Finished Tool Cabinet, and a confession

[Gary Benson]

Just finished my latest tool cabinet today. I am fairly new to hand tools, and I set out to cut all of the joinery for this cabinet with hand tools. I found the cherry for the carcass to be very unforgiving when cutting through dovetails by hand, so I switched to box joints on the table saw for the main case (they also proved to be tougher than I expected). I did, however, manage to cut the dovetails for the drawers by hand.

Thats it for the confession, now for the details of the cabinet. It is 32" high, by 32" tall with doors shut. It totals about 11" deep also with doors closed. The main carcass, doors and top are cherry. The door panels and back panel are baltic birch ply, and I added maple veneer to the outside of the doors. The interior tool wells are made from bb ply and cherry. The drawers have cherry fronts, aspen sides and back, and bb ply for the bottom. The door and drawer pulls are cocobolo.

I tried to leave some room for expansion in the future (both in the doors and left side of interior). The missing plane spot is for a low angle jack (proper dimensions thanks to Don Peterson), hopefully coming at holiday time. I would also like a good combo square and maybe a tenon saw to hang inside one of the doors.

Thanks for looking,

Gary
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[Lee Hingle]

Gary,
Very nice cabinet!
Lee

[James Mittlefehldt]

Very nice indeed looks great. What was the problem with the cherry that you had, was it that the grain was somewhat wild, and did not cooperate with cutting?

I see you did not put many saws in there, wise move as inevitably as you slide down the slope ever faster they will doubtles breed in your shop and grow in numbers.

Good work though no matter how it happened

[Bob Noles]

Gary,

Excellent job! I really like the looks and functionality of that project. I have yet to attempt a cabinet like that, but have saved your pictures for ideas when my turn arrives.

Thanks for sharing it.

[Lewis Moon]

Abso-freakin-lutely beautiful. That is going to be one of those tool cabinets that someone pays a king's ransom for in about 100 years.

[Phil Thien]

Absolutely stunning.

[Steve Clardy]

Very nice cabinet Gary.

[Roy Wall]

Gary -

That's terrific work - beautifully done. You've got a nice hand tool shop!!

[Gary Benson]

I think the problem with the cherry was more with the operator, less with the wood itself. Given that cherry if fairly hard, it will not compress much, therefore I ended up over cutting and leaving unacceptable gaps. Using aspen or another softer wood seems to allow some compression when fitting, and more swelling during glue up to hide more small errors. I did seem to get better as I went, and look forward to further improvement.

Thanks for the compliments.

[Bob Oehler]

We will let you slide this time

Very nice job I too am going to keep a few of the pic's for Idea's on my tool cabent when I get to building one.

Again
Very nice job / well done

Bob Oehler

[Don C Peterson]

Gary,

Very nice. I'm in the process of trying to figure out how to store my hand tools, so I really appreciate seeing how others have approached the problem.

I'm almost persuaded to make a tool till with casters so I can move it around the shop as needed.

[Jim Becker]

Gary, that's a lovely cabinet...what tools you actually used matters less than the wonderful end result, IMHO. There are many times when the "ideal" may not work out. So you do what you need to do and move on.

[Corvin Alstot]

I tried to leave some room for expansion in the future (both in the doors and left side of interior). The missing plane spot is for a low angle jack (proper dimensions thanks to Don Peterson), hopefully coming at holiday time. I would also like a good combo square and maybe a tenon saw to hang inside one of the doors.

Gary/ Great job. Good idea to allow room for expansion. My guess is that you will exceed the limits
of the case sometime in the future anyway, look at the H.O.Studley case as an example.

[Jan Bianchi]

This is beautiful design and execution both of which I hope to emulate. Two questions. Is the pitch of the mounting board alone enough to hold those planes in place or are they wedged in? Also since I have a rust problem. I'd add an incandescent bulb to ward off moisture. Anyone see any problem with this?

[Gary Benson]

Jan,
I tried to make the pitch of the mounting board enough to hold the planes, but the LN 4 1/2 is more top heavy than the others and would tip. More pitch made the case too deep or the planes stuck out of the main case too far and would interfere with the contents of the door. The vertical dividers are about 1/4 by 1/4, just ran a cross piece that holds the front of the plane from tipping back. No big moisture problem here in arid Colorado, but I might consider fire danger with a hot bulb in a closed wooded box?
Gary