Having cleared some general carpentry projects from my plate, I got back to doing what I do best: picking up projects I hadn’t thought about in weeks (months?).  In this particular case, it was the travel tool chest.  It’s been lidless for a long time.  So I made a lid.

Seems to be a theme here.

It’s probably clear from the picture above, but that’s just a 1/4 piece of home center birch plywood face glued to a 3/4 piece of home center birch plywood.  It’s a trick from Christopher Schwarz’ A Traditional Tool Chest in Two Days and it is fantastic.  I can use plywood here because the chest has a proper dust seal (that works like edge banding and hides the ugly plywood edges).

Seen here (2/3 scale).

The benefit of plywood (in addition to the ease of “raising” a panel) is the full length glue-up on all three sides of the dust seal.  There was a bit of twist in the dust seal, but the weight of the clamps was enough to press it flat while the glue dried.

Gravity is a wonderful thing, when applied correctly.

Even with the strength of a full length glue up, I plan to nail the dust seal into place.  I am also yet to level the top seams and fill the back edge of the plywood (with water-based wood putty).  Then it’s painting time.

My buddy thinks it looks like a coffin.

What I haven’t figured out is what to do with the inside of the chest.  On the last incarnation, the full length sliding tray didn’t really have room to slide and totally blocked access to the tools below when in place.  On this version, I might hang a stationary (but removable) till on the inside left.  Something large enough to hold all the odds and ends for on-site woodworking, but not so big that it blocks the well entirely.  That plus a wall rack with 1/2″ holes on 1 1/8″ center should be plenty of storage.

And there is the small matter of how to attach the handles.  Oak runners for sliding tills usually reinforce the side walls enough to use iron chest lifts.  I either need to attach more wood to the inside of the chest, or make rope beckets to screw in from both outside and inside.

Neither option is ideal, but one is clearly easier.

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…is not like the other.

At least it will be, soon enough.

I’ve spoken before about how pleased I am with the overall size of this 24″ x 12″tool chest.  It fits everything I need for off-site projects (except for a panel saw, but whatever) and remains portable.  On this, my fourth overall traditional floor chest, I am going back to the full dust seal.  Which means, first of all, a dovetailed upper skirt.

Fewer dovetails means less work (in theory).

I’ve also decided to paint the full carcase before I attach the handles or make the lid.  And speaking of lids, I am so enamored with the plywood “raised panel” lid from Christopher Schwarz’ Build a Traditional Tool Chest in Two Days, that’s the approach I’m taking here.  Albeit with a 1/4″ raised panel.

I’m also using Tuscan Red again.

There’s been a lot going on, but posts should become more frequent.  More on this tool chest next week.

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One consistent feature in all of my various English tool chests is the lower skirt.  The end grain on ship-lapped floorboards is so ugly to my eye that I add a dovetailed skirt to hide the crime even on rabbeted and nailed chests.

Nearly identical to the last one.

I’m particularly proud of the dovetails on this chest, both on the carcase and the loqwe skirt.  For the first time, though, there is a pretty noticeable gap at the corners on the short sides.  My base lines just weren’t tight enough, which makes me think my marriage marks got mixed up while fitting the skirt.

At least the front and back skirt are gapless.

I am hopeful that a generous slathering of milk paint (black or red, this time) will fill those gaps enough for piece of mind.  This chest is for my personal use (the last one is finally going to a friend), so I’ll pretend not to care as much as I otherwise would.  It’s pretty much my only option at this point, other than prying it apart.  Clamping the crap out of the skirts during glue up certainly didn’t do the job.

Nor is this the best picture I’ve ever snapped.

Hopefully I’ll do better on the upper skirt.  Oh yes: this chest will have a full dust seal.  Mostly to hide the end grain on the “raised panel” plywood lid.

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Here I find myself again: tons of nails to drive and too many neighbors to drive them all at once.

I needed some nails on 2″ center to flatten out the tongues at the joints.

I’ve been making a second traveling tool chest.  The dovetails on the carcase came out quite nicely, although the large tail in the middle did not close up completely to the baseline in two corners.  Some water-based putty will fix that, no problem.

