Juggling a book and a furniture commission is like juggling two balls – pretty easy and not all that impressive. These last two weeks have been a full on circus: two books in overdrive (Peter Galbert’s “Chairmaker’s Notebook” and Don Williams’ “Virtuoso”) and two all-consuming projects, some three-legged chairs and a tool chest for Popular Woodworking Magazine.
The tool chest is a joint project between myself and Jameel Abraham at Benchcrafted. I built the box (the easy part) and he created a carved marquetry panel for the lid.
The chest itself is a new traveling design based on a bunch of old examples of chests I’ve studied and measured. After a lot of calculations, I found a chest size that will hold an impressive and nearly complete set of furniture-making tools in the minimum footprint. And it has nice lines and is a bit easier to build than an “Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”
I’m not giving up my floor chest. It is too much a part of the way I work. This smaller chest is going to be ideal for woodworkers who have limited floor space but want to hold a lot of tools that can all be accessed with one hand movement (just like the full-size chest). What’s the downside? There’s not a lot of room for moulding planes.
I’ll write up a full description of the chest’s inner workings and post a video on it when the sucker is done.
Jameel’s marquetry panel arrived about a week ago, but I haven’t had time to install it on the chest because I’ve been a slave to Adobe’s Creative Cloud software. But when I couldn’t stare at a screen anymore, I sneaked to the shop to install the hinges and attach the lid to the carcase.
The hardware is from blacksmith Peter Ross – Jameel and I decided to go whole-chicken on this project. I’m not going to show the lid here. That’s for the magazine’s editors to reveal. But you can see some glimpses of Jameel’s gorgeous work on the lid on his blog here.
This morning I convinced the lid, carcase and hinges to work nicely together and released a huge sigh of relief. Now I just have to attach the dust seal to the lid. And add the crab lock. Paint the sucker. Attach the chest lifts. And write the article. No problem.
After three hours of 100-percent concentration on these hinges, I’m ready to work on something that has an “undo” button. Yeah, InDesign and Photoshop sound like a good idea.
— Christopher Schwarz
The undo button would be the one thing that if I could wave a magic wand, and bring from my design job to my furniture job I would. I do miss proceeding with abandon.
Christopher,
Any chance of a preview of the overall dimensions so we can all get started dovetailing while we wait for more details in the full writeup?
JPG
The carcase pieces are as follows:
2, Front & back, 7/8″ x 15″ x 28″
2, Ends, 7/8″ x 15″ x 18″
That should get you started.
Noticed your window tool rack (which in itself holds an impressive number of tools) is nearly empty. Was this a test run of the travel tool chest or yet another shop makeover? If the former, it must have been quite a feat to cram the perverbial 10 lbs of “stuff” in a 5-lb sack (verging on Studley-like).
Andy,
In all honesty, I had a bunch of tools in the rack that were merely background for photos. I removed them, gave a lot away and plan to remove the rack when I can catch my breath. I really like the unobstructed light, even if things look less “shoppy.”
Tell me you didn’t get rid of the drill!!??
I still have the hand drill. It’s in the chest. Not on the rack.
Any idea which issue?
Also, I’ve been getting the “you must be logged on to comment” message and I am logged on. I have to try submitting again and it usually works. This happened a while ago on this site and I think John did something to fix it. I also got a security certificate issue with wordpress message and maybe that has something to do with it.
Hmmm. Nothing has changed on our site as far as settings go. And we are hosted on WordPress – we don’t run a server. So I’m at a loss as to what could cause that problem.
I’ll check with the WordPress people.
BTW, perhaps Megan can chime in as to which issues these articles will be in.
July/August — not long! And I’m eager for everyone to see it — both the chest and what’s on the inside are excellent.
I was having a lot of trouble scheduling posts of my own earlier today. Kept timing out and then eventually scheduled it retroactively for 1969. Had to start over.
Chris,
Lovely chest.
What’s the contraption clamped to the end of your bench.
St.John
Just seen it on Instagram. Another one of your more unusual vices.
It a post vise. I use it for metalwork only. Fantastic vise. And they are quite reasonable (as long as you don’t mail them….)
This new chest sounds perfect for me, as I haven’t delved into moulding planes yet and have limited floor space. If I ever do, I suppose I could just build a shelf.
Looking forward to the plans for this one, thanks for giving a few of the dimensions
To get rid of the exposed nuts holding the hinges how about shortening the bolts and peening over the ends aka rivets? You could countersink the plates and when you peen the bolts the countersink will be filled, then file the bolts flush. You may need to aneal the bolts. Another idea would be to thread the plates before peening, this makes it easier to maintain the preload on the bolt.
What do you mean, carved marquetry?
Yup. Carved marquetry.
This chest looks fabulous! And I’m looking forward to the Jul/Aug issue so I can check out the marquetry. That said, such an elaborate lid would seem to contradict your mantra for benches: use solid wood; avoid exotics; resist aesthetic embelishments.
Do you think that your work over the past few years has been trending in opposite directions? As in, an artisan should experiment by making lots of (sometimes very fancy) shop accessories, so that one can then use the tools stored in those accessories to experiment with making simpler furniture…
What I think I’m trying to say is, you seem to be maintaining a lovely balance in your work. And that balance defies sometihing many fans come to expect from celebrities: homogeneity. So thanks for keeping us on our toes!
Hey, I saw a video on Vimeo of Jameel making the carved marquetry panel for the lid, but it’s disappeared. What I saw was amazing.