Flooring Dutch Tool Chest - Part IV

Most of the body of the tool chest is now done, so I can get started with the lid. 

The flooring plank for the lid that next came out of the packet looked terrible on the underside: an awful lot of knots, some of them had popped out and were missing. This would make no difference if this plank was going on the floor, but this one will be the lid - the most visible part of the chest. I decided to look at the next plank in the box, and the underside of that one was perfectly clear, the entire thing. 

So I used the clear one for the lid.

A perfectly clear board for the lid: the knot at top will get cut off.

After gluing and clamping the joints like I have done for the rest of the chest, I cut the angle on the back of the lid to match the angle of the top of the chest.

Laying out the angled cut for the back of the angle-front lid.

Eye-balling the cut, then finishing it with a plane.

"Edge" shavings look weird.

After using a handsaw to cut the angle, I cleaned it up and dialed it in with a hand plane. I expected this cut to look pretty rough, but with a little care, it can be made pretty smooth. Even with the different cross-grain layers of wood.

Using a Stanley #3 to smooth the edge of this weird material.

After I cut the rest of the lid to dimension (90 degree cuts this time), I found some 3/4"-ish ash strips which I used to bolster the outside edges. Well, the three visible edges, anyway.

The lid with ash edging.

I glued them on with lots of PVA glue, taking special care to ensure all of the 3mm beech on the front had lots of glue, and the middle ply on the edges, as these are the long-grain parts that will hold the glue the strongest.

Test-fitting the top.

After the lid cured a while in the clamps, I planed a deep chamfer on the top of the ash strips, and a smaller chamfer on the underside.

The finishing touch for the edge banding of the lid were a few of the same headless, cut-finishing nails I've used elsewhere on the body of the chest.

Ash banding finished with cut nails.

With the lid ready to go, next I'll show how I made the hardware store hinges and hardware look appropriate for this chest.

Flooring Dutch Tool Chest - Part III

Now that the joinery is cut for the carcass. I can glue it up and see what we're working with.

Lotsa glue and clamps

Weird dovetails, but they are strong. Especially with some nails.

Cleaned up a little.

I joined the main carcass with glue and cut finishing nails. These nails seem to work well, but I've drilled pilot holes just to be safe.

The front pieces go on next. The carcass was just a bit out of square, but a clamp across the body straightened it out while I attached the front. For the front and back panels, I am using drywall screws to temporarily hold everything. After it's painted, I will (hopefully) back them out one at a time  and replace them with Roman nails.

Once again, I thought that the front edge of the chest will get the most contact with my forearm, so I decided to use a strip of solid wood in order to make it smoother. I happened to have a strip of black American walnut about the right thickness.

Before this project, I actually thought I had too many clamps.

This strip worked out just fine. It might not be necessary, but in the end this edge will be touched a lot.

Once the front is attached, the back can go on. My idea here is to screw the entire panel on at once, a little oversize, and then trim it to fit. This way any imperfections won't be seen. Also, there is a smaller chance of anything splitting when I drive the screws.

The back before trimming. You can also see I've made a front flap lock already out of oak.

Trimmed and sitting pretty.

With the front flap, I decided to prepare the outside surface for finish before attaching the battens, just in case I want to install them with clenched nails already. This outside surface is a wild grained softwood, which I would like to be seen through the milk-painted finish. This outer veneer of construction grade lumber is only about 1/16" thick, so planing it might easily tear through and destroy it. 

I think the perfect way to prepare this is with a light sanding block to knock the fuzz off, then treat with my Japanese burnishers.

My Japanese burnishing tools.

A few years back I bought some of these burnishers, and I always enjoy using them. They are similar to the French burnisher, except there are three: course, medium and fine. Also the point isn't so much to polish up the wood as to bring out the texture of the grain. 

They idea is with woods (especially softwoods), early wood and late wood have different hardnesses. When the wood erodes, the softwood erodes faster than the harder parts. Japanese burnishers take advantage of this. 

I probably could spend a month or more burnishing all of the exposed parts of this tool chest, so I didn't go all out. 

I started with the rough burnisher, which I made from broom straw and zip ties. This one is very much like the French one, except I usually apply some downward force with the French polissoir, whereas with this one I just use like I'm sweeping shavings off of my benchtop.

