Craftsmanship in Wood

This topic thread may be helpful for those of you who decide to add trays to their toolboxes. The design for my box has now proceeded to the point where I have a main lift out tray with a removable tray stored upon it, and then a pair of lengthwise removable trays below that main tray and supported by a couple of lengthwise pieces along the floor of the box:
With the upper tray removed, you can see the two lower lengthwise trays:
I wanted to use wood for these trays that was light in color, and ended up with a mix of American Sycamore for the tray side walls, and Pau Amarello for the tray floors. Here's some of the stock for those lower lengthwise trays roughly prepped:
I used a router to make the stopped dadoes in the side boards:
I haven't decided what joints to do on these tray corners, however I'm leaning towards finger joints. I will probably do something different for the joints on the main lift out tray above. All in good time...lots of cutting to come!

Here's a look at the two long skinny trays for the paring chisels - first the lower tray:
And the upper tray:
The flanges which lock the boxes together to keep them from sliding sideways are 1/8" (3mm) tall.

Chris,
What thickness do you recommend for the tray walls and floors?

I've gone with 3/8" (9.6mm) for the sides, and 1/4" (6.35mm) for the floor panels.

If you fit a floor panel into a groove in the tray sidepieces, then it seems to me that a 3/8" thickness is about the minimum on any box or tray wider than 6". With a 3/8" wall, you can place a dado 1/2-way in, 0.1875", and insert the panel 1/8" into the groove. Be sure to use dry stable wood in a quartered orientation, so as to minimize movement in the floor panel.

I've settled on using graduated finger joints for the lower two trays. The bottom three fingers will be 1/4" (6.35mm) and the upper fingers will be 3/16" (4.76mm), finishing with a mitered return 1/8" (3mm) tall:
The lowermost tray is illustrated. The joints are identical on both of my trays even though the lower tray needs to be from stock that is 1/8" taller (1.75" vs 1.625") in section.

The difference? The lower tray has a protruding tongue which locks into the upper tray.

I'll cut these joints on the router table.

Tray time. I ended up reversing the finger joints on the pieces from the drawing, for no particular reason. So what was shown on the long board was how i cut the joint on the short board, and vice versa.

Once i had the joints cut out, and test fitted, the next step was to plane the parts. First, the Pau Amarello floor boards, which are 1/4" thick:
Then the American Sycamore sides:
The VG Sycamore is an odd wood. The heartwood portion planes just fine and comes out smooth, while the sapwood portion planes fine but simply won't come out smooth. I'm not having problems with tear out either! It's weird - I've never experienced a wood like it. I'm going to give it a final plane after assembly and hope it comes out without a rough feel, but if that's how it comes out, I'll probably give it a wipe with Shellac and then fine sand the shellac to obtain something decently smooth.

As you can see, I was taking clean shavings on the Sycamore:
Once the planing was complete, I did a glue up:
I think the Pau Amarello goes well with the Sycamore:
I didn't need to leave the trays clamped too long as the finger joints were pretty snug. Here's the two lower trays, sitting on the support pieces between the partitions:
Another view:
The trays will get their final planing tomorrow, however I wanted to check how close the fit was between the tray and the partitions. Here's the upper tray:
And then the lower tray:
The two trays stacked:
A closer look:
Then I slid the stacked trays over to check that they were slightly proud in height of the partition, which they were:
In final planing I will take the tray assembly down until it is perfectly flush with the partition top edges.

Then I wanted to take a look at how the chisels sit in the tray - here's one arrangement:
And here's another:
Not sure which arrangement I will go with, but probably the latter of the two shown.

Another episode in trayland. Started off today with planing the sides clean:
I found that if I gave the Sycamore a wipe with water to let the grain rise, the sapwood could be planed clean.

To guard against tear-out, I set up a piece of poplar on a block:
And then did something similar for planing the narrow ends:
I had thought also of using a shooting board for the ends but it seems it is always possible to adapt the planing beam with a few clamps.

I trimmed a slight chamfer on the edge of the tray to make it a little easier to fit them together:
With the two trays cleaned up, I put them in position on the tool box floor and set about planing the top edge down until it was flush with the partitions:
Once the ends were down I checked with a straightedge to see if there were any high spots:
I made the necessary adjustments, and re-checked in several directions:
Lower trays done except for fitting the tools:
Another view:

I looked around a bit for a foam tray insert system that would work for this application, and unfortunately a lot of what is available are very large sheets and minimum orders of 10 sheets. However, one company made a product that I think should work quite well, and I was able to order a single 2'x4' sheet of the 30mm thick foam - check it out:

http://www.fastcap.com/estore/pc/Kaizen-Foam-p13435.htm

There are a few videos on the site where you can see how the system works - looks pretty simple, easy to repair and modify.

I also ordered a long nose marking pen from FastCap. About $50 altogether, delivered to my door.

I have found time to return to the tool box trays. I am sticking to "no glue" them and will be dovetailing the trays and have a center rail that will have wedged tenons. My idea is that the ends with the tails will be held static by the center tenonned rail. The sides with the pins will be held in place by the tails. The bottom of each tray will be 2 pieces. Each bottom will have a wedged tenon 1" from the center rail to further lock in the ends. Due to short sightedness on my part, the center rails are the same thickness as the sides and ends which is just under 5/16". This means I will only be able to have a groove in the center rail for the bottoms to fit into that is only about 1/16" deep - any deeper and the strength of the rail would be too compromised. I will compensate for the shallow groove with the tenons on the ends and 2 small supports that will be at 90 degrees to the center rail and will actually connect and hold the two bottoms together at the center rail. Hopefully my idea will become clear when I have made them. The sides and ends will get grooves for the bottoms 1/8" deep. The dovetails for these trays are in such thin stock that I decided to put together a dovetail saw guide to maintain the correct angle. I made the guide to be for this project only so it is not built to be an heirloom tool. There is a groove in the bottom of the guide that is the thickness of the stock and just under the depth of cut with the hope that the rails attached to the bottom would act as a "stop" for the bottom of the saw cut. The rails also act to hold the mirror angles together. made different guides for tails and pins and they were very easy to make. The system worked great and produced very tight dovetails for the most part. I was afraid to make them too tight for fear of splitting the thin stock when tapped together. I have still have a lot to do on these trays and in this installment I have them to a point where the dovetails are cut and fitted but they are not fitted to stack tight yet.

My little saw worked very well and I didn't have a small enough dovetail chisel so I made one from a 3/16" chisel.