WoodNet Forums: Building My Own Anarchist's Tool Chest

This project is taking a lot longer than I thought it would.

I've had the frame made for a week, and the other day I got the panel stock dimensioned and glued up.

That's made of four pieces of 7/8" pecan edge-glued together. With figured wood, you have to be very careful with grain matching, otherwise your glue lines will visually pop where the figure abruptly shifts. (Much as I like the look of curly woods, I don't like curly panels glued up from several pieces, since the curls never match up.) With the spalting, it was relatively easy to hide the glue lines.

A frame-and-panel lid for a tool chest should use a different kind of floating panel. Schwarz explains it in his book, but so does Roy Underhill in one of his. It's not tongue-and-groove construction; it's groove-and-groove. The bottom lip of the groove in the panel fits into the groove in the frame. It's a pretty cool visual effect when put together, I must say.

It does, however, mean plowing a groove in the end-grain of the panel.

In a hard wood like pecan, you have to take thin shavings, but it works really well. These are all end-grain shavings.

When planing end-grain, it's always a challenge to prevent blow-out on the exit side. Here's a simple way to prevent it:

(1) Start plowing your grooves in the long grain, just enough to define your groove along the whole edge.

(2) Use a chisel the same width as the plane iron to cut a chamfer inside the end of the groove, like this:

And with the waste removed:

Go down far enough that the groove in the end grain will bottom out before the chamfer disappears.

(3) Now plane the end grain, and you'll get little or no blow-out.

(4) Finally, finish planing the long grain.

For groove-and-groove construction, set your plow plane's fence exactly the width of your iron. When plowing the grooves in the frame pieces, reference the fence on the face of the stock. Then, without changing the setting of the plane, plow grooves in the panel referencing from the bottom. If the plane was set accurately, the grooves should match up perfectly. Mine were pretty close.

And here's the lid assembled:

I drawbored the M&Ts, and while the glue was probably superfluous, I glued the joints as well, just for good measure. The drawbore pins are made of pecan heart wood, and are extremely tough. The dark color should blend in nicely with the cherry once it darkens.

Next up: the dust seal.

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Steve S.
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Tradition cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour.
- T. S. Eliot

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