Deep door tool cabinets

I built these two tool cabinets some time back out of prefinished 3/4” birch plywood. Having 3/4” ply on the back gives me plenty of depth to attach tools in various configurations.

The doors on these are 4” deep. On the right unit, whose interior I didn’t photograph, I attached plywood panels on internal hinges that let them swing clear of the door. This gives me three surfaces to hang tools on—the inside of the door and both sides of the panel. And of course the interior of the cabinet provides plenty of space.

The doors are held to the cabinet bodies with magnets and so are the internal panels. Opening the doors is easily done by pulling gently on the bottom—no handles or pulls needed.

In the left unit I keep all of my router bits, jigs, handheld and other accessories. I had some fun book matching the drawer fronts and making beveled pulls.

Rather than use slides for these drawers, I used a solution that I wish I’d known about when I made some other shop drawers. The bottoms are cut oversized so that they can ride in a kerf on either side. I used hard board for those—the shiny side glides nicely and the other, rougher side, provides some “grip” so that the contents don’t slide around.

These are spaced closely together with a dust collection pipe drop in between. This inhibits the range of two of the doors somewhat, but there’s still plenty of room to maneuver.

I’ve replaced the hook you see hanging my expandable hose since taking these photos. I now have one of those fittings you plug the dust rite handle into while the DC is running to shrink up the hose. The bag from an old expandable camping chair encircles the hose and I can pull the draw string to keep it at minimal size once the DC is off. This ensures full access to the other DC ports from the drop in the middle, especially the floor sweep, which can be obstructed by a sagging hose.

My router table is right in front of the cabinet, so I have it at my back while routing and can simply turn around to grab/store wrenches, bits, bushings, and other accessories.