With Chris out of town this week, Megan and I determined this a perfect time to wreak havoc around the shop. And by “havoc,” us nerds mean finally getting around to finishing my first Dutch tool chest. In this video, Megan demonstrates her dado cutting process using hand tools while I film. What if my chest shelf is cupped? How do I ensure I am at the baseline all the way across? What is the most entertaining way to bash out my dado waste? Megan answers all of these questions and more. Make sure you watch the end of this one.
— Kale
p.s. I’m the newbie here; you’ll be hearing more about me soon!
One of the tool chest forms that has been on my list to explore is the Swedish chest, which I’ve encountered a few times both in the United States and Europe. It’s similar to the Dutch tool chest, with its slanting front lid. But the Swedish one is in many ways simpler.
The chest shown here came from the family of Johan Lyrfalk, who owns Rubank Vertygs AB, a woodworking supplier in Stockholm, Sweden. Last Saturday, he brought it out for us to inspect and measure during a visit to his store.
Note how the bent hasp holds the lid open and accessible.
The chest is most likely pine and it is assembled with through-dovetails at the corners. The top and bottom are screwed to the carcase. The slanted lid is kept flat with two battens that are neatly joined to the lid with blind sliding dovetails. The steel hinges are let into the carcase and are screwed through the lid and into the battens, increasing the reach and strength of the screws.
The interior of the chest is fairly open. There are openings for three drawers (this chest had only two of them remaining). The drawers are assembled with half-blind dovetails (two dovetails per corner). One nice detail of this chest is the top edges of the drawer sides are beveled to the inside. That reduces the number of corners you will bump into when you reach for a tool.
The middle drawer. Note the bevel on the drawer side.
The drawer frame and dividers appear nailed and screwed to the chest from the outside, keeping with the aesthetics of the chest.
The interior walls of the chest are lined with tool racks. And there’s a tool rack on the lid.
How the tool rack on the lid was used was a question among the woodworkers looking at the chest. The lid is propped open by its hasp, which allows the tool rack to be handy. But you’d have to remove the tools to shut the lid. Some speculated perhaps this chest was rarely closed and used mostly in a workshop environment.
Dimensions are: 32” wide, 18-1/2” high and 19-1/2” deep. The top is 11” wide, as is the drop lid. Most of the stock for the carcase is 7/8” thick.
The interior tool racks.
This chest is definitely one on my to-build list. We are always looking for tool chest classes that teach a variety of good lessons for classes (or for publication). The Anarchist’s Tool Chest is my personal favorite to work out of; but as a class, it is mostly about through-dovetails and nails. Even in a one-week class working flat out, it is difficult to get to making the lid, much less the rest of the interior bits.
The Dutch tool chest, as a class, is a more balanced experience. You get some dovetails, dados, rabbets, maybe some tongue-and-groove.
The Swedish tool chest could be a primer on through-dovetails and half-blinds, for the drawers.
I’ll have to build one to find out.
The tool chest at the Vasa.
After we spent an hour poring over Johan’s tool chest, he returned it to its resting place. The next day we went to see the Vasa exhibit. And there, right next to one of the workbenches from the Vasa, was an almost-identical chest (just a little longer). Perhaps the universe is sending me a message.
You may have read a few weeks ago about what happens when Chris gets bored with watching me teach. And what happens a day later when people share “advice” after said experiments. As far as I know, the bugs have not yet eaten what is now Roy Underhill’s Dutch tool chest. (And frankly, I’m a little offended that some of y’all think my dovetail joints aren’t tight enough to keep the bugs out….)
I didn’t bring the chest home, but we did bring home the test joint Chris made with Gummy Bear Glue. On Tuesday, I tried reversing the gummy glue using the same strategies one uses to reverse hide glue; both are gelatin, after all.
But first, I hit the snot out of it…again. We first tried to reverse the joint using nothing but force (a big hammer) the day after Chris glued the two pieces together. It didn’t work then, either. But you see can above that this time, the lump hammer produced the start of a split. Under extreme force, the wood is failing before the gummy glue. Just as it does with hide glue, PVA and other wood-appropriate mastics after they’ve fully cured.
I cut the test joint into three pieces before testing the gummy glue reversal with hot water, alcohol and a chisel.
