Imagine a file cabinet made of regular sheet steel, only imagine it with a bunch of drawers only about 1.5" high. This is an end mill storage cabinet (end mills are tools that seem to be like short, thick drill bits used in metal working I think) and new cabinets cost hundreds to well over $1,000. I am interested in buying a much older one for cheap and fixing it up myself. It has a lot of scratches and the finish is worn and chipped, but what concerns me is that a few of the drawers have creases and dents that I don’t know how to work out. I would like to be able to make all the drawer fronts flat and square. I need tools that are able to work on those long, narrow drawer fronts.
I’m picturing something like a cold chisel only instead of a wedge shape it would have a square, flat end on it. Or something. I don’t know how or where to start looking, and could really use some guidance, if anyone has any knowledge or experience in this area.
You’re thinking of a planishing hammer or one of many other similar devices. Facing hammer, plate hammers, etc. On thinner metal like that you need a hammer and a backing plate or anvil of some kind on the opposite side for flattening. Dome shaped hammers of backing plates or soft backers can be used to form curved shapes. Sometimes you need to do that to flatten out a piece after it gets creased because it also gets stretched in the process. It can turn out to be a slower process than you expect. You may have to flatten a crease with something pointed leaving a very rough surface that you then smooth out by planishing. However, restoring a flat drawer front to it’s original condition can be very difficult. Simple dents should hammer out quite easily.
If the inside of the drawer fronts aren’t cosmetically important you can just hammer in the dents and creases and then smooth the front with a layer of Bondo.
If you’re not a skilled sheet metal worker this may be the most frustrating task you ever take on.
Creases in long narrow pieces are a bitch. Further, I bet the drawers themselves are made of folded and spot-welded sheet. Such that you’re not going to be able to work on the face without the rest of the drawer being in your way.
In at least some of the better cabinets, the front face of the drawer is two-layered with maybe 3/16" of space between the inner and outer layer. If that’s so, and the drawers are all spot-welded, you’re not going to be able to access the back surface of the outer face of the drawer. That right there is a total show-stopper for traditional sheet metal repair; you’re left with the [drill holes, apply Bondo, sand, and paint] method. Which is very unsatisfying and difficult for small spaces.
Before you spend real money buying this cabinet, you might want to buy a sheet of similar gauge metal from e.g. Home Depot for $5 and a cheap sheet-working set from e.g. Harbor Freight. Bash some dents and creases into your practice piece then fix them. You’ll either love working the metal and getting an OK result or you’ll make a bigger mess and decide this project isn’t for you.
Before you buy the cabinet you’ll also want to ensure every drawer moves smoothly. It’s easy for a surface dent to have warped the drawer tracks enough the drawer no longer moves well. Getting that right can be a bitch too.
Good luck! Seriously, not snarkily. But I fear you’re going to need it.
I didn’t want to make it sound too scary, but you’re absolutely right. It’s a task that requires a great deal of patience and reworking. If the construction of the drawers is suitable I would take apart the drawers or cut out the dented and creased fronts and replace them with fresh metal. An HVAC supplier that makes ductwork may be able to do all that at a reasonable price.
A true artisan can create amazing things with sheet metal and make it look easy, if painstaking, while doing it. I’m much more in the [amateur who’s tried his hand a few times and quit in disgust] than I am in the [true artisan] camp.
The problem for a newbie is that the minimum quality surface that looks good once painted is “darn near perfect”. It’s easy to lavish a couple hours on a 2" square area and still be left with a mess. Just a different mess than you started with. Impact dents and creases have a certain natural shape we find familiar and therefore unobtrusive. A low-skilled repair has a weird orange-peel sort of surface that looks far more obviously damaged. And because it now has high spots, can’t be puttied over.
One of my mottos learned over many years is
Quit while you’re only a little behind.
Fixing damaged sheet metal is one of the scenarios where I apply that motto.
I’d love to have a metal end mill cabinet. I have a ton of small parts to organize and if drawers open and shut I wouldn’t care about cosmetic problems. Just curious, how big is it, how many drawers, and what’s the price? I wouldn’t be surprised if I could pick one up around here, there are a ton of old machinists from days of yore who built up home shops after the businesses went under or away.
I was wondering if it would be possible to paint the front of the drawers with some type of spackle type paint which would tend to hide the imperfections?
Hammered Finish paints are made just for this purpose. The random pattern hides a lot of imperfections. It could be the only way to hide the imperfections from working metal without use of a heavy smoothing compound like Bondo, which is essentially spackle for metal. Ideally covering a sputter coat or undercoat that would hide even more imperfections.
How big is this thing? I see “like new” end mill cabinets on Ebay for $50. I’ve bought a few new ones for our tooling shop at work and they were around $150.