Antique Store Find: Toolbox

[Jared McMahon]

While innocently minding my own business, I accidentally wound up in an antique store over the weekend walking out with a large toolbox. The tag said it dates from 1885 and comes from Oklahoma, though there's nothing on the box itself to confirm that. The only markings I see are someone's name scrawled on the inside of the lid; a bit hard to read but it's something on the order of Caley Peterson.

It's fairly simple, nothing fancy. If I had to hazard a guess about the wood, I would say it's a lot of good clear pine or something very similar. Construction is mostly nails. The top and bottom are each two boards doweled together, and both have separated 1/8" to 1/4" but not enough to jeopardize the integrity of the overall structure. It's sound and solid, stained and dirty but still up to its job. It has two basic sliding tills with trays, no drawers.

Found inside are a collection of rusted out tools. The crosspeen hammer, one-man crosscut saw, and one of the full-sized handsaws might be salvageable. It would be fun to try my hand at sharpening the crosscut saw; it has around 3-4" of standard handsaw teeth at the toe and the rest I believe are referred to as M teeth, but I'm getting beyond my depth on this.

It's a nice piece, and saves me the trouble of building a saw till, something which I've been meaning to do for maybe two years now. It wasn't a complete steal but I didn't get ripped off either, so all in all I'm a happy camper.

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[Jim Paulson]

Pretty neat find. It has plenty of storage and the trays look very intact.

[Brander Roullett]

Great find!

[Phil Thien]

I'm surprised the sides are mitered together and it has help up as well as it has.

Or are those mitered dovetails (that would be showing off, now wouldn't it?).

[john brenton]

I don't know too much about saws, but that could be a fantastic user or maybe even worth a little money. If you know to rehab a saw that lloks like a perfect candidate. I'd love to know more about it and see it cleaned up. Can we get some more pics of it?

[Jared McMahon]

Regarding the corners, I believe they're just mitered and nailed. If there are dovetails anywhere in the case's construction, they're full-blind and not at all obvious. And I have *no* idea how the thing held together this long. It was actually kept on a patio exposed to a courtyard in the middle of the store (the building is laid out very oddly, I'm not sure what it was originally) so except for a high overhang and a net to keep pigeons out, it's been exposed to the elements for probably a number of years in that spot. Myself and a fairly young store employee hefted it down the stairs and into my car using the beefy metal handles on the sides and it never felt fragile or creaky at all.

As to the saw in the photo, I'm going to take a light touch with that one. The handle is very nicely shaped and has a good hang. It also has a medallion I haven't seen before. It has the usual "Warranted Superior" on it but also a crest and motto on it, similar to the large one depicted here:

http://www.wkfinetools.com/cCorner/c_BrickhouseF/saws/Tillstson/0_img/TTillston-Handle-Left.jpg

It has split nuts and a nib, so I figured I would take my time cleaning it up just in case it proves to be interesting. I assumed the crosscut saw was a complete loss so I dove right in with cleaning it, and to my amazement it might end up being very healthy. The only really substantial pitting is one section near the top edge, and I even uncovered an etch that had been completely obscured. It's not fully cleaned and it might be too light to photograph even once I'm done, but I found a picture of an identical one:

http://www.backsaw.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=129&d

There's another handsaw that looks like it's almost completely rust at this point but who knows. There's also a Disston hacksaw that I'm not sure what to do with just yet.

I'll try to post a few more pictures tomorrow.

[Phil Thien]

Well, I suppose nails from both directions would hold pretty well. After all, I was working on some trim in the basement yesterday that was sort of attached in the same manner and decided not to try to disassemble it because I thought I'd murder it.

I think sometimes we don't give credit to basic building techniques.

OTOH, I still wonder if there aren't dovetails hidden in that joint. Any chance you could take a closer look at the inside of the corner? If the joint line seems uniformly jagged on the inside, then the case is dovetailed.

Or maybe it is splined and they used hide glue.

In any regard, it is a very nice chest.

[Jared McMahon]

A directory of images of the chest, the crosscut saw, and the presumably-English handsaw:

http://assets.low-boy.net/img/20110927/

(The images are large, I figured I wouldn't cram them into forum posts)

I've found the barest shadow of an etch on the handsaw, two concentric ovals, but no idea yet what it might be.

[Don Dorn]

I know that Chris Schwarz says to use dovetails for the case contruction for strength, and I agree that would be best. However, I also think that rabbets using square cut nails (placed in at slight dovetail angles )would also hold as well. It's an old time joint and the wood would have to fail in order for the joint to fail. It's not as sexy, but would as strong I believe. I built a toybox a couple of years ago using that method and nails and I'm confident the only way to get it apart would be to burn it. The OPs chest and known conditions of it help drive that home.

Have been thinking about making the Schwarz tool chest and frankly can't decide which way to go for the joint. I'll probably dovetail it, but don't believe I'd be at any loss for strength using the above method - it was done for years.

[Phil Thien]

Looking at the pics I see wire nails. I guess that means the box was made sometime after 1890. Are there any cut nails on the unit (maybe the wire nails were added later by someone trying to repair the unit)?