My wife and I really enjoy cooking, so we have a lot of spices. We have a fairly small kitchen so we need to maximize our counter space for work areas. We had our spices in a cabinet but hated that they took up an entire shelf. We were looking for a spice rack that drops down from under the cabinet, but didn't find any we liked so we came up with this. The spice jars have a small flat Neodymium magnet glued onto the top and we mounted a sheet of metal to the underside of the cabinet from which the spices hang.
This setup unfortunately adds a little inconvenience because you need to affix a magnet to the top of every new spice jar. To make it as painless as possible we have a little bag in our junk drawer with the glue and magnets ready to go.
This setup unfortunately adds a little inconvenience because you need to affix a magnet to the top of every new spice jar. To make it as painless as possible we have a little bag in our junk drawer with the glue and magnets ready to go.
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Magnets
We ordered 100 3/8 in x 1/16 in Thick, Grade N42, Rare Earth Neodymium Disc Magnets from Magnet 4less for $9.00.
http://www.magnet4less.com/product_info.php?cPath=1_11&products_id=107
Glue
We went through a lot of different types of glues trying to find one that worked well bonding metal to plastic. I didn't want to use epoxy just to avoid mixing. We settled on plain old Krazy Glue and then Loctite Super Glue once we ran out of the former. They both worked equally as well.
We had 28 spice jars and with through a whole bottle of Krazy Glue and a half bottle of the Loctite. The Loctite had a much larger size (20g) than I could find for Krazy Glue (5g).
Metal
We ordered two custom-cut metal A366/1008 0.0359" (20 ga.) cold roll steel sheets from OnlineMetals.com for $28.51. Just a friendly reminder, make sure to measure twice before placing your metal order! Also, make sure to measure the area where you want to mount the metal, not the actual cabinet dimensions, and take a little off for a safety margin.
We went with cold roll over stainless for two reasons. The sheet would be mounted under the cabinet and not seen, so no need to get the "prettier" metal. Second, and most important, the cold roll steel has a much stronger attraction with magnets, compared to almost none with stainless steel. I think the cold roll can rust up, but I'm not sure how much of a problem that will become.
http://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cfm?pid=12780&step=4&showunits=inches&id=944&top_cat=197
Screws and Washers
We had plenty of screws and washers left over from other projects so we just used the ones that looked best. Pick screws that are short enough that they don't go up through the bottom of the cabinet. If you don't have any short ones just cut a long one down and drill a pilot hole.
We ordered 100 3/8 in x 1/16 in Thick, Grade N42, Rare Earth Neodymium Disc Magnets from Magnet 4less for $9.00.
http://www.magnet4less.com/product_info.php?cPath=1_11&products_id=107
Glue
We went through a lot of different types of glues trying to find one that worked well bonding metal to plastic. I didn't want to use epoxy just to avoid mixing. We settled on plain old Krazy Glue and then Loctite Super Glue once we ran out of the former. They both worked equally as well.
We had 28 spice jars and with through a whole bottle of Krazy Glue and a half bottle of the Loctite. The Loctite had a much larger size (20g) than I could find for Krazy Glue (5g).
Metal
We ordered two custom-cut metal A366/1008 0.0359" (20 ga.) cold roll steel sheets from OnlineMetals.com for $28.51. Just a friendly reminder, make sure to measure twice before placing your metal order! Also, make sure to measure the area where you want to mount the metal, not the actual cabinet dimensions, and take a little off for a safety margin.
We went with cold roll over stainless for two reasons. The sheet would be mounted under the cabinet and not seen, so no need to get the "prettier" metal. Second, and most important, the cold roll steel has a much stronger attraction with magnets, compared to almost none with stainless steel. I think the cold roll can rust up, but I'm not sure how much of a problem that will become.
http://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cfm?pid=12780&step=4&showunits=inches&id=944&top_cat=197
Screws and Washers
We had plenty of screws and washers left over from other projects so we just used the ones that looked best. Pick screws that are short enough that they don't go up through the bottom of the cabinet. If you don't have any short ones just cut a long one down and drill a pilot hole.
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Let me just give you two tips: when drilling through sheet metal, the drill bit tends to dance around the spot where you actually want to drill (I think they like to tease us): to avoid this, get a nail and hammer a small dent exactly where you want to drill.
The other one is that the metal will probably rust, especially because it's in a kitchen. You can either varnish the sheets with a thin layer, just to stop moisture and oxygen from reaching the metal, or you could get galvanized steel, since it won't rust. : )
As far as lids and such go; we get our spices from the previously mentioned site (they're wonderful!) or we get them from our local Winco store where they have a fairly large bulk foods department which includes a good sized bulk spice section. They also sell different sized plastic spice bottles for very reasonable prices. I would think that using lightweight plastic spice containers would help to ensure that the magnet would stick to the steel plate and not pull loose because of heavy glass containers.