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Thread: Pine Tool Chest

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2020
    Location
    Camarillo, CA
    Posts
    417

    Pine Tool Chest

    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.

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    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.

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  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Location
    MT
    Posts
    698
    Looks like that will be a nice chest. Hopefully will get used for the intended purpose.
    Regards,

    Kris

  3. #3
    Looking good! That's going to be a great present.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Longview WA
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    27,347
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    Looking good Ben, looking forward to see the rest.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2020
    Location
    Camarillo, CA
    Posts
    417
    My nieces visited over thanksgiving. They are 5 and 7 and are insanely curious. They wanted to see my shop, then decided they had to build something. So we got some scraps of wood out and both of them got the hang of using a pull saw. I made sure they put each piece in the vise before cutting. I did the nailing for them. One nailed 4 pieces of scrap together and decided it was a stable, then she decided to draw some circles on it and call it a flute. The other decided to frame a piece of pine with 4 strips of cherry and nail the left over butterfly onto it for decoration.

    yesterday I cut out the rails and stiles for the front door and took some time getting them squared and thicknessed to a high degree of accuracy. I came back this morning and double-checked and did some fine tuning before starting to work on them. I also took the time to sharpen all the chisels I planned to use. I started by plowing the grooves for the panel, then layed out mitered bridle joints. I haven’t done these before so I took my time laying everything out.

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    I cut just off my lines, with the goal of being able to go straight to my lines for paring. Once all the joints went together individually I tried them all at once. One miter was just a tiny bit fat, so I trimmed it back by the smallest amount I could. In the clamps the frame looks very close, but not quite perfect. I think trying to improve the joints will just leave me chasing my tail, so I’m going to call this good enough for paint and move on. I’ll do another set of these for the back, and I think if those go well I’ll be confident to try them in hardwood in another project.

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    I made a raised panel and test fit everything. It looks like it goes together well, so I’ll glue this up tomorrow and break down the stock for the back.
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  6. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Location
    Missouri
    Posts
    2,151
    Nicely done Ben. Great gift. Experimenting with new methods is the fun part of this work. You never know until you have tried. Many times it goes easier than you imagined but sometimes it goes “?”.
    Jim

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2020
    Location
    Camarillo, CA
    Posts
    417
    I cleaned up the front door panel and fit it to the case. Either the panel or the case are a little out of square, because it took a bit of tuning to get it to fit the opening. I changed my mind for the back panel. I decided to make a simple mortised and tenoned frame. I got that made the other day then rough cut and thicknessed the panels. These are tongue and grooved. I cut four random widths to get a little more width than I needed. I fit the first three and cut the last one down to fit.

    None of the back panel pieces needed to be as precise as the front door, since they will be constrained by the frame. So I got my reference faces straight and square and planed the other face and side down to my lines, but didn’t spend much time getting the last hundredth of an inch exact. I fit the panels tight. This case will go up to the high desert and I expect everything will shrink. I’m interested in seeing how much the gaps open as it acclimates to its final home.

    Once the glue dries and I get it out of the clamps I’ll need to align the panels better vertically. I’m happy with how square this came out, so I don’t want to mess with it while the glue is drying.

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  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Between No Where & No Place ,WA
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    1,339
    Lookin' good!

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2020
    Location
    Camarillo, CA
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    417
    Got the back fitted and glued on the other day. Pretty happy with how it came out. I have the first drawer glued up. It took a lot of picking through my knotty board to get clear lengths. I re-sawed the drawer sides, so they ended up somewhere around 5/16. I also made drawer slips, which I haven’t done before. The thin drawer sides make cutting dovetails go fast!

    As I was gluing this up I realized you want to cut the slips short so the back comes all the way down. My back comes down to the to of the slip, which will leave a little gap at the back. I’ll probably glue in a little trim piece to cover it. I also realized that the slips take enough width at the bottom that I’ll probably be able to get both drawer bottoms out of a left over piece of 1/4” plywood that has been leaning against the wall for 2 years! I get pretty excited about discoveries like that.

    I got this glued up in time to go watch the World Cup match. Depending on how the match goes and how much beer I have before noon, I may get the stock broken down for the second drawer and fit the first drawer this afternoon.

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  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2020
    Location
    Camarillo, CA
    Posts
    417
    And I just realized the 10 am start was East Coast time, the game is already over, and the US lost.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Longview WA
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    27,347
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    As I was gluing this up I realized you want to cut the slips short so the back comes all the way down. My back comes down to the to of the slip, which will leave a little gap at the back. I’ll probably glue in a little trim piece to cover it. I also realized that the slips take enough width at the bottom that I’ll probably be able to get both drawer bottoms out of a left over piece of 1/4” plywood that has been leaning against the wall for 2 years! I get pretty excited about discoveries like that.
    With slips or slots the back usually only comes down far enough to allow for a slightly long drawer bottom. The bottom is then attached to the back by a screw in a slot cut in the bottom to allow for movement.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ben Ellenberger View Post
    And I just realized the 10 am start was East Coast time, the game is already over, and the US lost.
    It seems since the copius expansion of cable broadcasting almost all programming notes are based on the eastern time zone. It can be confusing. That is one of my reasons to always check the guide and record almost all programming of interest. In the morning, the TV is turned on and then paused. By the time my morning chores are finished there is a bit of prerecorded programing that can be fast forwarded through commercials.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    N. Idaho
    Posts
    1,621
    Lol-I was going to be impress by your enthusiasm for the game as I watched the heartbreaker this morning here on Pacific time. But with coffee
    "You can observe a lot just by watching."
    --Yogi Berra

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2020
    Location
    Camarillo, CA
    Posts
    417
    I got the second drawer made and fitted. I had about a 2” strip of plywood left after making the second bottom, so I lucked out. I still have little fine tuning and cleanup on the drawers.

    I started trying out some drawer pull designs. These are wide enough I think I’ll put two pulls on each drawer. I really like shaping pulls and handles. These are out of soft maple and I used a gouge to shape the recess on the bottom. I haven’t really done any carving, and I definitely feel like a beginner when using a gouge, but I think these will turn out OK. Making the first pull is also an exercise in figuring out the best order of operations, because it gets harder and harder to hold as you shape it.

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  14. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2020
    Location
    Camarillo, CA
    Posts
    417
    Today I learned that butt chisels can be very useful when installing butt hinges. I realized every door I’ve hung before today had pretty easy access, and I’ve always used my regular chisels to mortise the hinges. This door had tight access and it would have been slow and awkward to mortise the hinges with a regular chisel. Fortunately I’d picked up a few inexpensive chisels in anticipation of helping a friend with boat projects. I got one butt chisel thinking it might be handy for awkward places on a boat. Turns out it works great for mortising hinges too!

    Tomorrow Ill make stops for the drawers and the door out of some scrap oak and glue them to the cross-members. Then I’ll finish flushing the drawer faces and do any final fine-tuning of the door.

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  15. #15
    Join Date
    Sep 2008
    Location
    N. Idaho
    Posts
    1,621
    Turning into a sweet little chest. I wouldn't be surprised if your friend keeps it somewhere besides the shed.
    "You can observe a lot just by watching."
    --Yogi Berra

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