Cable control for a pull-out shelf

Step 2 Make the arm

The next thing to do is fabricate the arms.

For each drawer, you'll need two arms. In my case, they're all 12" long to start. Cut them with your favorite tool of destruction (in my case, a hacksaw). You don't need to be too neat here as you're about to change all the shapes with a grinder anyway.

Once you've got your arms cut to length, you'll need to cut down and reshape the ends. The first cut is to remove some (about 1") of the center stock to allow for cable movement when the arm articulates. The easiest way (for me, at least) was to cut along the sides of the C channel with right-hand and left-hand tin snips (to get right up against the sides). Once that's cut, it's a simple matter to bend the excess material until it snaps at the fold (don't worry about the rough edge; it'll get ground down when you trim it up with a grinder).

The next step is to round the ends where the arms meet the connection pieces. They need to move cleanly and rounding them makes for easy movement of the hinge joint. You can get fancy here and create a template for rounding, but drawing it freehand works just as well. Also, if you want save yourself a little time and effort, take your tin snips and cut the corners off before you finish rounding with the grinder. I found that using the tin snips first makes the final rounding much, much faster.

The last thing you'll need to do is drill the holes for the pop rivets where the connectors will be attached. Because our C channel is 3/4" on the inside dimension, it'll fit perfectly over a piece of scrap 1" stock. With the C channel mated up with a piece of scrap, use the center punch to position 4 holes for the connectors. Once these are riveted into place, they'll serve as the articulation points for the arm. Drill the holes out with the 1/8" bit.