Flooring Dutch Tool Chest - Part VI

 Paint.

This chest is nearly done.

Just like any other project, the quality of the finish depends greatly on surface preparation. In this case, I spent a lot of time with my Japanese burnishers in order to get a specific texture on the wood that I wanted to show through the milk paint. 

I chose milk paint because it is a traditional look for tool chests, plus it is pretty easy and safe to use.

The brand of milk paint mix I use is Old Fashioned Milk Paint. There are others, but this is the one I know best. I used some home-made milk paint on the last chest I made, and I have to say this mix is much easier and more consistent. Perhaps I need to work on my home-made recipe a little.

Anyway, for quite some time I've really admired the black over red look that is often seen on Windsor chairs. Curtis Buchanan has some really great YouTube videos on how he makes his, and in one of them he goes over his method for achieving the look he gets with this finish. If you would like to watch it, search "Curtis Buchanan - 46. Preparing to Paint" on YouTube.

I've tried this before, and haven't really gotten the results I was looking for. This time I tried to do everything the same exact way he does, and I'm very pleased.

The first bit that I took away from his video, is the water to milk paint ratio he uses. For red, he uses a 2:1 ratio, and for black he uses a 2.5/1 ratio.

Barn red basecoat.

The other thing I may have done wrong in the past was apply too-thick coats. This time it worked well to use just a little paint on the brush, and drag it as far as can be done. I spent some real time trying to avoid runs, as those will show through in the end.

After two coats of red, I let it rest over Christmas and moved onto the black.

Black over the red.

With the black, I also didn't worry about applying it in thick coats. This is more of a wash coat than anything. I slapped on a thin coat, covering 80%-90%, then for the second coat I just touched up the endgrain and the large panels. I didn't worry about making sure I covered up all the red. I wanted some of the red to peek through in the end.

Maroon and gray 3M scratchy pads.

After the paint is cured, it is time to burnish it. This is the main thing I have never gotten right in the past. I started with a medium scratchy pad, a maroon 3M pad in this case, and rubbed down everything with medium pressure. I worried at first that this would take off the paint I just spent so long applying, but it didn't. The only parts I had to be careful on were the sharp corners, and even some of them I scrubbed down to bare wood. I think the look is fine.

This already is giving the paint a much more refined look. After the maroon pad, I went to a fine, gray pad, and really pressed hard while burnishing. This had the surprising effect of shining up everything. I've never achieved a shiny look with milk paint before.

Underside of the lid. The ash grain is still obvious through the paint.

The front panel of the chest. The texture left behind by the Japanese burnishers looks beautiful.

Finished with burnishing, masking tape removed.

Now we're getting somewhere. I feel like up until now we are still doing surface prep, and I can apply whatever finish I would like now. I chose the natural Swedish boiled linseed oil (BLO) from Dictum. I slathered it on with a paintbrush, waited up to 20 minutes, then buffed it off with an old dishtowel.

The finish is beautiful!

This is the look I have been going for! Tomorrow I'll apply a light furniture wax and the finish will be done. The only part left will then be to attach the hardware and see about replacing the screws with nails.

Flooring Dutch Tool Chest - Part V

Before and after.

One big decision I always struggle with is regarding hardware for a chest. My thought on this one was since I was using free material to build it, I would try to save a bit with the hardware and stick to hinges and hardware commonly available at the big box store.

I found some hinges for just a few Euros that have an OK shape, although a hideously ugly finish. The finish on the hinges isn't the usual zinc coating that is usually found on screws and such (I don't think), but some kind of brass-colored, presumably weatherproof coating.

The hinges I chose as they came from the big box store.

Rather than dissolving this coating off with chemicals, it turns out that this one was very easy to remove with some 300 grit wet/dry sandpaper.

To get a finish on them that I liked I took them to my barbecue. What I usually do is wipe a light coat of raw linseed oil on the hardware, heat it up with a torch until it turns a color I like, then apply some more oil while it's still hot. This was a little more challenging than usual because of the size. I wasn't able to heat an entire hinge up to the ideal heat at once, I had to do it in stages.

Pay no attention to the cheese on the BBQ left from the hamburgers I grilled the night before.

The results (after a couple of attempts) weren't perfect, but I can live with them.

Finished hinges.

For the rest of the hardware, consisting of bolts, nuts and washers (because of the thin nature of the flooring I'm using to build the chest), I stripped off the zinc coating with essence of vinigar mixed with tap water, 50/50.

After a few hours in vinegar, the coating is gone.

I rinsed this hardware off in clean water, and dropped them into a cup of raw linseed oil.

From there, I took them straight to the barbecue. I tried a few different things with these ones. Usually, I'll heat them up in a toaster oven until the linseed oil turns a nice, toasty-black color. This time, I found the best results with a propane torch, and I went a little beyond the normal temperature. At a certain point, the oil burns completely off of the hardware, and at this point I dropped them directly into another cup with linseed oil. The result was a very even, very dark color.

I like the dark finish. Much better.

With the hardware prepared, I can attach it. This flooring took a little more care than usual to install, because the center ply has the wood going up and down, instead of side to side. I just sawed the sidewalls of where I wanted the hinges, like usual, and then chopped the waste out with a chisel and mallet with the chest flipped upside down on my bench.

Chopping a hinge-mortise in engineered flooring.

I took my time laying out where the holes needed to be drilled once the mortise was at the right depth.

Drilled holes for the hinge bolts.

I didn't get any pictures of what I did to line up the lid for the hinges, but I'll try to describe it. The trick is to be very precise and take as much time as is needed. I bolted the hinges to the carcass, and held the lid exactly where it needed to go. Not being able to mark the underside of the lid when it is closed, I instead used a pencil to draw a line across the barrel of the hinge where it met the lid, and marked a line on the lid on either side of the hinge, so I could line the hinge up on the lid later.

With the lid upside down on my bench, I could then mark the holes that needed to be drilled. I placed the hinge about where it was supposed to go, used a square to make sure it was aligned straight, and moved the hinge until the pencil line on it lined up with the end of the lid like it was when I was holding it on the chest.

Surprisingly, all ten of the holes I drilled lined up with the hinges. I only needed to wallow out one just a little in order to get it's bolt to fit in.

Installing the hinges on the underside of the lid.

With the hinges installed, this chest is starting to look like it's almost done!

Now it's ready for paint!

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!