly, as if made exactly to size, and remained standing on the table along with the base of the box (Fig. 4).What if you try two thin boxes? The result (Fig. 5) is the same! With discs in paper envelopes everything is much simpler. 7-8 pieces fit tightly into the base (without the risk of damaging the envelope!) (Fig. 6).
Rice. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6
As they say in such cases: “Eureka!”
What if you make a shelf or rack for disks? Now, finally, it will be possible to sort disks stored in stacks (Fig. 7) and easily get to what you need at the moment, without the risk of “overwhelming” the stack when removing the lowest box or envelope.
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Of course, it may be objected that for this purpose the stores offer a fairly wide range of a wide variety of designs. But, firstly, they can not be purchased everywhere, secondly, the prices of these products (in my opinion) are too high, and, finally, thirdly - and this is the most important thing - it is much more pleasant to use something that made by hand!
Let's get started!
For work we will need (Fig. 8):
- superglue “502 CYANOACRYLATE ADHESIVE” or similar (1);
- alcohol (2);
- hacksaw (3);
- side cutters (4);
- stationery knife (5);
- miter box (preferably!) (Fig. 9).
Rice. 8 Fig. 9
First, using side cutters (or better yet, a miter box), we cut the bases into strips 12 cm long each. The width of a standard box for discs is 14 cm. The bases are cut shorter than the boxes so that the boxes on the shelf protrude slightly and can be taken out by prying the desired box from below. But this is a matter of taste. The strips can also be cut to fit the length of the box.Having cut the required number of strips, we process the cut areas with a stationery knife and side cutters to remove burrs and sharp edges and corners. By adding the strips together, we determine the width of the future shelf.
Now, using a miter box (or a drawing triangle), from the casing covers we cut the parts of the base of the shelf so (Fig. 10, item 1) so that the cuts are at an angle of 45 degrees (item 2). We clean and degrease the gluing areas with a cotton swab dipped in alcohol, and glue the base of the shelf from the box lids. To more accurately fix the joints, pre-cut pieces of the base of the box 2-3 cm long can be inserted into the joints of the parts. After the base of the shelf is ready, it is necessary to clean and degrease it and the cut strips, and glue the strips to the base close to each other (Fig. 11). To attach the resulting shelf to the wall, make holes at its base in two places (approximately 1/4 of the length from both edges).
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Since the resulting cantilever structure may not withstand the weight of the disks or may break during use, it is necessary to make stops from the casing covers (Fig. 12).
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The ends of the stops are cut at an angle of 45 degrees, and the “petal” with a mounting hole (it can be very easily made with any sharp tool) is bent by heating along the fold line using a soldering iron or over an open fire. To attach the stops to the shelf, it is necessary to glue two strips of the base of the box from the side of its base (Fig. 10, item 3). The stops are simply pressed tightly into these bases without any additional fastening, and are attached to the wall with screws.
The result is a rather nice shelf (Fig.13) for storing laser discs, the production of which lasted a little over an hour.
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I note that in its manufacture, mainly the base of the box is used (in Fig. 2 - 6 they are blue). What to do with the “left out of use” box lids? You can use them to make a rack for disks. After all, not all discs will fit on one shelf! The width of the box lid (Fig. 3) allows you to fit the same boxes and envelopes of laser cards into it, but at the same time this can be done completely freely, without effort.
To make a bookcase, you need to cut strips from box lids to the same length - 12 cm. However, it should be noted that in this case, for each box (or a pair of thin boxes) you need to have two strips. Having folded half of the cut strips together and aligned the edges, glue them to each other with their side surfaces. Two walls of the shelf are ready. All that remains is, using, for example, a sheet of plexiglass or other suitable material, to make a back wall, glue two side walls to it, keeping them parallel and at a distance equal to slightly greater than the height of the box (13 cm). In the front part (top and bottom), glue two plastic strips (see Fig. 14-16), which will ensure parallelism of the walls and give rigidity to the structure. I additionally secured the side and back walls by gluing plastic corners left over from previous crafts. You can also glue a plexiglass rectangle to the bottom of the shelf, to which, in turn, glue the legs. The legs can be caps from plastic bottles, tubes of toothpaste or creams, etc. I limited myself to gluing two strips on the bottom, cut from the lids of the boxes (they are visible in Fig. 15). They serve as the legs of the whatnot.
What I got is shown in Figures 14-16.
Rice. 14 Fig. 15 Fig. 16
P.S. Plastic boxes are such a technological and beneficial material for crafts that, if you use your brain, you can create a wide variety of useful homemade products. For example, when it was necessary to install a HUB in a small, completely empty closet (don’t leave it on the floor!), a shelf was very quickly made from scraps of boxes (Fig. 17), on which this HUB has been resting peacefully for 5 years now...
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