HobbyZone Modular Workshop System OM01 Six-Drawer Module Review

By Michael Benolkin

Review

Here is the first of many HobbyZone Modular Workshop System modules we'll be examining over the next few weeks. We'll walk you through the building process to highlight any noteworthy challenges to assembly. We'll end the series with a look at the before and after of my own workspace and look forward to a cleaner and more efficient result.

Here is one of the more complex kits in their modular system, this is OM01 OM01 Six-Drawer Module. It comes in a nicely protected box similar to a pizza box and consists of a number of precistion-cut MDF (particle-board) wood parts. Each of the six drawers has a window in each face to let you see inside with the drawer closed, so there are six pre-cut plexiglass parts with the protective paper still covering both sides.

Take a look at one of the drawers laid out and you can see the quality of the machining using CNC technology. The parts fit together snugly like a new puzzle. When I first dry-fit this drawer, I was tying to figure out how the clear window fits into place. A closer look at the instructions and the parts reveal a notch machined for the window where indicated by the red arrows below.

Here's the drawer assembled without glue. Assembly uses simple wood glue, but you can see how snugly everything fits without glue. As a reminder, the window is clear, I just haven't removed the protective blue film off the plexiglass yet.

When assembling this and the other modules in this series, one thing becomes apparent - that precision fit isn't so snug when you add glue. I used Gorilla non-foaming Wood Glue and the larger bottle has a nice wide application pattern which means a greater area of less thickness can be applied to the wood surface. After building one drawer, I quickly figured out the proper way to assemble and then clamp these assemblies together. The Gorilla non-foaming glue only needs about 20 minutes of clamp time, so you can do as many assemblies as you have clamps, wait for them to dry, then do another batch. Soon all six drawers were ready.

Next comes the case. I inserted the magnets ensuring that the two holes in each face had the same magnetic polarity. Using the OM05s module I had built previously, I identified which surfaces needed to be where and glued up the case. I used two bar clamps to get a good snug fit but I think next time I'll use three - two top and bottom and one on the sides. As you can see here, the module is ready to receive stuff and transition my bench toward organization.

Here is the OM05s module snapped to the top of the case. I made the mistake of double-checking the magnetic polarity of this case by putting the OM05s on top just after gluing the case together but not yet clamped. The magnets were strong enough to pull the top off the case. Not any more.

These modules are fun and easy to build. If you're organizing a larger space, you'll be building more modules but look at the bright side - you're building stuff on your bench, and when you're done, you're going to have an awesome bench!

You can see this and other modules at the HobbyZone website ( www.hobbyzone.biz) and on their eBay Store. Stay tuned as we build up other modules and see what we can do with them to organize the bench!

My thanks to HobbyZone.biz for this review sample.