7 Drawer Hickory Toolchest

[Mathew Nedeljko]

Hello everyone, I wanted to learn how to make handcut dovetails, so I bought a Japanese pull saw and sharpened my chisels and set about practicing. After finally getting the hang of it, I was ready to move on to an actual project.



A while ago I saw a really nice tool chest posted here by Bob Lasley. Feeling totally inspired, I thought what better project than to create a tool chest that could house my growing collection of hand tools. Well, let’s just say I got plenty of opportunity to practice before I was done with this project. I often thought I had gotten myself in too deep, but I was determined to carry on. In the end, I'm very happy with the way it turned out.



Now for some details. The chest is 23”wide x 14”high x 14.5” deep. The chest case and drawer fronts are Hickory from 2 beautiful planks I saved from getting thrown out with an old neighbors garbage! The secondary wood is soft maple, and the pulls are walnut which I shaped with rasps. The drawers are joined with half blind dovetails in the front, and through dovetails in the backs. The finish is BLO followed by 4 coats of blonde Shellac and top coated with 2 coats of Arm R Seal.

The funny thing is that after monitoring my progress for a while, my wife declared that this was far too nice to be sitting on my workbench, and that she could put it to good use housing all of her scrap booking punches. How could I refuse?


It now has a found its home close to hand in her scrapbooking room…


I guess I’ll have to get around to making another tool chest for myself… Thanks for looking!

[Ted Jay]

...

The funny thing is that after monitoring my progress for a while, my wife declared that this was far too nice to be sitting on my workbench, and that she could put it to good use housing all of her scrap booking punches. How could I refuse?


It now has a found its home close to hand in her scrapbooking room…


I guess I’ll have to get around to making another tool chest for myself… Thanks for looking!

This seems to happen alot I noticed.
You think some of you guys would go ahead and just make two, or just not show it to her when your done... jeeeesh...

When you make the next one..... send it to me. Looks real nice!!

[Rick de Roque]

Mathew,

I love the craftsmanship. Those DT's look great. I like everything about it.

Rick

[George Bregar]

Great work. Is there anything finer than a through dovetail?

[gary Zimmel]

Mathew

Beautiful job on the chest.... Love the DT's

[Abe Low]

I got a great buy on some hickory and after making some boxes I now know why it is used primarily as axe handles.
Your chest is fabulous. And you didn't complain even a little about the difficulty of cutting those dovetails in hickory.

[Roy Wall]

That is just terrific!! WOW!

[Mike Cutler]

Sorry Mathew, but your wife was right. That's a beautiful chest of drawers there.
Very nice work.

[Alan Turner]

Nice work. Very clean. Could we see a detail sho of the vertical divider, at the bottom? Interesting method of construction, where it looks like you hid the drawer blades behind the lower lip of the upper drawers and the top lip of the bottom drawer.

[Mathew Nedeljko]

Thanks for all the nice comments everyone!

Alan, you are right, in an effort to maximize the amount of usable space inside the chest, I decided to lip the drawer fronts and have the slides themselves serve as the drawer stops as well.

I'm pleased at how this worked out, but in retrospect I should have routed dado's in the case to accomodate the slides. Since I didn't do that I had to use 3 small screws per slide and glued them directly to the case.

Hopefully this picture of the back of the case will make this clear.

[Scott Velie]

Very nice. How about a close up of those dovetails?

Scott

[RickT Harding]

Great looking toolchest. Man, those DT sure look nice.

[Greg Cole]

That is very very nice. One good inspiration often creates another.... like so many nice porjects I see here get me to say "I need one of those". Well all my Neander tools do need a dedicated home not just a junk kitchen cabinet hanging on the wall salvaged from a remodel.
I'll stick my neck out and say it's a shame you didn't get to put it to its intended use. But there can be points earned giving LOYL something you made for yourself... or a little leverage for future use?
I made a couple cutting boards intending to give my LOML a set for Christmas.... and wound up giving one to my MIL & you could say I've got a little feather in the chapeau if nothing else.

Cheers.
Greg

[Jim Becker]

Wow, that's beautiful, Mathew!

[Don Bullock]

Mathew, that's a beauty. I love the wood. It's different from the usual choices. Congratulations on the dovetails. That's something I have yet to attempt. Yes, I know I should, but shop time is so precious I try to use it to get projects going.