Once I'm tired of this, I move to the medium one, which is a much finer fiber. I don't remember what this one is made from, but using it makes a big difference. After that, I move on to the fine, horsehair polisher. This really makes the surface smooth to the touch.

Before on the left, after on the right.

The surface that is left is smooth to the touch, but not like a freshly planed, glass-like surface. The surface it leaves reminds me of the pews in an old church: worn to a glossy sheen after decades of use. The grain of the wood really stands out, and I'm hoping after it is painted that this texture will be telegraphed through the paint.

Tomorrow we'll tackle the lid and the hardware.

Flooring Dutch Tool Chest - Part II

Now that I know that I'm using this flooring material to make my chest, I go for it with gusto.

Here's a good look at what I'm doing. Notice how much end grain you're looking at.

One should start with the dovetails on the bottom corners of a DTC. After I cut mine, I realized how much side to side grain is in these dovetails. One doesn't want side to side grain in dovetails, because this grain direction is so weak. There is some long grain in them, but essentially it is only the 3mm thick beech hardwood that provides any strength.

It is for the strength of the beech that I decided it was a good idea that I have put the beech to the inside. If the beech was on the outside, it would be pretty easy for it to pop out leaving no strength in the joint. On the inside, it is buried deep in the joint. where it should hold quite well. Chris Schwarz suggested on Instagram that I drive a few nails in them to be on the safe side, so I did.

Test fitting dovetails.

With the dovetails fitted, I cut the rabbets for the center shelf. In retrospect, this was a bad idea because it removes the strongest part of the floorboards. The only thing left in the rabbet is essentially pine with grain going the wrong way, and some paper thin fir veneer. (Spoiler alert: I think it works out just fine once the back is fastened.) If for some reason I ever decided to do this again, I would nail the shelf directly into the side, without the rabbet, or maybe use slips.

Making a rabbet for the shelf.

Once the sidewalls were sawn, it was just a matter of removing the waste with a chisel and using a router plane to flatten the bottom.

So far, so good!

At least that was the plan. The only wood ever meant to be exposed was the beech, so weird grain and knots are not uncommon in the other parts. While I was chiselling out waste, some gnarly grain gave me some grief. It almost blew out the other side!

Wacky grain. I'll fix it with epoxy.

Routing the bottom was a breeze. Instead of routing across the grain, as would be done in solid wood, I'm now routing with the grain.

Easy-peasy.

Here you can see the rabbet, edge-on. Without the beech, this board is very weak.

A little epoxy, and it's as good as new. Normally I wouldn't bother, but I didn't want a nail or something to blow a hole in the side of my chest.

I decided it might be a good idea to put a strip of solid maple scrap on the front edge of the shelf. It turns out this is completely unnecessary, because this front edge gets covered later.

A little extra strength never hurt anybody.

Here is the bottom of the rabbet.

The next bad decision I made was an attempt to smooth out the end grain that would be on the top of the chest, exposed when the lid was opened. My thought was that when reaching into the chest, my arm would rub against something here, and these edges are pretty rough, with all that end grain. 

It turns out that after it's sanded and burnished, it isn't that bad.

But I decided to cover the ends with a layer of epoxy.

Capping the top with epoxy.

This was sort-of a good idea, but I was using epoxy that expired years ago. And instead of measuring it out, I eyeballed the two-part mixture. The result was a goopy goo, that I had to remove with a heat gun and a knife. After that, the epoxy sealed the top very well. It also wicked its way down the long fibers an inch or two, which will probably be seen through the paint. Oh well, too late now. I would recommend next time just applying it with a paint brush.

The mistakes I made here were not catastrophic, so I'll keep going.

What do you think so far? Would you have turned the finished side of the flooring inside the chest like I did, or would you put it on the outside?

A Dutch Tool Chest - From Engineered Hardwood Flooring? - Part I

Last summer we renovated our bedroom. 

Bedroom with new flooring.

We knew we wanted a nice wooden floor, but since it was our bedroom, there was also no need to go crazy with any kind of expensive exotic wood, so we chose beech.

We are very happy with how the floor turned out.

We ordered the flooring from a local big box store, and they delivered it on a pallet to our front door for free! Because this product was such good quality, I wound up with practically no waste, even though we ordered plenty of extra just in case. Naturally, we called the company up to tell them we had extra we would like to return. They refunded us for the extra package of flooring, and told us to dispose of it however we wanted to.

