I returned from picking up my display matrix purchases with several matcases of composition mats as well, and so far I have no good place to keep them. The few I had have been stored in the same drawer as the box of display mats of the same face, but many of the new matcases contain faces that I don’t have in display sizes.
To keep these organized I am making a set of five cases that can hold 24 matcases each. Each one is essentially an open-sided box about 4″ high, 8″ deep and 24″ wide, with vertical partitions dividing the space into 24 compartments, each just the right size to hold a matcase.
The case is made with ½″ (actually 12mm) birch plywood and the partitions are ⅛″ hardboard. Most of the case will be assembled with butt joints but the partitions will be set into grooves cut in the top, back, and bottom of the cabinet. I was hoping I could cut the grooves on larger panels of plywood before cutting up the individual pieces, but partway through doing that I noticed that the grooves were not always full depth. The plywood had a bit of waviness in it and I could not apply enough pressure consistently to hold the sheet tight to the saw table.
Instead I had to cut up the individual tops, backs, and bottoms and groove them all individually. One I got into the groove (har har) I found this was just as fast as grooving the full panels anyway. But still it was 5 cases times 3 pieces times 23 grooves to cut.
Here are all the case pieces and partitions, almost ready for assembly. The only things to do are to bevel the edges of the partitions so they go into the grooves cleanly and sand the splinters off the edges of the case parts.
Photos of the finished cases are forthcoming!
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