I don’t post here much; I’m usually busy getting all my questions answered and getting new ideas. So here’s a bit of pay it forward for all of you that I’ve learned from. Maybe some of you can use this idea too.


I like a bit of organization; I hate not being able to find tools when I need them. So I started looking for a way to organize paint fills, glue brushes, etc. I was a machinist a long time ago, so I’m used to a toolbox w/ a bunch of drawers. I couldn’t justify the price of even a used Kennedy (much less a Gerstner) for this kind of stuff. So, any idea was hatched.


This is based off of a Kennedy machinist chest. It’s about 20 in wide x 12 in tall x 8 in deep. It’s not perfect, but I am obviously not making to time to tweak it at this point. As an example, the thin drawers on the right hand side are about 1/8 too short to fit gilders paste. The long drawers work great for it though !


The lid will latch closed, or it will flip all the way over and lie flat against the back. The upper tray area is about 2 1/2 in deep.


It’s takes about a full 4x8 sheet of 3/16 hardboard to make. The largest single piece is about 20 x 11 1/8.


It is an exercise in alignment to get it assembled…. there are about a dozen pieces that make up the case.


The corel file is from X5. It’s set up w/ 3 different ways to cut. The full toolbox is the ‘mach case’ page. The ‘long case’ page is just the lower 3 drawers; the ‘narrow case’ page is just the upper 5 drawers. The long case and narrow case are the same size, so you can stack as many as you want.

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8 drawer toolbox.cdr