cruzerDave
Land Shark Outfitters
Please check out my website for current information: Land Shark Outfitters, this thread is for 100-series owners to talk about their installs & mods.
Current lead time ranges from "In Stock" to "3-4 weeks" depending on the product and how well I am succeeding that week at guessing sales patterns versus supplier workloads.
Introducing the Keep It Simple Storage (KISS) Drawers for 100 & 80 series Land Cruisers & LXs.
This thread is intended to be a technical resource for potential buyers, and a place for owners to share their customizations. For sales please see the upcoming group buy, or my signature.
These drawers were designed with specific goals in mind:
1. Quality & Strength
These are going in the gold standard of trucks for strength and quality, so these needed to match. The wood is Baltic Birch 7-layer plywood - the best plywood you can buy - learn more about it here: Ultimate Guide to Baltic Birch Plywood: Why It’s Better, When to Use It | Woodworkers Source Blog For strength data see the spreadsheet I uploaded in this post: Lessons Learned Designing & Building A Storage Drawer System. Top and front are 15mm (5/8"), drawer sides and bottom are 12mm (7/16"), and all cut on a CNC table for accuracy and repeatability - nothing would end up square if these were cut by hand every time.
The skeleton for the drawers is T-slot extruded anodized aluminum. It is extremely strong for its weight, and allows easy, repeatable connections. These 1" bars have (4) channels the user can attach to for customizing (I'll post examples later in this thread) and are used for the main frame and for squaring and assembling the drawers:
The material has a yield strength of 35,000 lbs/in2 and if you were to place 500 lbs on top of one support, evenly between supports, and there were NO plywood there to help distribute the load, they would deflect only 1/16". There's 3 of them.
2. Minimize weight and cost
Weight and cost are direct results of design decisions. Settling on the extrusions was a huge help in reducing weight (the entire skeleton weighs only 12.2 lbs), but drove up cost: that skeleton costs $160 per set and there's no opportunity to reduce by volume or going to China (quality would suffer at these quantities).
So once you select premium materials the best you can hope for is minimizing the amount of material and extras included in the product. Fortunately goal 5 was to provide a starting point for the user to customize, so these can work in harmony. An example would be flip up access to the sides. While some may want that while they are sleeping in the back, others would never use them as the back would be loaded with gear or have a fridge on top. Adding them would require hinges, structural supports, additional cuts, and assembly steps. Adding that cost and complexity into the build for some but not others was against goals 2 & 5, and not doing so is one of the big reasons why the overall build cost is so low.
3. Anyone can assemble without special skills or tools
I'll admit this gave me more problems than any other part of this project. While I (or you) may be comfortable driving a screw into plywood straight, and building the drawer 'box' square, not everyone is. I built the drawers 5 different ways with different joining systems before settling on what now seems obvious:
It wasn't obvious getting here though, so you can benefit from my R&D now if you want to take the idea and roll your own - I spent $1,051 in R&D for these drawers (you're welcome
Assembly is about as easy as an Ikea desk, so maybe 2 bananas - you need to follow the directions carefully at a couple points, but all you need is a screwdriver (I provide an allen wrench for some of the screws, they are only $0.80 so what the heck) a crescent wrench, and a couple of hours. Detailed instructions will be provided as well as a youtube video. Loctite is recommended if you bounce around a lot.
4. Ships in pieces as a flat-pack
This was an absolute necessity, as shipping costs on full drawers can be as much as the drawers (cheap ones anyway) and stories of damage are prevalent. Carriers are used to handling big flat boxes though, so this way you don't have to drive to Bend, Oregon to pick them up (tho I encourage you to use me as an excuse as there is some gorgeous wheelin around here Shipping dimensions will be around 61"x23"x5" and via FedEx Ground - no freight needed - from Oregon to NY is just $100.
5. Be the best starting point for users to customize to their needs
If you go read 100 threads on storage drawers you'll find 100 different approaches, priorities, and results. It took no time to see that building a system modular & comprehensive enough to meet all needs was going to put them well over $1000 and that was not what I wanted for myself, or for others. That is why this unit ships with only two handle options - with or without a cutout (and after enough orders that will likely settle on one of those). No finishes (see post below about those). No cubby hatches. No organizers. No modules. Just drawers, frame, top.
Current lead time ranges from "In Stock" to "3-4 weeks" depending on the product and how well I am succeeding that week at guessing sales patterns versus supplier workloads.
