Tool Chest Build W.I.P.

[woodiedonald]

Hi all,

I've started a new project and I thought I might as well take a few pics along the way and put them up here. I'm making a tool chest for storing hand tools only. It will stay in the workshop most of the time and may be taken with me if I'm working away from the workshop for whatever reason. I'm making it a bit bigger than what I need just to make sure there's room for all the bits and pieces and so its not cramped for space inside.

I've only started this evening and have only got as far as the rough cuts and a bit of re-glueing (see below). I hope some of you may find this thread of interest and I hope it helps someone who is doing the same or something similar.

Right, here we go.

First I cross cut the stock to a bit over the length I wanted. I am working with 6" x 1" planed white deal. I am going to have the finished chest approx 900 x 400 x 350 mm overall and I can get the height of it from 2 1/2 boards and have a thin strip left over. I will put the half board in the middle just to keep the joints looking even.

I had the misfortune of having a board that on one end was cracked most of the way through and when I was cross cutting the pieces I noticed that the crack went back together pretty well just with hand pressure so I decided to cut the length I needed from it and chance glueing it back together. Here are the two offending pieces. I think I'll have to keep them at the back even though they seemed to fit back together well.

Here is a close up of the board clamped together, I think there was no glue in it at the time this photo was taken but I'm not sure, It did go back together pretty well though, honestly!

The nib of the pencil is right on the crack, if you follow the grain to the left you can just about see the crack but its not that bad.

And my last picture of this evening, the two offending articles in the clamps. I forgot to wipe the glue off the one side on the one on the right, but I'm sure it'll be fine.

More to follow when I get around to It!

Cheers,
Donald.

 

[Vic Perrin]

=D> Keep this going Donald I look forward to seeing the finished chest =D>

Vic

 

[Harbo]

Are you going to biscuit the boards or just glue them?

Looks like you are working in a very dusty environment?

Rod

 

[woodiedonald]

Thanks Vic and Rod, I will probably just glue them, maybe a T&G. And the dust is all good dust, :wink: Most of its from greenwood turning and the last pic with the cracked boards against the wall is where me chopsaw normally is so hence the dust there. Chopsaws don't seem to do dust collection, at least not too much for me anyway.

Today I planed the edges of the boards ready for joining. The first thing I wanted to do was make sure the grain on the face side was all going the same way to make it easier to surface the boards after glueing up.

The next thing to do was plane the edges flat. I find that when you fold the two boards over on themselves to plane the two edges at the same time, if you put the same side (i.e. put the convex faces together or the convex faces together) of the cupped boards together it will help it stay a little bit more flat overall and even though the surface will undulate a bit more it will be more flat overall but wont be smooth to the hand and curved round if that makes sense?

A picture tells a thousand words, this would be how it is looking at the end grain of the boards.

Heres my old record no7 planing the boards, this plane is actually a little bit different to a normal plane, it just goes by itself, give it a shout and tell it what to plane and it just does it for you, takes itself up off the bench and all.

I should add that a useful tip I've come across is to put the edges you want to plane down towards the bench, get the two pieces roughly aligned and then put two small clamps on them. This will help getting the two boards into the vice at the one time and hold the ends together which stick out over the end of the vice.

If you want the edge joints to be accurate, i.e. no gaps it helps to lay the boards across two straight pieces of wood and this will keep the faces of the boards relatively flat and you can examine the edge joints and adjust as necessary with the plane.

Here's the front and back planed up ready for glueing. I did the same for the sides.

All of the boards stacked up ready to be glued.

 

[tobytools]

I follow this wip with great interest.
Keep it comming
TT

 

[rafezetter]

Daft question maybe but what's "white planed deal"?

 

[woodiedonald]

Daft question maybe but what's "white planed deal"?

White deal is a type of wood, Norway spruce I think would be another name for it. Planed just means it was already pre planed when I bought it leaving me with less work to do.

Cheers,
Donald.

 

[woodiedonald]

Just a small update now, The sides have been glued up and are out of the clamps and the front and back panels are in the clamps now. The sides turned out well, just need to flatten them now.

 

[rafezetter]

White deal is a type of wood (yeah, got that bit), Norway spruce I think would be another name for it. Planed just means it was already pre planed when I bought it leaving me with less work to do (heh, got that bit too ).

Cheers,
Donald.

*chuckle*

 

[woodiedonald]

*chuckle*

:-s

Anyway, I have all the panels flattened now,

crosscut to length

Chest finished :!: I wish, only getting an idea of the size of it, looks ok.

Dovetails started 8-[

Pins first

A somewhat decent fit.

Enough for one day!

ccasion5:,
Donald

 

[tobytools]

Excellent progress

TT

 

[DTR]

Watching with interest, I do admire a good tool chest, especially when it's hand built

 

[Mike.S]

Daft question maybe but what's "white planed deal"?

White deal is a type of wood, Norway spruce I think would be another name for it.

A chippie once told me my window frames were made from Deal and I subsequently learned from my local timber yard that it's usually a reference to European Redwood, also known as Scots Pine.

Spruce is also known as 'whitewood' to differentiate it from 'redwood'. Which wood you have I wouldn't know from the pic. #-o

 

[woodiedonald]

All the dovetails are done now,

making the groove for the bottom panel,

Its a stopped groove on the fornt and back panels, I did most of the stopped groove with the plough and fonished off the ends with a chisel. Here's a view from inside.

I glued up a bottom panel in the same way as the sides and flattened it. Then I made some rebates to make it fit into the sides.

Thats it for today.

Cheers,
Donald

 

[Woodmonkey]

Looking good, nice to see the hand tools used. One question, using a solid bottom rebated on all edges isn't there a risk of it pushing the joints apart if it expands?

 

[woodiedonald]

Looking good, nice to see the hand tools used. One question, using a solid bottom rebated on all edges isn't there a risk of it pushing the joints apart if it expands?

Thanks, good question, I'll leave it a bit short on the long grain edge by maybe 1/8" to allow for expansion. I don't think there'd really be enough force to push it apart or do too much damage though.

Cheers
Donald

 

[woodiedonald]

Bottom fitted and chest in clamps,

4 pieces cut out for frame of top

Making the groove for the top panel and what the tenon haunches will sit into.

Haunch and mortice space laid out

Mortice cut

Measuring shoulder distance for tenons.

Tenon cut, pending trimming.

 

[dm65]

Looking good Donald - I'll show you mine when I get past resawing and planning :-(

 

[morfa]

Looks really nice. Are you planning on having trays/dividers in there?

 

[woodiedonald]

Looks really nice. Are you planning on having trays/dividers in there?

Thanks, It will have two full width trays and probably dividers at the bottom to hold planes in place. (Well I think so, will see when I get that far!)

edit; Sorry Den, missed your comment. Thanks and I had a lot of "thinking time" (a.k.a. procrastination) as I call it before this project started.

Cheers,
Donald