I boiled water, then as quickly as possible sucked it into a syringe with an 18-gauge needle and inserted hot water into the joint on all sides. After letting it sit for a few minutes, I was able to pop the joint apart with a sharp hammer blow. Just as I’ve done numerous times to hide glue joints treated with hot water.
As you can see, it’s an almost dead-clear reversal – no wood failure in the joint (that teensy bit of failure visible at the top of the above picture is where the split was starting from the untreated hammer blow).
Next I tried inserting 190-proof grain alcohol into the joint. This crystalizes hide glue – and it did the same here. I waited two minutes or so before smacking the joint, and you can see below that the split isn’t quite as clear as with the water, with a few thin areas of wood failure visible (again, the obvious failure at the edge is the result of before-treatment beating).
Then, I used a wide chisel to try to cleanly split the joint without water or alcohol. Same as with any wood glue, there is obvious wood failure – if not as much as I’ve seen with traditional hide glue.
Is two weeks enough set-up time – and in winter, where it’s too cold for the bugs – for a proper test of the gummy glue? Maybe not. But clearly, it has some holding power. Regardless, I am 100-percent certain that Roy’s Dutch tool chest will not fall apart; have you seen the number of nails I use on those things?*
– Fitz
* Maybe you haven’t…but soon, very soon, you’ll be able to refer to a book on the subject. Just trying to head that question off at the pass…
The Lie-Nielsen No. 102 fits in both the top and bottom of this miniature Dutch tool chest.
Nick Gibbs, editor of Quercus magazine, asked some woodworker friends to build a storage box for a Lie-Nielsen No. 102, aka an apron plane, as inspiration for the magazine’s Young Woodworker of the Year award.
The way I understand it, entrants ages 16-19, and from anywhere in the world, are invited to make a box for a No. 102, in whatever style they wish. The deadline is Dec. 31, 2022. The winner receives £500 from Quercus, and a Lie-Nielsen No. 102 (courtesy of Lie-Nieslen) that has been engraved by Jen Bower. (For details and to enter, send an email to info@quercusmagazine.com.)
The No. 102 is my go-to block plane (it fits comfortably in my small hand), so I was happy to come up with a box…though I broke the rules a bit by building one that holds two No. 102s. (If only I’d bought a white bronze No. 102 when Lie-Nielsen did a a limited run – how cute would it have looked in tiny tool chest atop its iron brethren?!)
For the most part, this little chest is built exactly like a full-size one: dovetails in the bottom; cut nails to secure the backboards, bottom lip and front; dados to capture the shelf that divides the compartments; battens and a lock through a catch to hold the fall front in place; a raised panel on the fall front and lid, with a fingernail moulding on the lid (I guess it’s a pinky moulding); rot strips; lid battens keep the top flat; and a hinged lid. Oh – and blue paint. Of course. (Yes, I’m writing a book about Dutch tools chests, and as long as I don’t expire, it will be out this year…if for no other reason than chagrin at dragging my feet for so long.)
I chose sugar pine with the tightest grain I could fine, and surfaced it to 1/4″ – aka the size of the blade in my small router plane – so I could use that tool to remove the waste in the dado that holds the shelf in place (and the other bits are walnut). I skipped putting nails through the side into the shelf (as is typical on some full-size DTCs), because I didn’t trust myself to get the necessary tiny pilot holes perfectly centered, and didn’t want to risk splitting the sides with a lot of work already done.
For that same reason, I glued on the lid battens, rot strips and strip underneath the slot for the catch. So in this case, the lid battens won’t keep the lid panel flat (they would properly be screwed or clinch-nailed to the lid panel) – but I’m not too worried about the lid cupping, as it’s only 3-1/2″ wide. Hinging the lid was the most difficult part – holding those screws in place required tweezers and a lot of squinting!
The chest itself is 6-1/4″ long, 2-3/4″ deep and 5-3/4″ tall. I don’t know its scale, or if the parts scale properly to a full-sized DTC – I just did my best to make it look “right,” based on it fitting the plane, per the requirements. Or in this case, two planes.
Above is the full video of our Q&A about Dutch tool chests. WARNING: I made a couple double-entendres during Megan’s demo portion of the video. Apologies – I thought this was Chest Chat™.
