craftsman tool chesteberhardt.bz/.../gme_woodworking_stuff/3_projects/3_tool_chest_t… · chest a...

From ShopNotes MagazineSKU 920137 All rights reserved

page 1 of 5 ©2003 August Home PublishingOne copy for personal use. Other copies prohibited.

SOLID WOOD. One thing that adds to this look isits solid wood panels made from quartersawn oak.Along with soft bullnosed edges, this makes thechest a perfect companion piece to place on top ofour rolling tool cabinet. (also available atwww.plansnow.com.

DRAWERS. Either way, a bank of four shallowdrawers that run smoothly on wood guides pro-vides plenty of storage and easy access to yourtools. And lining these drawers with felt adds thatfinal touch of craftsmanship.

MaterialsCaseA Back Stiles (2) 3/4 x 11/2 - 713/16B Back Rails (2) 3/4 x 11/2 - 243/4C Back Panel 55/16 x 243/4 - 1/4 Ply. D Sides (2) 3/4 x 16 - 713/16E Vertical Divider 1/2 x 14 - 17/8F Drawer Guides (8) 7/16 x 1/2 - 133/4G Horizontal Divider 1/2 x 1 - 261/2H Top/Bottom (2) 3/4 x 161/4 - 281/4

Hardware• (6) 5/8" x 1/2" Brass Knobs• (9) Figure-8 Fasteners• (18) #8 x 5/8" Fh Woodscrews• (1) #8 x 3" Fh Woodscrew• (2) #8 x 21/2" Rh Woodscrews• (9) #8 x 11/4" Fh Woodscrews• (24) #6 x 5/8" Fh Woodscrews

CraftsmanTool Chest

Place this chest on top of therolling tool cabinet. Or set it on a

workbench. Either way, it protects andorganizes your precision hand tools.

Special tools deserve a special place. At least,that’s how I feel about my hand tools.

Whether it’s the bevel gauge that belonged tomy grandfather, a brand new precision square, ormy best set of chisels, it’s reassuring to know theywon’t get knocked around or damaged.

That’s why I built this craftsman tool chest. Itprotects and organizes my best hand tools. Butwhat I like most is its traditional appearance — ascomfortable as the look and feel of a tool that’s pol-ished with use.

DrawersI Upr. Drwr. Fronts (2) 3/4 x 13/4 - 123/4J Lwr. Drwr. Fronts (2) 3/4 x 25/8 - 261/8K Upr. Drwr. Sides (4) 1/2 x 13/4 - 141/2L Lwr. Drwr. Sides (4) 1/2 x 25/8 - 141/2M Upr. Drwr. Backs (2) 1/2 x 13/4 - 12N Lwr. Drwr. Backs (2) 1/2 x 25/8 - 253/8O Upr. Drwr. Btms (2) 14 x 121/4 - 1/4 Hdbd.P Lwr. Drwr. Btms (2) 14 x 255/8 - 1/4 Hdbd.

Plans N O Ww w w . p l a n s n o w . c o m

®



Case ————————————————————————————————————————

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The case for the craftsman toolchest starts out simply enough— just two sides and a back thatform an open, U-shaped frame,see Fig. 1.

BACK. Like the sides and backof the rolling tool cabinet, theback is just a wood frame thatsurrounds a plywood panel. Theframe consists of two short stiles(A) and two long rails (B), seeFig. 2. After cutting stub tenonand groove joints on thesepieces, a plywood back panel (C)is glued in the frame.

SIDES. With the back com-plete, the next step is to add thetwo sides, see drawing below.Besides enclosing the case, thesides support the wood guidesfor the drawers.

VERTICAL DIVIDER. In addi-tion to the drawer guides on thesides, the vertical divider thatseparates the top two drawersalso supports a pair of drawerguides, see drawing on page 3.So it’s easiest to work on it at thesame time as you make the sides.

SOLID WOOD PANELS. Both thesides (D) and the vertical divider(E) are made by gluing up solidwood panels, see drawings below

and on page 3. (Note: The sidesare made from 3/4"-thick stock;the vertical divider is made from1/2"-thick stock.)

The thing to be aware of is thegrain direction of these panels

runs vertically. This way, as thewood expands and contracts withchanges in humidity, the panelswill move with the top and bottomof the case — not against them.

When the glue dries, the



Cutting stoppeddadoes is easy.Just cut the frontedge off the panel.Then cut a series ofthrough dadoes,and glue the frontedge back in place.

3panels can be cut to final length(height). But to make it easierlater when cutting stoppeddadoes for the drawer guides,they’re oversized in width.

RABBET. Before cutting thesedadoes, there’s one more thing todo. That’s to rabbet the backedge of each side (not the ver-tical divider) to accept the backof the chest, see Fig. 1a.

STOPPED DADOES. Now youcan turn your attention to thestopped dadoes. One dado (thesecond one from the top on eachside) accepts a horizontal dividerthat’s added later. The othershold the drawer guides in place.

To keep the drawers frombinding, it’s important for thesedadoes to align. At first, thissounds simple — just cut thedadoes in pairs using the samefence setting (and the same ref-erence edge) on the table saw.But there’s a problem.

