How To Build Truck Bed Drawers _ SUV Drawer _ DIY

Hey , everybody .

My name is Chris and this is my shop partner .

And in this video , I'm going to be building a set of truck bed drawers .

Now , I built the same set over five years ago .

Now , it's in the back of my truck still works perfectly fine .

But I really wanted to make a nice quality video and a set of plans to share with you all .

You can find a link to those plans which are on my website down in the description .

They'll let you build the drawers to fit any size truck bed you have or even S U V s .

And since it's November , which means it's Men's Health Awareness Month .

I thought I'd have a little bit of fun .

Support the whole November thing and rock a mustache for this video .

So if you want to see me shave my beard with a plain blade , stick around to the end , we have a lot of fun with that .

It's pretty crazy .

Don't try that at home and a big thank you to Lowe's for sponsoring this video .

Let's get started with the build .

So I have a standard 6.5 ft bed in my truck .

And I'm going to make my drawers around six ft three inches to give me a little bit of room for the tea handles that I'll put on at the end .

Now , I made a straight line guide for my circular saw and I'll clamp it down to the sheet of plywood on my line and I'll get a really nice straight cut that way .

Now , this is the bottom piece and I'm using half inch plywood for both the top and the bottom .

And if you plan on putting super heavy stuff on top , you might want to go with a three quarter inch piece .

Next , I'm going to lay out and counter sync screw holes for the frame .

I'll be using two by eight s to make my frame , but you can make the drawers taller by using two by tens or even two by 12 .

That's going to be up to you and what you plan on keeping in the drawers as well as how much room you want on top of the boos .

And I'm gonna put a screw about every six inches .

Then I'm gonna cut my two by eight to make the frame a full four ft piece will go along the back and then I'll just place my longer pieces in place to get my mark that way .

And I use my speed square to give myself a nice square cut .

Now , you will see me use a variety of tools in this video .

And that's because I wanted to show to you that this can be made with pretty much whatever you have .

You don't necessarily need to have a table saw or a mud side to build these , use whatever you have and feel most comfortable with .

There's always a way to get it done and then I just screw the frame in place .

Now , I'm gonna make the drawer bottoms .

I'm using quarter inch pie for these and I'll set the sheet on top of the frame to get my lay .

I'm gonna cut these about a quarter inch shorter than the frame because later on I'll add stop blocks to the back of the inside of those drawers for the drawer width .

I measure the frame opening and then subtract half an inch .

That's gonna give me a quarter inch gap on each side , which is what we want .

And you'll see why a little bit later on .

Now , I'll use my table saw to rip some one by eight pieces of pine down to six inches wide to make my drawer sides .

If you don't have a table saw , you could just use your circular saw .

But I wanted to show some different methods using the drawer bottom as reference I mark and cut the long sides .

Then I'll measure the inside distance and cut the front and back .

Now , a lot of plywood comes with a good and bad side and I wanted the good side , which is also the smoother side down on these drawers as they'll be sliding on glides .

So I'll flip the drawer bottom over and counter sync all the holes from the underside .

But before I attach the size , I'm gonna put down some carpet .

This stuff is really cheap indoor outdoor carpet that works perfect for this and it keeps your stuff from banging all around .

So I rough cut the carpet to shape , then spray some spray adhesive to keep it from moving around while I screw down the sides .

I also got a really good tip over in my Instagram page where a follower told me that I could just use short staples to hold the carpet in place .

And while we're on the topic of Instagram , I have a link down in the description , feel free to go check me out there and keep up to date with what I'm doing in between these project videos .

And if you end up liking this video and you haven't already , please consider hitting that subscribe button and the bell icon .

So you get notified when I post new videos with the sides attached , it's really easy to trim the carpet .

Now , I want to strengthen the doors a little bit and I'm going to do this by taking a four by four and cutting it diagonally and then screwing that into the corners .

This will also add some extra material that I'll need for my locking mechanism that I'll make later on .

And again , there are several different ways to get any process done .

Then I like to take a sander and round over all the edges .

This will ensure the drawers slide in and out really nicely .

Now , to make the drawer glides , I ordered a one ft by four ft sheet of 3 16 S U H M W plastic to make the glides .

I cut the sheet into one inch strips that I'll use for the glides U H M W has very low friction is very wear resistant and it's self lubricates .

It's the perfect material for this application .

Then I use a drill press to get the exact depth , some countersunk screw holes , you can use a handheld drill here .

But since these are such thin strips , it can be really easy to accidentally drill straight through them .

Since the drawers will be riding on these , you definitely need the screw heads to be below the surface .

I like 3/16 because it's thick enough that I can still get a small half inch screw into , but it's not too thick where I lose drawer space .

Then to help the drawer slide even better .