Introducing the Keep It Simple Storage (KISS) Drawers for 100 & 80 series Land Cruisers & LXs.
This thread is intended to be a technical resource for potential buyers, and a place for owners to share their customizations. For sales please see the upcoming group buy, or my signature.
These drawers were designed with specific goals in mind:
1. Quality & Strength
2. Minimize weight and cost
3. Anyone can assemble without special skills or tools
4. Ships in pieces as a flat-pack
5. The best starting point for users to customize to fit their needs
2. Minimize weight and cost
3. Anyone can assemble without special skills or tools
4. Ships in pieces as a flat-pack
5. The best starting point for users to customize to fit their needs
1. Quality & Strength
These are going in the gold standard of trucks for strength and quality, so these needed to match. The wood is Baltic Birch 7-layer plywood - the best plywood you can buy - learn more about it here: Ultimate Guide to Baltic Birch Plywood: Why It’s Better, When to Use It | Woodworkers Source Blog For strength data see the spreadsheet I uploaded in this post: Lessons Learned Designing & Building A Storage Drawer System. Top and front are 15mm (5/8"), drawer sides and bottom are 12mm (7/16"), and all cut on a CNC table for accuracy and repeatability - nothing would end up square if these were cut by hand every time.
The skeleton for the drawers is T-slot extruded anodized aluminum. It is extremely strong for its weight, and allows easy, repeatable connections. These 1" bars have (4) channels the user can attach to for customizing (I'll post examples later in this thread) and are used for the main frame and for squaring and assembling the drawers:
The material has a yield strength of 35,000 lbs/in2 and if you were to place 500 lbs on top of one support, evenly between supports, and there were NO plywood there to help distribute the load, they would deflect only 1/16". There's 3 of them.
2. Minimize weight and cost
Weight and cost are direct results of design decisions. Settling on the extrusions was a huge help in reducing weight (the entire skeleton weighs only 12.2 lbs), but drove up cost: that skeleton costs $160 per set and there's no opportunity to reduce by volume or going to China (quality would suffer at these quantities).
So once you select premium materials the best you can hope for is minimizing the amount of material and extras included in the product. Fortunately goal 5 was to provide a starting point for the user to customize, so these can work in harmony. An example would be flip up access to the sides. While some may want that while they are sleeping in the back, others would never use them as the back would be loaded with gear or have a fridge on top. Adding them would require hinges, structural supports, additional cuts, and assembly steps. Adding that cost and complexity into the build for some but not others was against goals 2 & 5, and not doing so is one of the big reasons why the overall build cost is so low.
3. Anyone can assemble without special skills or tools
I'll admit this gave me more problems than any other part of this project. While I (or you) may be comfortable driving a screw into plywood straight, and building the drawer 'box' square, not everyone is. I built the drawers 5 different ways with different joining systems before settling on what now seems obvious:
It wasn't obvious getting here though, so you can benefit from my R&D now if you want to take the idea and roll your own - I spent $1,051 in R&D for these drawers (you're welcome
Assembly is about as easy as an Ikea desk, so maybe 2 bananas - you need to follow the directions carefully at a couple points, but all you need is a screwdriver (I provide an allen wrench for some of the screws, they are only $0.80 so what the heck) a crescent wrench, and a couple of hours. Detailed instructions will be provided as well as a youtube video. Loctite is recommended if you bounce around a lot.
4. Ships in pieces as a flat-pack
This was an absolute necessity, as shipping costs on full drawers can be as much as the drawers (cheap ones anyway) and stories of damage are prevalent. Carriers are used to handling big flat boxes though, so this way you don't have to drive to Bend, Oregon to pick them up (tho I encourage you to use me as an excuse as there is some gorgeous wheelin around here
Shipping dimensions will be around 61"x23"x5" and via FedEx Ground - no freight needed - from Oregon to NY is just $100.5. Be the best starting point for users to customize to their needs
If you go read 100 threads on storage drawers you'll find 100 different approaches, priorities, and results. It took no time to see that building a system modular & comprehensive enough to meet all needs was going to put them well over $1000 and that was not what I wanted for myself, or for others. That is why this unit ships with only two handle options - with or without a cutout (and after enough orders that will likely settle on one of those). No finishes (see post below about those). No cubby hatches. No organizers. No modules. Just drawers, frame, top.
The KISS drawers jump start your custom build, not define it
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