Naturally, I needed a woodworking project for our time in quarantine because of traveling back from Spain, and since I wasn't allowed to go to the lumberyard, my eye turned to the extra flooring as material to make a tool chest for my leather working tools.

Here are the first two floor boards I used for this project.

Here are what I think are the advantages of using this stuff for a tool chest:

• It is easy to glue up large panels.
• One side already has a durable finish.
• It's extremely dimensionally stable.
• It's very lightweight.
  
• The price - in this case, free.
  

The underside. I wonder if it would work to turn this to the outside?

Perhaps it is also prudent to list the disadvantages:

• The "show" face made of beech is only 3mm (~1/8") thick,
• and the underside made of some mysterious "white wood" (probably fir) is only 1.5mm (~1/16").
• The rest (a strong 1/4") is probably pine and runs perpendicular to the grain of the inside ply and outside ply.

This last part is what makes this product such a great flooring product, but a Dutch tool chest takes advantage of the grain direction of solid wood for strength. More on this later.

The different layers of wood and their orientation.

Taking in the pros and the cons,  I decided to give this a go. I might have to make a few alterations to the plan, but I think this material will work.

First up, I cut a couple of the pieces to length and glued them up. When installing this as a floor, they just click together - no glue needed. I thought it wouldn't hurt anything to use some glue just to keep the pieces from sliding or shifting at all during the build, so I added plenty of PVA glue.

Clamps probably weren't necessary, but I had them, so I used them.

After they sat overnight in the clamps, I "ripped" them to length and jointed the edges to final width with my Record #7. I used quotations around my verb, "ripped" because just like plywood, this material has no real grain direction. I found a cross cut saw worked the best for cutting in either direction.

A freshly jointed edge. Notice all of the end grain visible.

Planing this stuff is a bit of a challenge. I decided to keep the finish intact, so no planing the beech faces, and planing the underside is dangerous because it is so thin and knotty. Care has to be taken when edge planing, as there always will be some cross grain to blow out. Sharp tools seem to work well enough.

Next up I'll decide how to orient everything and decide if dovetails are possible.

Learning to Rehab Planes Gently

Before I went to Spain several years ago, I went crazy on eBay and wound up with a substantial collection of rusty planes. Mostly Ohio, but some others. This is something I occasionally do when I'm bored. I wound up with more number four sized planes than anyone could ever need while I've been in Spain.  Some of those number fours I've cleaned up and have ready to work. A plane-jane Record is in my tool chest as a daily user and wound up being a monster. I love that plane. 

But these number fours are very common, not particularly valuable and not really sought after by collectors. I rehabbed them in a way to make them look and work like brand-new. A pretty aggressive treatment involving sandpaper and other abrasives, wire wheels and acid dips in either citric acid or vinegar.

Collectors hate this treatment. 

I'd like to consider myself more of a user than a collector (but who are we kidding - what user needs eight number four smoothers!). I've never felt that an acid dip does any harm, other than an ugly gray finish that can be polished off.

This does, however, destroy your tool's value to collectors. Apparently vinegar gets deep into the pores of cast iron and permanently affects the integrity of the metal. I've not experienced a tool's performance suffering or breaking due to this reason, so I suspect (but really don't know enough) that the differences are cosmetic, and permanent.

I would like to get rid of some dead weight in my shop, and doing a clean-up that could harm the value of my planes is not desirable.

After. My Record Stay Set #7 with an honest, gentle rehab.

I've found an alternative to my previous method, and it really isn't difficult. In fact, I think this method is much easier.

Before. This plane really was in pretty good shape.

Remember the interview I did with Robert Porter from Union Tools? He has a massive plane collection and has made a pair of amazing videos about this technique (Part I and Part II). He wanted me to make sure not to credit this method to him, but to stress that this method was taught to him by others. He didn't invent this method, but he has made some nice videos about it.

This plane I suspect was last used by someone who was frustrated by it's performance.

To summarize the method, use dish soap, water and Simple Green to degrease and clean the plane. Tools for this method include a toothbrush, a soft wire brush and/or a Scotchbrite pad (I used a gray one), and a razor blade.

Sawdust everywhere!