I add some wax to the underside of the drawer and then give them a little weight test with s then I add a couple guides to the sides of the frame and the back of the drawers .

This is why I made the drawers a half inch narrower than the opening .

And then I'll add spacer blocks to the back of the drawers so that the drawers will push in flush .

Now , using the plywood cut offs from the bottom , I'm gonna make the drawer front .

I want these to be slightly shorter than the full height of the drawer so that they'll slide under the overhang that I create when I put the top on and also not too low that they catch on the tailgate .

When you extend them , I'll line them up and hold them in place with clamps and then just screw them to the drawer .

Next , I'm gonna work on the locking mechanism .

Now , I just went down to my local truck topper shop and was able to buy tea handles with matching keys to the tea handles that are already on my top .

Then I just use this little extra part that it had to mark out the whole locations and then I'll drill those .

So these little tea handles come with these little arms for locking your copper windows , but they're not very strong .

So I'm gonna fabricate something just a little bit better .

I make these little marks every one inch to tell me where I want to bend .

Then I'm gonna drill a hole in the center and then out on each wing and you'll see why in a second , then I'm gonna file the center hole square so that it fits over the square shank of that T handle .

Then I'm going to cut off the arm of that little locking piece that comes with the T handle and use it to secure that new fabricated piece in place .

Now , I want to attach some quarter inch steel rod to that piece that I made so that it will extend through the drawers and into the sides of the frame for a super strong method of locking .

Now , I'm going to put a 90 degree bend in one end , drill a small hole through it and then add a cotter pin to secure it in place .

This is the exact thing that I did to my original set of drawers that I built nearly six years ago .

And I've never had a single problem with this mechanism .

Next I line up where I want the rod to come through the sides of the drawer to line up with the T handle .

And I'll first drill a hole that's the next size up from quarter inch and go all the way through the drawer .

Then from the inside of the drawer , I'll drill a half inch hole about halfway through the rod doesn't travel in a straight line in order to lock .

So you have to enlarge that inside to give it room to pivot as it extends .

It also requires a little bit of filing and bending of the rod to get it tuned up just right .

But once it is , you'll never have to mess with it again and someone will have to take an ax to the doors to get them open .

Then I'll cut the rod flush with the side of the drawer when it's in the unlocked position .

Ok .

So now I need to drill a hole in the frame that matches up with this rod .

And I'm gonna show you a little trick that my grandpa showed me , but involves some lipstick .

So I'm gonna have to go get some of that real quick .

So you take some lipstick , put it on the surface that you want to transfer the mark , bring this in , shut the drawer and push it out and there you can see I made a really nice mark where I need to drill that hole .

Now , all I need to do is sneak that lipstick back in my wife's drawer and everything will be good .

She'll never know .

Yeah , Chris , then I just add the counter pins and the locking mechanism is all done .

Then I'm gonna lay out and install a bunch of different drawer dividers based on what I plan on keeping in my drawers .

The way you lay out your drawers is totally going to be up to you .

I do recommend putting a board across the front to block items from interfering and jamming up that locking mechanism .

Then I just add the top , I'll cut the top about three quarter inches longer than the frame to give it a nice overhang over the drawers and again , I'm gonna add a screw about every six inches .

No .

Now the front edge of these drawers get a lot of abuse from stuff getting thrown in all the time .

So I'm going to add a small half inch aluminum angle to the front edge .

Now I decided to route a small channel so that it'll sit flush and I experimented using rivets to secure it .

And surprisingly , they worked really well .

Me sweet , nice durable edge .

Now for the top , I'm gonna be using that rubberized coating called flex seal .

It's basically like tar and I'll give it a really durable waterproof coating .

I have also used patio and walkway paint before that worked really good and you can even go and get it coated with professional truck bed , Rhino liner if you want .

Then I add a couple of heavy duty handles because you really don't wanna be pulling this thing out and pushing it in by the T handle lock .

Now I'm gonna add a couple of metal brackets to the sides so that I can add some extra pieces of painted plywood to give it a nice flush front once it's sitting in the bed of the truck .

The other nice thing is that now it gives me four nice little cubbies in front of and behind each wheel .

I don't understand why this is , but the tailgate on my newer truck angles up higher than the bed .

It's not on the same plane .

So I have to add these half inch spacers to the bed so that the drawers have enough clearance to clear the tailgate .

My older truck didn't have this problem .

So you may or may not have to do this then to keep the drawers from sliding around .

I use four screws through the bottom of the drawer into the bed of the truck .

Now make sure there aren't any wires where you're screwing and also use a screw that's just barely long enough to make it through .

Same .

And here you can see that the tailgate of the trunk will actually support the weight of the .

Oh , did I mention don't do this at home ?

Oh , my gosh .

The all right .