Arts and Crafts Tool Chest

If you're on dial-up, I'm sorry. This holds the record for my most picture laden post ever. I started a tool chest class at the furniture workshop last weekend. I've been acquiring some really nice tools and really needed something better than this wine box to store them. I've got one chest from my grandmother already, and I plan on racking a bunch of my tools in the new space. This chest just seemed too sexy of an option to hold some of my prized tools though.


We drew wood sets out of a hat, I had helped Alan pick and mill wood for these earlier in the week, I was delighted to find that my number won the set I'd been lusting after, with some dark brown stripes, cream and wormholes. What a good start!

This is the layout of the case, the sides, face, lid front, and drawers have been taken out of the same board sequentially. Milling is an exercise in cautious work, but it pays off.

Dilly-dallying trying to read some really worn marks. Okay back to work.

Dovetailing. This saw should look familiar, this was a breezy job compared to the blanket chest.


After sawing the tails, a fret saw knocks out the bulk of the waste. Note the twist in the blade, to allow the frame to clear the stock, the "back" end of the blade is twisted slightly (very slightly) more. This is so the blade will never dive under the baseline on the back side where I can not see. I've never undercut a baseline with the fretsaw by doing this. and I've started cutting it very close at times.

After the bulk is out paring commences, here the corner of the chisel is used to flick away material down to the scribe line, leaving a shelf for the chisel back to rest upon whilst paring.

Same thing for the front.


All of the tails have been cut, and I've started on the pins. This was the end of the first day.

Baseline pairing for the pins, there's a lot more room to see which is nice, it's a good contrast to the tighter confines between the tails.

After a test fit, some tweaking of the pins was needed. I'm borrowing Mario's Grobet detail file, which I like a lot. It cuts beautifully, and is perfect for fitting these parts. Weird grain direction can cause a chisel to dive or tearout the small amount of material needed to be removed for a good fit. While I'm mentioning files, Alan let me use his 7" Auriou modelers rasp... I want one. it's amazing, and the cut is so smooth. More penny saving I guess.
Smack them home.

Tight, mostly. I'm very happy for this being my third (second major) dovetail project. I can't wait to get my bench finished so I can do more of this.

Sexy hardware. These are Brusso knife hinges for the lid. My students laugh or giggle when I talk about hardware or details being sexy, they just don't know. Many of them just don't understand my Daed Toolworks desktop backgrounds, I can't figure that one out.

Part of the handwork involved with fitting the hinges. I really enjoy fitting hardware.
How's that? I will want to replace these with flat head screws. I'll dig through my hardware boxes and see if I have some.

A fellow student supervises as Alan leads a CA repair to a small crack in the tail due to tight joints and some over-eager smacking. Moisture expansion didn't help.


It came out pretty well I think. I get some crap for sticking with hide glue blindly. But I've really taken to heart what some people like Stephen Shepard have said about hide glue and furniture. I try to avoid it at all costs, even if it makes me an old timer (hoping it does).

We met last Wednesday night to do some more work, but I don't have pictures of that, I'll have another update this weekend when we complete the build. I'm excited to share a set of jigs I built specifically to make nice recessed pulls in the lid and drawers. So don't go far.