Disassemble the plane, put all of the small parts in a cup with water and plenty of dish soap, and spray the large parts down with Simple Green. Let everything soak while you start on one of the large parts, although I do the plane body last before starting the small parts giving the Simple Green pleny of time to work.

With this plane, many of the parts needed nothing more aggressive than a toothbrush. Start with that, and gently work up to a scrubby pad or a soft wire brush. Once the rust and dirt is gone, you're done. Using an abrasive to work down to shiny metal not only removes the history of the plane, it can remove some of the metal's ability to resist future rust. The dark brown patina on the sides of old planes is a great rust inhibitor. Plus, it looks cool.

When working on something flat, like the plane body, use a razor blade (or box cutter blade) to scrape away rust, dirt and grime. I've heard of people doing this before, but never have tried it. It works great! It removes active rust efficiently, and leaves that beautiful aged look.

The other very important thing is to oil everything with a heavy coat as soon as it's done being cleaned. All of the scrubbing has removed any rust protection it's had, and cast iron has many pores. Dry each part thoroughly, coat in oil, and set it aside until the plane is ready to be reassembled. I noticed that some parts, especially the plane body, soak up some oil and may need more oil applied.

Once the plane is ready to be reassembled, the parts can be wiped down to a thin coat of oil.

Some planes and stuff that I've rehabbed using this method (except the Gauge smoother).

The only other parts that need to be mentioned here are the wooden totes, knobs and handles. In the past I've removed the lacquer and applied shellac for a durable, brand new look. Here we're trying to protect and beautify. I used the method in the video which worked well: clean the handle gently, and apply Feed 'n' Wax. I just happened to have some Feed 'n' Wax, but if it's not available where you are it is just a relatively liquid-y concoction of beeswax, orange oil, and maybe some carnauba wax and turpentine. In a future post I'll try to make something similar at home. A gentle wax will work on bare wood as well as over another film finish, so using on something with part of the finish missing should be OK.

The #7 and the #12 scraper made flattening and smoothing my bench top easy.

In general, I find this method to be just as easy as any other plane restoration method I've used. To go from crusty and rusty to completely rehabbed takes me about an hour (not including the iron and chipbreaker, because the condition of these can be relatively fast or take a long time depending on the shape they are in). I think if I were to buy another used plane, I would much appreciate someone having used this method rather than the wire-wheel-on-a-grinder method that seems to be so prevalent on eBay. I'll use this method from now on, and save the sandpaper for the parts on the plane that really need to be precision ground (this #7 needed none).

Some of the things I did differently than Robert did in the video:

I used a muddy shoe tray (Baggmuck, from IKEA) to keep dirty water and oil off my bench. It is plenty long, and I think a full size hand saw would fit in it. I also used a bucket of water rather than a utility sink, since my shop has no running water.

I used the same razor blade from start to finish. They can be sharpened on your stones and stropped. I prefer this rather than throwing them away and getting a fresh one out of the box. I suspect they are much more expensive here than in other places.

Simple Green, 3 in 1 oil and Feed 'n' Wax aren't readily available in my area (Germany, as I write this). I found some online, but with shipping it is rather expensive. However, I got some concentrate, and I suspect the one liter bottle will last many years. In the US this product is available in any Wal-Mart for a buck or two. Simple Green is an eco-friendly grease cutting cleaner. I suspect that the whole job could be done with WD-40, which would prevent the need for water and worrying about wet parts rusting. I think pretty much any machine oil will work rather than 3 in 1 (I used Ballistol), and as I mentioned earlier, something similar to Feed 'n' Wax probably can be made relatively easily at home.

Give the videos a watch, and try it. I bet you'll find something there you can use!

Jasmine Jewelry Box

I finished something!

I was a bit worried about this one. It was one of those kinds of projects that seem to drag on forever. In fact, I started it 51 weeks ago. I suppose there always seems to be something more important to work on, like a new project.

Finished Jewelry Box

I first saw this box, which was designed by Gary Rogowski, as one of the projects the Wood Whisperer did a video on. I also found that Gary wrote an article on this project for Popular Woodworking back in 2011.

I thought it was a good looking box, and I wanted to see how much harder this box would be with a hand tool-only approach. Especially in my mini-shop that doesn't have all the workholding of my regular hand tool shop.

Part of the problem was talking The Frau into this design. She often responds with something I'm excited about building with a negative reaction about it's aesthetics. She didn't like the feet it sat on, and she really didn't like the handle that sat on top of the lid.

