Craftsmanship in Wood

Chris,
Here's my walnut toolbox: I eliminated the interior partitions to allow room for long saws I want to put in the bottom. (Yes, the top of the sides are slightly curving inward already.)
For fear of wedges I glued the through tenons to the sides.
For fear of hell tenons I glued 8/10ths of the cherry keys on the bottom, but wedged the tops. I did do the two center tenons in the hellacious manner, and it worked well. I signified these by using ebony wedges, instead of walnut, which I used on the others.
I put an application of walnut oil on it and probably will leave it at that.

I didn't have stock wide enough to do the handle the way you did it, so I laminated some thinner pieces.
Here's a sketch: And here are the parts: A little bit of carving on the top: I screwed rails to the side and dropped the ends of the tray 1/4" below it's sides to hold it in place and used what I have been told is a katagi sakuri kanna for the sliding dovetail: After initial planing to rough thickness, no machines were used in the making of this toolbox.

With apologies for the photo quality.

That's a nice looking toolbox. Congratulations!

Charlie - outstanding work!! I was really pleased to see your finished piece and think it came out really well. Clean execution and I'm sure your work will inspire other members here.

At some point i would like to post pictures on the Carpentry Way blog of study group members with their finished pieces, so if you would consider having a friend or family member snap a pic of you with your toolbox, I would appreciate it. And if you would prefer to remain anonymous, that's fine - if there is a picture of the toolbox you would be okay with me using, please let me know.

~C

Here's the place to post up pics of your completed toolbox.

OK, here is my finally completed toolbox. The body is catalpa, the bottom is Monterey cypress, and the lid is elm. The outside has a couple coats of Tried and True on it, the inside is shellac. The pins that hold the battens to the lid are ebony. I have not done any trays, I will leave that to 'the future'.







Some of you may recall that during the build I had an oops on one bottom corner. I patched it up, and with the passing of a bit of time to darken the patch and the oil finish, it is not bad.



I learned a tremendous amount from the project, thank you Chris!! Looking forward to the next one!

Dan

Dan,

excellent work - really turned out well!! I'm glad you're getting a lot out of this and can't wait to see what comes next!

~C

On the 1 year anniversary month of my joining the study group, I am finally prodded to posting some photos of my toolbox. I do not consider the toolbox finished, as it is still missing tool trays, final surface preparation (lots of tear out), and an oil finish on the walnut.

My toolbox measures 28" x 14-1/2" x 10". The body is douglas fir and the top and handles are claro walnut. The toolbox turned out so much better than I could have hoped in the beginning. After being in its current state for the past 6 months, I am happy to report that everything is still straight, true, and tight. The top attaches securely with any binding.

That's beautiful! Very nice work David.