Friday, April 24, 2015

Medicine Cabinet Scrap Bin

In the land of pointless suburban renovation, things like this are common on the side of the road.  I noticed this medicine cabinet was made of sheet steel of decent thickness, so I figured it would be a good scrap bin also due to it's shallow depth which means no digging through huge piles of metal to find the right piece.  Also the cardboard boxes I'd been using to store metal were falling apart.
Since scrap bins don't usually need mirrors on them, I inspected as to how to remove it.  It turned out the hinge for the mirror was spot welded on, a formidable mass production strategy.  At last, a legitimate use for my spot weld cutter!

I wasn't too concerned with whether or not it looked pretty.  It's not like I was disassembling some airplane or something, so I didn't bother with the depth setting.  Of course I accidentally went to deep, puncturing a hole in one.  Not a big deal.
Then a little sand paper to make it less sharp.
On the opposite side, I hemmed the edges to make it less painful to lift.
Looks like a definite improvement over the old boxes!  I cut a piece of sheet metal to go in place of the shelf as a divider since the original one was glass, and didn't want broken glass everywhere.
I didn't have any plan as to where I was going to put the thing until I noticed the conveniently sized gap under my machine table.  The Scrap Alchemists always get their dimensions right!
As for the mirror, I figured I could still use it, but the sharp half hinge had to go.  I was able to undo the hinge with some dykes.
And then with aviation snips, cut the hinge half into bite sized pieces which could be pulled out from underneath the other half of the hinge.
All clean and less deadly! A two for one project!

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