I tried to talk her into some alternatives, but finally decided to leave these elements out. (Today, she admitted that it might look nicer if it was elevated a little. I might have to put some feet on it after all.)

I think I avoided writing about this project here on Toolerable, because in the back of my mind my subconscious must have known that this is the kind of project I might not finish quickly. If at all.

The wood for this box was salvaged from a local dumpster. I wound up with more than 400 linear feet of paneling that someone ripped out of their old Spanish apartment. I was surprised to see that this smooth, white paneling was solid wood, and had a nice reddish color. I got some up the elevator to my 10th floor apartment, and discovered it is very fine ribbon sapele (Entandrophragma cylindricum, I think).

I have no idea what I'm going to do with all this Golden Dumpster Wood. I think I probably have about 390 feet left.

Entandrophragma cylindricum, ribbon sapeli from the dumpster.

I found that the paint used for this paneling was no joke. I think there is some white filler, some primer, and some really, really difficult to remove paint on top of that. I found the best way to remove the paint was with paint stripper. I don't really like stripping paint if I don't have to, so I decided I'd try to leave the paint on the one side, wherever possible. I came up with the idea of using snakeskin as a lining for the bottom of the box, rather than paper or leather.

The lid was originally going to get a mirror, and I was going to leave the paint showing on the inside of the box. All that changed, by the way.

Now I'm ready for the joinery. I found out why you don't often see finger joints in hand built furniture. They are very difficult to get just right with hand tools. Dovetails are WAYYYY easier. Next time I make one of these, it will be with dovetail joints rather than finger joints.

Cutting the finger joints by hand. It's surprisingly fiddly. A table saw would make this joint much easier.

Once I got the carcass joints done, I decided I was going to fix the bottom with slips rather than inserting it in a rabbet. One reason is this paneling stock is a bit thinner than the recommended stock. It's only about 5/16" thick. I removed a little paint and glued the slips in. They work great.

Drawer slips to secure the bottom.

These aren't traditional slips, with a rabbet. I figured I could maximize the depth of the box if the bottom panel rested on the slips, and was secured with the inner dividing pieces. I rabbetted the underside of the panel to drop onto the slips.

It was weird, but I needed to finish the dividers before gluing up the carcass.

I had some real problems gluing this thin stock into panels without any proper clamps. I made some clamps out of scraps that finally worked for this, but between the bottom and the panel for the lid I must have re-laminated those panels at least ten times. Now we're good.

It's frustrating when a panel comes apart after the joints are cut.

The Frau LOVED the ribbon sapeli that I used for the bottom. I was going to line the bottom, but she asked that I finish it instead. I'm not so sure over the long run how happy she will be with that. I offered to observe how she uses the compartments and perhaps make some jewelry holding gizmos to go inside later.

In the meantime, I had all this cool snakeskin that I was going to use for that. Instead of lining the bottom, I lined the sides and used snakeskin to cover up the white sides of the box interior.

Applying snakeskin to the inside.

With the box itself sorted, I figured I'd wait 40 weeks or so until I figured out a good way to do the breadboard ends with a 5/16" thick panel.

I finally settled on laminating two strips of sapeli together (why not? It's not like I'll run out during my lifetime!), having routed out the mortises from each half.

One is deeper than the other on purpose.

Once the breadboard ends were done, It was easy enough to make the tenons. That is, with the exception that the panel kept delaminating!

Grrr! At least I made it a bit oversize.

Once the lid was assembled and pegged, I was able to cut the breadboard ends to finished length and apply my homemade BLO, shellac, and then my secret wax formula.

Cutting to length. It would have really sucked if I screwed this up.

I put some fancy Brusso hinges on it, and it's done.

An easy 51 week project.

I'm really pleased with how all of the pegged joinery turned out. The secret to getting them to look good is using a dowel that is just a smidgen larger than the hole it is driven into. I used all bamboo skewers (thanks Greg!) and some bamboo dowels that came with a pair of The Frau's new shoes. It was some kind of contraption to keep the shoes looking nice during transport, and it happened to be just a tad thicker than 5 millimetres.

Tight! Huh?

Overall I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Snakes and alligators, oh my!

More importantly, The Frau doesn't seem to hate it.