Birch Plywood Shop Storage Drawer Box: A Small Parts Organizer Build

This is a small, shop-made storage box built from birch plywood: two stacked drawers sized to sit on top of a rolling tool cart, for keeping small hand tools and hardware close at hand at the bench. It’s a simple, functional build rather than a showpiece, but the joinery and drawer construction are worth documenting for anyone who wants a compact, custom-sized alternative to a generic parts bin.

Finished Project Overview

The finished piece is a two-drawer plywood box with a darker wood edge trim framing the drawer faces for contrast against the lighter birch plywood carcase. It sits directly on top of a rolling Husky tool chest next to the bench vise, putting small tools within arm’s reach while working. In the photos, the bottom drawer holds a small set of marking/scoring tools and a hand-plane blade, a good fit for the kind of small, easily-lost hardware and hand tools that tend to get buried in a bigger drawer.

Two-drawer birch plywood storage box with dark wood edge trim sitting atop a rolling tool cart, bottom drawer open showing marking gauges and a hand-plane blade — The finished birch plywood storage drawer box mounted on top of a rolling tool chest, bottom drawer open to show small hand-tool storage.

Dimensions & Specifications

Exact outer dimensions, drawer dimensions, and plywood thickness were not recorded for this build. From the photos, it’s a compact box, roughly proportioned to sit fully within the footprint of a standard rolling tool cart top, with two similarly-sized stacked drawer openings.

Materials

Birch plywood: carcase, drawer boxes, and drawer faces
Darker wood edge trim/banding around the drawer faces (species not confirmed; it reads as a walnut-toned trim in the photos, but this hasn’t been verified)
Titebond III Ultimate wood glue, used for the carcase glue-up

Fasteners, drawer-slide hardware (if any), and finish/topcoat are not documented in the available photos.

Tools

Visible in the build photos: a bench vise (used to hold parts during assembly), blue painter’s tape (used as a light clamping aid on the joints), and Titebond III Ultimate wood glue. No cut list or full tool list was recorded for this build.

Design Considerations

The drawer faces are framed in a contrasting darker wood trim, which is the main design choice visible in the finished piece. It gives an otherwise plain plywood box a cleaner, more finished look without a full veneer or paint job. Sizing the box to match a rolling tool cart’s footprint turns it into a “topper” that adds dedicated small-parts storage without needing separate floor space.

Build Process

The carcase corners use a rabbet-style joint cut into the plywood, visible clearly in the close-up detail shots below. Joints were glued with Titebond III Ultimate and, on at least one corner, reinforced with blue painter’s tape while the glue cured rather than mechanical clamps, a simple approach that works well on small plywood carcases like this one.

Close-up of a rabbet-style corner joint inside the birch plywood carcase, showing plywood ply layers and grain — Detail of the corner joinery used to assemble the plywood carcase.

Interior corner of the birch plywood carcase during glue-up, with a bottle of Titebond III Ultimate wood glue visible in the background — Assembling the carcase joints with Titebond III Ultimate wood glue.

Close-up of a glued plywood joint reinforced with blue painter's tape while the glue cures — Blue tape used to hold a corner joint tight while the glue sets.

Open plywood carcase with corner joints wrapped in blue painter's tape during glue-up — The carcase taped at the corners while the glue cures on the shop storage box.

After the carcase was assembled, the two drawer openings were built out with a center shelf divider. The photos show the carcase interior fully glued up and taped at the corners, with small red rubber pads placed at a few points inside, likely spacers or protective pads related to the drawer runners or a clamping caul, though their exact purpose wasn’t recorded.

Interior view of the open two-compartment plywood carcase with taped corner joints, before the drawer boxes were fitted — The carcase interior after glue-up, ready for the drawer boxes to be fitted.

Front view into the open plywood carcase compartments with small red rubber pads placed in the corners — A front view of the carcase interior; the red pads mark hardware or spacer locations (purpose not confirmed).

Angled view into the open plywood carcase showing the center shelf divider and visible plywood edge grain — An angled look at the carcase construction, showing plywood edge grain and the shelf divider.

The individual drawer boxes were built and labeled before final fitting. One photo shows a drawer part marked “TF – Top” and another marked “BF – Bottom” in pencil on masking tape, a simple way to keep the correct face oriented during glue-up on a small part where it would otherwise be easy to mix up.

Plywood drawer parts labeled 'TF - Top' and 'BF - Bottom' in marker on masking tape, staged for assembly — Drawer parts labeled to keep top and bottom faces oriented correctly during assembly.

Challenges & Solutions

No build notes documenting specific challenges or mistakes were available for this project. Based on the photos alone, the taped (rather than clamped) joints and the labeled drawer parts suggest a build done carefully in small steps to keep a small part’s orientation and joints correct, which is a reasonable approach for a piece this size.

Lessons Learned

Not documented for this build. No build notes or write-up were available beyond the photos.

Cost & Build-Time Observations

Material cost and build time were not recorded for this project.

Finished Project Gallery

Birch plywood storage drawer box on a workbench with the top drawer open revealing marking gauges and a blade, and the bottom drawer removed and set beside it — A closer look at the drawer box with one drawer pulled fully out to show the plain plywood drawer-box construction.

Birch plywood storage drawer box beside a bench vise with the bottom drawer removed and empty, showing the open drawer opening — The bottom drawer fully removed, showing the drawer opening and carcase construction.

Related Projects

This box was built for a rolling shop tool cart, and pairs naturally with other shop-organization builds. See the shop storage and tool-organization projects on this site for related ideas.

Note: this project is separate from an earlier, still-in-progress birch plywood compartment box project. They are two distinct builds and are not the same piece.