H3 I want your opinion (good or bad)

I finally got around to redesigning my rear storage. The plan is to have a 2 drawer system that can hold bulky items then on the right side have 2 vertical slides, the inboard one will hold my inverter on the left side and mount larger tools on the right inside. On the right vertical slide inboard will hold more hand tools (screwdrivers, pliers, etc...) on the right side will home more mechanics tools (electric impact wrench, sockets, etc...). On the left side will have a lower slide out for a table top that will have a drain hole and on top will be the slide for the fridge/freezer. The whole thing will mount directly to the rear of the trunk area with the OEM bolts that are already there. Not sure what type of wood I will make it out of yet, obviously I want something sturdy but light weight (not sure I can accomplish those 2 together) I am requesting any opinions which would make my design better.

Forgot to add that the back side would have a small cutout space with a fold down door (lockable) that I can store handguns and ammo.

TIA
Deryl

Strong but light weight? 1/8" hardwood sheet over foam cored or honeycomb composite.

This is very talented work
Very impressive man


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Would you have to fold down the rear seats to get to the pistols?

Great design!

Are you leaving in the rear seats? Remember as you go up you lose depth, and valuable storage, due to the angle of the seatbacks. For tool storage, I'm more of a fan of being able to drag a toolcase/wrap/storage to where I need it vs. grabbing one tool at a time since we're always working on someone else's truck (mine never needs attention!).

I've pondered tool boxes like this many times and for my own consideration, I never got past doing one large drawer to store everything on one plane, maybe 6" deep inside the drawer, plus maybe that side space for the fridge, compressor or whatever. The drawers, while awesome projects, always seem a bit inefficient to me.

Silly..
Honestly...you need a bigger truck.

Looks like a lot of wasted space to me. A simple shelf with short totes underneath or build the rear into a box by adding a two piece hinged shelf and a front. This is what I did with an old cherokee - simple frame, two hinge lids one per side, and a front. Seat backs and interior formed the back, floor and sides. Short pieces of 2x4s attached to the lids the size of my cooler and water jug with multiple eyes for bungee cords. I designed mine with camping gear in mind, you could design something similar for your tools. Your design looks good, but only if you never want to use the rear area for anything else.

Another thought, just build 2 drawers side by side. You will only lose the height of those drawers and still have a large flat area for stuff. You can still build in a small locked space on the seat side and you can strap a freezer/fridge on top when needed, but still have a mostly intact rear hatch area. Here is a random google image of what I'm thinking:

I like here's how I got to where I am
my first design


second design with sliding shelf


guns get carried between the seat and the shelf/drawer. There is a triangle of space between the seat and the shelf. It's perfect for guns because it's completely hidden but easily accessible when stopped.

I originally thought about drawers (even made some) but the issue I ran into was space-use and crap dropped behind the drawer

it's fastened down by panduit straps (mega zip ties) between the floor straps and the legs of the shelf.

I like both of those, skeptic's and SBG's

It really depends on what you're planning on using your H3 for. If it's mostly an offroading/camping rig, then I'd probably go with the more complex/larger setup you've designed there. If it's a daily driver and you're going to need room to put groceries and shopping items and whatnot, then you're probably better off going with something more compact so that you still have plenty of cargo room back there.

Mine is mostly a daily driver so I'm looking at taking some of the 2U server chassis' from work (all dead servers), gutting them completely, and then building new fronts/backs for them and using those plus the rails (ball bearing full extension slides) and then building a frame and topping it with some flooring OSB (the ~7/8" stuff) and probably some carpet on top of that.

The chassis' and slides are free to me, and they fit pretty much perfectly width and depth wise with two next to each other, and I could stack them two high (for a total of four drawers) and still be around only 8" tall including the OSB top. The nice thing about the chassis' is that they have lids that I would still be able to use after modifying them, so it'd help keep the contents of the drawers clean and make sure they slide in OK, plus I can use them as tables when they are pulled out. On top of that it's super easy to pull the chassis' off the rails if I need to clean or anything. I wish I had some 3U or 4U chassis' with ball bearing slides, but all we've got here at work are 1U and 2U. Though a 1U would be perfect for most hand tools and small bits and bobs (2U is twice the height of a 1U).