After cutting one dado, theonly way to cut the matchingdado is to flip the side (or thevertical divider) end for end.This means you’d be cuttingthrough the front edge of thepanel. To get around this, I useda slightly unorthodox technique.

The basic idea is simple. Tostart with, cut the front edge offeach panel (and save the cutoff).

This way, after cutting throughdadoes, you can glue the cutoffback in place to form the stoppeddadoes, see margin.

GLUE JOINT. You’d think thiswould create an obvious glueline. But because the grain of thepanels is oriented up and down,you’re gluing two piecestogether with matching edgegrain. This creates a glue jointthat’s nearly invisible.

CUT TO WIDTH. After the gluedries, you can cut the sides (D)and vertical divider (E) to finalwidth. To match the profile onthe edges of the rolling tool cab-inet, I routed a bullnose on thefront edges of each side.

DRAWER GUIDES. Now it’s justa matter of cutting the drawerguides (F) to fit the dadoes.These are strips of hardwood thatare screwed (not glued) in place.

HORIZONTAL DIVIDER. With theguides in place, I added a hori-zontal divider (G) to separate thetop and bottom drawers, see Fig.3. It’s a thin strip of hardwoodwith a notch at each end that fitsin the open dado in the sides.

ASSEMBLY. All that’s left is toassemble the case. This is just amatter of slipping in the hori-zontal divider, then gluing andclamping the sides and back. Tohold the horizontal divider securelyin place, I glued short blocks intothe dadoes behind it, see Fig. 3.



Top/Bottom ————————————————————————————————

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The case of the tool chest is sand-wiched between two solid woodpanels — one for the top and theother for the bottom.

Both the top and bottom (H)are made by gluing up pieces of3/4"-thick stock, see Fig. 4. Theidea here is to orient the piecesso there’s edge grain in front andback of the panels. This way, thetop and bottom will move togetherwith the sides (across theirwidth) as they expand and con-tract with changes in humidity.

BULLNOSE. If you're buildingthis tool chest to go with ourmatching Rolling Tool Cabinet(also available at PlansNOW),rout a bullnose on the front andsides of each panel, see page 3 ofthe tool cabinet plan for details.

ATTACH TOP. Now you’reready to attach the top. Hereagain, I used figure-8 fastenersto hold it in place. Not because ofwood movement. (Remember, thepanels will all move together.)But because it’s an easy way toattach the top without any hard-ware showing on the surface.

As before, the figure-8 fas-teners are recessed by drilling aseries of pockets in the top, seeFig. 5. And here again, the fas-teners are screwed to the sidesand back of the case, see Fig. 4.

To attach the top, it’s easiest

to lay it upside down on a work-surface, see Fig. 6. Then, afterpositioning the case so the topextends an equal amount on eachside (and it’s flush at the back),simply screw it in place.

VERTICAL DIVIDER. At thispoint, you can attach the verticaldivider to the top. It’s held in placewith three screws. A long flathead

woodscrew passes through holesdrilled through each divider andinto the top, see Fig. 4a and 6.And shorter roundhead wood-screws are installed in the centerand back, see Figs. 4b and 4c.

ATTACH BOTTOM. All that’s leftto complete the assembly is toscrew the bottom to the sidesand back of the case, see Fig. 4.



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Drawers ————————————————————————————————————

Felt LiningNothing shows off a set of finehand tools better than adrawer lined with felt, seephoto. And it’s easy to install.

Using spray adhesive,attach an oversized piece offelt to a piece of posterboardthat’s cut to fit the drawerbottom. Then simply trim thefelt to size and press it intothe bottom of the drawer.

To hold different size hand tools,this tool chest has two narrowdrawers on top and two widedrawers at the bottom, see Fig.7. They slide in and out of thetool chest on the wood drawerguides installed earlier.

LOCKING RABBET. Like thedrawers on the rolling tool cabinet,they’re held together with lockingrabbet joints. But before cuttingthe joints, there are a couple ofthings worth mentioning.

First, the drawer pieces aresized to create a 1/16" gap all theway around, see Fig. 7a. Andsecond, there’s no lip on the frontof the drawer. Instead, it’s flushwith the side of the drawer.

The reason for this is simple.When the drawers are installed,the wood guides are recessedinto grooves in the sides of thedrawers. So they’re hidden bythe drawer front. As a result,you don’t need a lip to coverthem like you do with the metalslides on the rolling tool cabinet.

Other than that, building thedrawers is fairly straightfor-ward. After cutting the drawerfronts (I, J), sides (K, L), andbacks (M, N) to size, it’s just amatter of cutting the lockingrabbet joints, see Figs. 8b and 8c.

GROOVES. Before assemblingthe drawers, you’ll need to cutthe grooves in the side pieces forthe drawer guides. To create aconsistent 1/16" gap, the groovesare located 1/2" down from the topof each side, see Figs. 7a and 8a.

In addition to the grooves forthe drawer guides, you’ll alsoneed to cut grooves for the 1/4"-thick hardboard drawer bottoms(O, P), see Figs. 8 and 8a. Thenjust glue up the drawers.

FINAL DETAILS. To completethe chest, I added a set of brassknobs. These just screw into thedrawer fronts, see Fig. 8. As afinal touch, I lined the drawer bot-toms with felt, see box at right.

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