Making A Cabinet (Drawers) For Your Test Kits

We do not offer cabinets or a way to get them. A local carpenter or cabinet maker is well able to do this for you. I would like to suggest a few things for you to consider as you look into making a cabinet that suites your needs.

  1. Make the cabinet in sections. In the photos below, you will see 9 drawers, but there are three separate cabinets each containing three drawers. This idea is helpful in case you have to move your test kits around, or put them in your car to go test people at another location, perhaps the horses in the barn? You can work right out of the back of your vehicle that way.
  2. There are 9 drawers in the cabinet you see, but it is siting on a cart with wheels. That puts the cabinet about 19 inches off the floor, which is just enough room for me to reach into the top drawer without it being to high, or the lowest drawer being on the floor. The “something” that holds your cabinet off the floor can be anything you desire, maybe your carpenter can make you one large drawer to store additional gadgets you might use in your practice.
  3. The kit drawers should be snug so your kit is not sliding around in the drawer every time you open and close it. The actual size of the test kit box, which means the inside measurement of drawer, should be 12 3/4″ (left to right) by 19 3/4″ (front to back). This will be a snug fit, which I like, but you might want to add another 1/8″ just to be safe. For added safety, I would recommend you ask whomever is making your test kit drawers to measure the test kit so no mistakes are made. Also consider the height of each drawer being about one half inch higher than the kit itself so you can close the drawer while vials are still popped up.
  4. Make sure the slide rails are full extension like the ones in the photo. If you have a twelve inch drawer, you will need a fourteen inch slide rail or you will not be able to get your finger in there to pull out the last row of vials.

What might appear to be one large cabinet is really several stacked cabinets.

Photo of cabinet resting on something that allows you to move the entire system around.

Photo illustrating extra room (1/2") so you can leave vials up if needed when closing a drawer.

Photo showing full extension slides. Back of drawer should clear the front.

Photo of cabinet with laptop holding device used to hold Practitioner's Manual.