Wooden Inside Dimension Tool And Closet Square

Houses aren't built by cabinet makers.   Drawer slides have to be parallel and square with the front frame or the drawers won't work.   When you put drawers in any part of a house (closet, pantry, etc.) you usually have to shim the slides to get them parallel.   To do this you need to acurately measure the inside width of the closet, front and back to see how much you have to adjust (shim) for drawer slides.   You also need to measure whether the sides of the closet are square with it's front.   I came up with this tool to accomplish the width measurement.   It's just a few pieces of 1x2 and two dowels.   I loosen the wing nut on the carriage bolt, extend the tool until it is against both sides of the opening, then tighten the wing nut.   I measure the tool, end to end, and I have the width of the opening.  

I cut a piece of 1x2 about 20" long, then drilled two 1/4" 9" deep holes, down it's length.   I also cut a short piece of 1x2 about 1-3/47quot; log and drilled two 1/4" holes from end to end.   I cut two 1/4" dowels about 11" long and glued them into the shorter end-piece of 1x2.   I cut a slot down edge of the long piece of 1x2 to allow for clamping the dowels.   I drilled a 3/8" hole through the piece and between the long 1/4" holes for a carriage bolt, then added a washer and a wing nut.   So far I have a couple of these end-pieces for wider and narrower openings.   I have made a shorter vesion of the IdTool and an extension to give me more flexibility.  

Closet Square
I also made a tool to check the square of the sides to the front frame of a closet, its just a large square, roughly 'T' shaped.   Here are some pics of the Closet Square.

The longer Inside Dimension Tool.   I just used it to measure the width of the main bay in a loading bench, at the front and back, to be sure I don't have to shim the slides.   I originally built it for measuring widths of Betty's closet drawers.

The wing nut is tight, you can see the slot is compressed.

The tool with the slider pulled out.

Close up.   The slider is out, you can see the ends of the dowels, the holes in the main body for the dowels, the slot that allows the dowels to be clamped, and the carriage bolt and wing nut.

Extend the tool end util its against the both inside sides.   Then tighten the wing nut, and measure the length of the tool.

Here is a shorter version being used to measure a pantry for sliding shelves.

Here I'm getting the width of the shorter tool from the pantry.

I made an extension for the shorter tool, for measuring intermediate widths.   BTW, this extension can be used with the Closet Square for wide closets.

The connecting dowels in the extension.   I drilled the 1/4" dowel holes completely through the longer piece then cut and extension and cut two shorter dowels which are glued into the extension and fit into the bottom of the main IdTool.   The extension has to be just tight enough to stay put while measuring.

The short IdTool and it's extension.

Here is the Closet Square as I call it, sitting on a work bench.   The bottom piece is placed against the front of a closet or cabinet (with door removed) and with the vertical piece sticking back to ward the back of the closet.   While in place against the front of a closet, measure from the bar sticking back into the closet to the side wall at the front and back of the closet.   What you need is the difference in the two measurements   Then turn it around and measure the opposite wall.

The Closet Square along with a large square I bought from Lowes, a long time ago.   The only problem with the aluminum square is the leg (vertical in pic) is too short to get a measurement at the back of a closet.

You can see the slots I machined in the two joining ends to glue the triangular fillet so it holds a reasonable square angle for measuring.

Here is how it was used to measure one wall of the linen closet for the sliding shelf project.   Its hard to see the far left frame of the closet front but the short leg is against it and the right end is against the front other side.   Thats what I want the drawers to be square with. BTW: When I need to measure a wide closet I add the extension from the ID Tool the the right end of the front piece.