Schuler Customs

Building a Small Birch Plywood Shop Cabinet: Carcase and Drawer Assembly

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Not every shop project gets photographed at the finish line. This one is a small birch plywood cabinet, built for shop storage, caught at the carcase-and-drawer stage, before any doors, finish, or trim went on. The photos that exist show real, useful information: how the case went together, how the drawer was dry-fit before its front was sized, and how the drawer slides were mounted and tested. That’s what this post documents.

Plywood cabinet carcase with its drawer pulled open on full-extension slides, photographed near the open garage door
The drawer riding on full-extension slides, tested before the case is finished out.

What’s Being Built

The piece is a compact, roughly cube-proportioned cabinet case built from birch plywood, with one drawer opening near the bottom and an open shelf compartment above it. It was assembled on a portable workbench in the garage, then moved near the open garage door for a couple of the in-progress shots.

Exact final dimensions, board footage, and the piece’s intended location/use were not captured in any photo.

Angled overhead view into the open plywood cabinet carcase showing the internal shelf divider with the drawer removed
Looking into the open carcase with the drawer removed, showing the internal shelf divider.

Materials

  • Birch plywood: used for the case sides, back, and drawer box. The plywood shows the light, fine-grained face typical of birch (or a birch-faced) plywood, consistent with the tag already in use on other posts for this material.
  • Drawer hardware: a full-extension drawer slide pair, visible mounted and tested in one photo.
  • Various shop hardware (screws, a Kreg pocket-hole jig and clamps) visible on the workbench during assembly.

Plywood grade/thickness and any hardware brand/model numbers were not confirmed from the photos.

Build Process

  1. Carcase assembly. The case sides, back, and an internal shelf divider were joined into a squarish box, creating a drawer opening at the bottom and an open shelf compartment above it.
  2. Drawer box construction and dry-fit. A separate, shallower plywood drawer box was built and dry-fit into the lower opening to check fit before the drawer front was finished to size.
  3. Drawer slide installation. A pair of full-extension drawer slides was mounted inside the case, and the drawer was tested extended on the slides, visible working smoothly in one of the photos.
Birch plywood cabinet carcase on a workbench with a dry-fit drawer box sitting in the lower opening
Carcase assembled with the drawer box dry-fit into the lower opening before final drawer-front sizing.
Front view of the plywood cabinet carcase with drawer hardware and screws laid out on the workbench beside it
Drawer slides and hardware staged on the bench during assembly.

That’s the extent of what the available photos document. No photos show door/front installation, finish application, or a completed piece.

What’s Not Yet Shown

This project’s photo set stops mid-build. There’s no finished, styled, or installed shot in this folder, which makes this article different from a typical project showcase. It’s closer to a documented step in an ongoing build. If more photos exist showing the piece finished, adding them would let this post be rewritten as a full project feature rather than a partial build log.