A Shipwright in Training

A light load at work has given me a little more time in the shop to work on the toolbox. The first coat of tung oil / varnish is now on, and it darkens things up nicely. One or two more coats, followed by a couple of topcoats of oil / poly blend for durability and we’re there.

Each corner has a maple dovetailed wedge set into it both for strength and as a nice accent.

You can see where the handles will eventually go on the sides of the case. I’ve added these blocks with the rounded tops to distribute the area that will be stressed by picking this thing up by the handles. It’s interesting how the flash brings out the differential absorbtion of the oil into the mahogany. It doesn’t look nearly so blotchy under normal light.

Here are the 2 interior boxes. You can see the lifting handles are set into the left hand box. You can sort of see the areas that have been cut out for these handles on the right hand box. I think these are totally cool looking. They are set flush with the top of the box and are quite sturdy.

More fun with hardware. The drawers have a little space recessed in them for the brass pull rings. These are just big enough to put a finger into to pull the drawer open. This is handy because the boxes will be fitting into the larger box with very little clearance. Having knobs that stick out would just waste space and invite dings.

Here’s a detail of the drawer and the sliding dovetailed divider between the 2 drawers. You can see that there is a small bead carved into the top of the drawer. I wanted to do something to make the drawers just a little less plain and boring, without really distracting from how much I like the grain of the wood.

Last bit about the interior boxes. You can see that the back panel is like the top of the larger toolbox: it’s bevelled and “floats” in a channel cut into the box. This allows for wood expansion and contraction and is one of those things that woodworkers often learn early in their career. A friend of mine’s brother made her a beautiful desk once that just split itself apart because he didn’t allow for wood movement… it was a shame to see.