Ben Ellenberger
11-20-2022, 9:24 PM
I guess I’m making early Christmas presents this year. My friend has a weekend place in the mountains. It has a 10x10 shed that is full of tools, supplies, bikes, etc. Things are a little chaotic, so I decided this was a good excuse to make a tool chest to help get it organized. This will have two drawers on the top, and the bottom will be a single large compartment for bigger tools. It is going to end up about 20” wide x 16” high x 11” deep. The two drawers will be 2 1/4” deep.
I picked through Home Depot’s 1x12 pine boards and found the least horrible ones. In hindsight, I think I would have been better picking out narrower boards and gluing them up to get my width. These are full of knots and I had to stop and re-sharpen my plane while flattening and thicknessing them. I broke down the pieces for the case and flattened one side. When I came back the next day a few had cupped pretty badly, so I had another round of flattening and thicknessing Saturday morning to get them ready for joinery. I marked where I wanted my tails but didn’t mark the angles on the boards. I clamped the boards together and gang-cut the dovetails. I checked after cutting and was pretty consistent with my angles, which were a little bit fatter than my dovetail marker (which I think I made with a 1 in 7 angle).
I used a coping saw to take out most of the waste before chiseling the rest away. Working in pine is nice, all of the joinery goes really quickly and is more forgiving than cherry. Marking and cutting the pins also went quick. One of the boards had a split propagating out from a knot, so I decided to put a graving piece in to keep it from getting worse. While I was doing that I decided to reinforce another bad spot in one of the other boards. I put those in last night and left the pieces overnight with a clamp to help close up the crack.
490199490200490201
This morning I cut out the dividers for the drawers. I had picked out a board that had some nice straight grain that will work well for these dividers and some of the drawer parts. In pine I think it is easiest to cut the sliding dovetails entirely with a chisel. I marked the angles I wanted on both edges of the piece then chopped and pared down to the line. I used a 1 1/4” chisel to Pare down to my lines.
I cut the slots of the dovetails with a saw, then removed waste and chopped to full depth with a chisel. I used a small router plane to get the slots to full depth. Each one took several round of test fitting and paring the tails to get them to seat fully.
I decided to cut rabbets in the top and bottom to receive the back. Rabbets in the side would leave holes I’d need to plug, so I’ll glue cleats on the sides instead. I’m still getting the hang of using this rabbet plane. I marked my lines with a marking gauge. I tried to start the plane using my fingers as a gauge, just using the corner of the plan for a few strokes to establish a groove, then slowly tilting it to vertical. I managed to go way past my line on the first one. I adjusted the second one to get closer to matching depth, but I’ll need to make a shim to correct the depth of the first one.
everything glued up pretty easily. I made my tails wide so I was able to put a clamp on each tail to get it fully seated. I had a clamp across the carcass when putting the dividers in to correct a slight bow in the sides. Once the dividers were seated I could take the clamp off and put it on the last dovetail. Family will be visiting over Thanksgiving, so this will probably sit for a week before I’m able to get back to it.
490203490204490205
I picked through Home Depot’s 1x12 pine boards and found the least horrible ones. In hindsight, I think I would have been better picking out narrower boards and gluing them up to get my width. These are full of knots and I had to stop and re-sharpen my plane while flattening and thicknessing them. I broke down the pieces for the case and flattened one side. When I came back the next day a few had cupped pretty badly, so I had another round of flattening and thicknessing Saturday morning to get them ready for joinery. I marked where I wanted my tails but didn’t mark the angles on the boards. I clamped the boards together and gang-cut the dovetails. I checked after cutting and was pretty consistent with my angles, which were a little bit fatter than my dovetail marker (which I think I made with a 1 in 7 angle).
I used a coping saw to take out most of the waste before chiseling the rest away. Working in pine is nice, all of the joinery goes really quickly and is more forgiving than cherry. Marking and cutting the pins also went quick. One of the boards had a split propagating out from a knot, so I decided to put a graving piece in to keep it from getting worse. While I was doing that I decided to reinforce another bad spot in one of the other boards. I put those in last night and left the pieces overnight with a clamp to help close up the crack.
490199490200490201
This morning I cut out the dividers for the drawers. I had picked out a board that had some nice straight grain that will work well for these dividers and some of the drawer parts. In pine I think it is easiest to cut the sliding dovetails entirely with a chisel. I marked the angles I wanted on both edges of the piece then chopped and pared down to the line. I used a 1 1/4” chisel to Pare down to my lines.
I cut the slots of the dovetails with a saw, then removed waste and chopped to full depth with a chisel. I used a small router plane to get the slots to full depth. Each one took several round of test fitting and paring the tails to get them to seat fully.
I decided to cut rabbets in the top and bottom to receive the back. Rabbets in the side would leave holes I’d need to plug, so I’ll glue cleats on the sides instead. I’m still getting the hang of using this rabbet plane. I marked my lines with a marking gauge. I tried to start the plane using my fingers as a gauge, just using the corner of the plan for a few strokes to establish a groove, then slowly tilting it to vertical. I managed to go way past my line on the first one. I adjusted the second one to get closer to matching depth, but I’ll need to make a shim to correct the depth of the first one.
everything glued up pretty easily. I made my tails wide so I was able to put a clamp on each tail to get it fully seated. I had a clamp across the carcass when putting the dividers in to correct a slight bow in the sides. Once the dividers were seated I could take the clamp off and put it on the last dovetail. Family will be visiting over Thanksgiving, so this will probably sit for a week before I’m able to get back to it.
490203490204490205