Dovetail pr0n.

I’ve pretty much locked down my process for cutting ship-lap joints for floorboards.  After scribing the base line with a marking gauge, my DIY rebate plane does most of the work, then I finish up with a router plane.  I guess I could build a depth stop for the rebate plane, but that would make too much sense.

Why use one tool when you can use three?

For the first time in a while, the carcase was not square, so I had to clamp it into square.  It’s still probably 1/64″ out, but I can live with that if you can.

Seriously, I can.

Next up is the dovetailed skirt.  This tool chest will have a 3/4″ plywood lid, so I should probably buy some black milk paint soon.

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The final coat of paint went onto the travel tool chests over the weekend.  Net net: I am very pleased.

The color is still a little blue for my taste.

For the first time in a long time, I have nothing bad to say about a completed project.  At least nothing bad to say about the design or the concept.  There is always something bad to say about my execution of the aforesaid (the lid is not on straight, yet again).  So rather than do my usual pros and cons, I will talk about what I’ve learned on this project.

• Geometry is a thing.  The dimensional difference between this tool chest and the original traveling tool tote is ostensibly minimal.  Compared to its predecessor, it’s 4″ shorter in length, barely 2″ less in width and essentially the same height.  But when we’re talking inches cubed, that adds up to a lot.  This thing is truly portable.  Filled to the gills, it’s not even a chore to carry around.  I’ve finally made a replacement for my nylon tool box.

Doesn’t look like much, but do the math and you’ll see.

• A wide skirt is a better skirt.  On my original traveling tool tote, the skirt was only 1.5″ wide.  With the 45″ chamfer, it’s basically all corners and has gotten beat to hell. In version 2.0, the skirt is over 3″ wide: quite a bit of surface area for deflecting blows.  Unlike its forebear, the skirt is a bit out of proportion to the lid.  But this is because I had meant to do a full dust deal (of approximately equal width to the skirt) and just got lazy in the end.

Durability > all.

• No casters for small tool chests.  The casters have worked out really well on version 1.0 and I meant to add casters to this project.  But I didn’t.  For two reasons, really.  The first is the spacing on the die-forged, headed nails holding on the floor boards precludes the caster feet from seating properly at the corners.  The second reason doesn’t really matter, does it?  At least it won’t roll around the trunk of car in use.

These will have to do.

• Grey is not for tool chests.  Or is it gray?  I don’t know anymore.  At least it’s easily distinguishable from my other tool chests.

That’s the “sliding” tray to the bottom right.  It has about 1″ of travel.

I plan to immediately make another one of these (and this time, paint it black).  More on that later, though.

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The roll of cheap adhesive-backed cork purchased online for the floor of the new traveling tool tote was exactly that: cheap.  The adhesive was not uniformly sticky and kept curling up in places.  My slightly less permanent solution: foam drawer liner and spray adhesive.  This should provide comparable, if less durable, cushioning.

And it fits much better than the cork did.

Speaking of durability, I started painting the chest with Seagull Grey milk paint.  The first coat looked a bit too blue for my taste, but has since flattened out in the second coat.  I don’t do a ton of finishing, but I’ve done two things differently this time around.

First, I did not attach the handles to the chest prior to painting, although I did punch alignment holes.  The traveling tool tote was in service before it even got painted and I did not remove the handles for that operation.  I will assume this was part laziness and part fear the screws would lose their bite when reinstalled.  Painting is so much easier without curvy obstructions, it turns out.

See?  Baby blueish.  

Second, I am painting the carcase before the lid is attached (or even made, for that matter).  See the above comment re: obstructions.  I also took the time to properly mask the inside of the lid, which did not stop me from dripping a big glob of paint on the inside of the chest.  That little accident cleaned up okay with multi-surface furniture cleaner and will hopefully be hidden by the tools in the wall rack.

I have neither the oak for the tray bottom nor the pine for the tray sides on hand.  Those will be acquired over the weekend (from the home center and from my stash at my parents’ house, respectively).  The width of the tray is still TBD.

And there is still that pesky lid to make.

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