I'm finally giving up on my system of a sheet of plywood sitting on top of 6 Brute plastic bins for my sleeping platform and want to make truck drawers for my 6'6" bed Tundra with a topper shell. Gear is just too hard to access and anything commercially available wastes way too much storage volume.
For everyone that's been down this road before what's your list of regrets and wins for what you made?
My two goals are to keep as much usable space as possible and have easy access to gear. This leads me to a few questions:
1. Heavy Duty Full Extension Drawer Slides or plastic slides? Cost isn't a primary motivator but I'm wondering how either of these systems perform when a year of grit is added to them. Also I'm not always parked level, do the easy moving rollers on a purchased slide become hard to manage on truck parked on a slope? Drawer slides give up a bit of storage volume but they seem like they would be way easier to use day to day.
2. Drawer Length? I feel like full length is the way to go. For those that have shorter drawers and a little storage bin behind the drawers with a hatch under the bed, how's that working out? If I go slides, I seem to limited to 60" slides leaving me with a 16" cubby in the front. But full length non-slider drawer are probably hard to manage mostly open as well?
3. Frame Material - For those that have used metal for the frame, how's the noise when driving? Wood seems quieter but eats up more volume. And how hard was it to keep the frame straight to sit evenly? It's a big web to weld that seems pretty hard to wrestle straight.
4. Thinner Material - A lot of the builds I've found use 3/4" plywood just about everywhere but seems overbuilt? Anyone push it too thin? My sleeping deck was 3/4" plywood but I changed it to 1/2" and still seems more than adequate even if its spanned over just 2 bins. Any other non-wood materials to look at? Mostly concerned with saving storage volume but being lighter wont hurt.
Thanks for offering any experiences. I'd love to get this right the first time!
For everyone that's been down this road before what's your list of regrets and wins for what you made?
My two goals are to keep as much usable space as possible and have easy access to gear. This leads me to a few questions:
1. Heavy Duty Full Extension Drawer Slides or plastic slides? Cost isn't a primary motivator but I'm wondering how either of these systems perform when a year of grit is added to them. Also I'm not always parked level, do the easy moving rollers on a purchased slide become hard to manage on truck parked on a slope? Drawer slides give up a bit of storage volume but they seem like they would be way easier to use day to day.
2. Drawer Length? I feel like full length is the way to go. For those that have shorter drawers and a little storage bin behind the drawers with a hatch under the bed, how's that working out? If I go slides, I seem to limited to 60" slides leaving me with a 16" cubby in the front. But full length non-slider drawer are probably hard to manage mostly open as well?
3. Frame Material - For those that have used metal for the frame, how's the noise when driving? Wood seems quieter but eats up more volume. And how hard was it to keep the frame straight to sit evenly? It's a big web to weld that seems pretty hard to wrestle straight.
4. Thinner Material - A lot of the builds I've found use 3/4" plywood just about everywhere but seems overbuilt? Anyone push it too thin? My sleeping deck was 3/4" plywood but I changed it to 1/2" and still seems more than adequate even if its spanned over just 2 bins. Any other non-wood materials to look at? Mostly concerned with saving storage volume but being lighter wont hurt.
Thanks for offering any experiences. I'd love to get this right the first time!
