• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Fantasy Tool Box

derekcohen

New Shoots
Joined
Jul 22, 2014
Messages
184
Reaction score
108
Location
Perth, Australia
The Fantasy Tool Box is a project to house tools for a hopefully - that's the fantasy part - furniture making program, hopefully in a city over the sea, after I retire (in about 12 months!). It is a small chest, just 540 x 280mm x 220mm high, in Pine and Makore.




Wooden hinges ...



The trays are Kauri Pine, which is as light as it gets. I shall not bore you with sawing dovetails, just the shopmade chisels in use removing waste. More on the chisels in a while. In this instance I decided to forgo a fretsaw (as I am not sure if there will be space for one) ,and just chop out the waste.

Start by undercutting the base line ...



Then split out a level ...



Chop down again. The fence at the baseline prevents the chisel moving back and over the baseline ...



Get down half way and start on the other side ...



Once you have just a thin section remaining at the centre, this will break away, and the leave the socket clear.

The only downside of this method (compared with fretsawing and paring) is that the centre of the socket is rough ...



So far, all the dovetails aim to fit off the saw. Will they?



These soft woods are great to dovetail and they squish together without any gaps ...





It's going to fit nicely ...



A preview of the lid for the tray ... Makore to match the chest lid ...



Stanley Bedrock #604 used here as the planes have not yet been made.

Don't you love the straight shavings from a closed chipbreaker
smile.gif


Raking light across the surface ... no tracks and a gleam to beat any sander!



There are 9 chisels, including a fishtail for clearing the waste of pins. The blades are M2 (HSS), 80mm long (a little longer than a butt chisel), 3mm thick and hollow ground at 30 degrees. The handles are West Australian Sheoak.



The brass ferrules are semi-fake, on purpose. The blades are attached with tangs, epoxied into the handle, and the ferrule is filled with epoxy, gripping the steel shaft and acting as a bolster. The shoulder shape is influenced by Japanese chisels.

While the shoulders appear square, as with firmer chisels, these are all bevelled with minimal lands, and the taper will fit inside the shoulder of a socket angled at a 1:5 ratio (11 degrees).



The sizes are geared towards detail work, especially dovetailing. All metric. So ... 3/4/6/8/10/12/18/25mm. It is likely that I will replace the 10mm with a 6mm mortice chisel (already made) ...

SquaringChisels_html_m21828271.jpg


M2 is hard steel. It takes and holds a good edge. Overall, they are light, pare well and handle chopping.

Update ....

What may be of interest to those reading are the tools chosen to be included. The intention is that these are all that is needed to do fine work when building furniture - to cover joinery, such as rebates, mortise-and-tenons, dovetailing for cases and drawers, jointing and smoothing. The box is small, and the challenge is to fit everything inside, as well as keeping the weight down. So far the total is 7 kg.

The plan is to make all the tools in the tool box. The only exception here are marking tools, but I may change my mind later.

The top layer, comprising three boxes, is done ...



There is enough space to slide a box along and get a finger under the side latch to open it ...



From the right, the chisels have been narrowed to these, with bevel edge from 3mm through 25mm, a fishtail for clearing pin sockets, and a 6mm mortice chisel. The handles are West Australian Sheoak, and all the steel is M2 ...



The middle box has the marking tools needed: Starrett 12"/300mm combination square (the blade is housed separately), a 4" Starrett double square, 4" iGaging sliding bevel (excellent copy of the Starrett at a fraction of the price), and a combination compass/divider ....




All tools are French fitted inside thick felt to prevent movement and provide cushioning during travel.

The third box contains several recently-made tools: marking knife (with interchangeable blades. Here sporting a double bevel), screwdriver (with several bits), kerfing chisel (for extending kerfs in half-blind dovetails), scratch awl (for positioning dimensions and starting screw holes), and a carbide rod burnisher for card scrapers ...





Regards from Perth

Derek
 
Very fine. You will still hanker after your main tool collection I would wager.
 
Very fine. You will still hanker after your main tool collection I would wager.

No fear of that :)

The choice of wood here has been a central focus. For example, the chisels (above) are incredibly light compared with, say, Veritas. Possibly about half the weight. The challenge is to build tools that work well but weigh less. So, smaller in size as well.

Regards from Perth

Derek
 
That's lovely Derek & I love the idea of making all the tools to go into it as well as the chest itself. That'll help achieve a much lighter result than I managed with my tool chest / workbench thing.

What are you planning to do for work surface / work holding type things when you're travelling? I presume you're not planning to make an origami bench with leg & tail vice to fold up into the bottom of the chest?!
 
Excellent work as I have come to expect over the years and always a pleasure to read. The first sentence is a bit of a teaser that I guess was intended.
 
That's lovely Derek & I love the idea of making all the tools to go into it as well as the chest itself. That'll help achieve a much lighter result than I managed with my tool chest / workbench thing.

What are you planning to do for work surface / work holding type things when you're travelling? I presume you're not planning to make an origami bench with leg & tail vice to fold up into the bottom of the chest?!

Al, that tool chest of yours is a work of art! It still takes my breathe away. How much does it weigh when full of the tools you store inside it? I bet that you could not lift it on your own!

I am not planning on a bench. Where I wind up (possibly New Zealand), what ever the workshop or short course is, there will be work benches and machines. Often tools are offered as well, but I thought it would be fun to take my own. Then I thought to make my own. I already have a bunch done. Part of the challenge is to fit them into the tool box.

Regards from Perth

Derek
 
Al, that tool chest of yours is a work of art!

Thanks Derek, from you in particular that's high praise indeed.

It still takes my breathe away. How much does it weigh when full of the tools you store inside it? I bet that you could not lift it on your own!

It is liftable by me alone (and I've only ever moved it on my own), but it's definitely not what you'd call an easy lift. When full, I only ever move it a handful of metres at a time (from workshop to car, from car to self-catering cottage). I think it weighs (when full) about 30 kg, so definitely in the territory of "think before you lift"! I don't think I'd want to lift it from floor level, but I fill it up on the workbench and the lowest it ever goes is when it goes in the car. I suspect it's the sort of weight that my muscular next-door neighbour would move around with ease, but I'm lanky & scrawny, so I have to plan a bit more!

I am not planning on a bench. Where I wind up (possibly New Zealand), what ever the workshop or short course is, there will be work benches and machines. Often tools are offered as well, but I thought it would be fun to take my own. Then I thought to make my own. I already have a bunch done. Part of the challenge is to fit them into the tool box.
Ah, that makes a lot of sense, thanks for the clarification. Sounds like an exciting adventure & I'm sure lots of Kiwis will gain a great deal from your knowledge & experience.
 
Back
Top