03-12-2016, 03:10 PM
My oldest daughter, who is in college, has been getting into woodworking. This Christmas, she got some great hand tools, which she has been keeping in a crate. Over spring break, she and I set to building her a real tool chest. She looked through my back-issues of Popular Woodworking Magazine and settled on the Dutch design. It was definitely a joint-project. She did the joinery and most of the stock prep, and I helped out on some of the more delicate operations, such as jointing edges and planing the tongue and grooves for the back. (She's a leftie, and my plow plane is a righty.) Mostly I was just the workshop consultant, and she did the bulk of the work herself.
This is the end result:
There's no need for a complete build-along, but here are a few representative process pics.
Breaking down stock at the saw bench. In a golf skirt. I didn't know that was possible, but you learn all kinds of new things when the ladies take over the shop.
Knifing in the lines for the dado for the middle shelf. She cut both dadoes all by herself, and they fit nicely after a bit of trimming here and there. We were able to find some pine boards with some cool birdseye figure at the home center.
She cut the dovetails all by herself. They looked a bit messy when they first went together, as dovetails in pine usually do. But after planing them down, we had to shim only three gaps. Not bad for her first real set of dovetails.
Installing hardware was relatively easy. She opted for a hinged front instead of the traditional fall-front. Also, you can tell by the smartphone that this is the new Millennial Generation of Woodworkers.
The top needed some decoration, so she found a Gothic script online and copied it out in paint pen on the top. (Did I mention she's an artist, too?) I think it sets off the hardware pretty nicely.
And here it is, all completed. We're letting the lacquer dry now. I expect it will continue to fill with tools for quite some time.
This is the end result:
There's no need for a complete build-along, but here are a few representative process pics.
Breaking down stock at the saw bench. In a golf skirt. I didn't know that was possible, but you learn all kinds of new things when the ladies take over the shop.
Knifing in the lines for the dado for the middle shelf. She cut both dadoes all by herself, and they fit nicely after a bit of trimming here and there. We were able to find some pine boards with some cool birdseye figure at the home center.
She cut the dovetails all by herself. They looked a bit messy when they first went together, as dovetails in pine usually do. But after planing them down, we had to shim only three gaps. Not bad for her first real set of dovetails.
Installing hardware was relatively easy. She opted for a hinged front instead of the traditional fall-front. Also, you can tell by the smartphone that this is the new Millennial Generation of Woodworkers.
The top needed some decoration, so she found a Gothic script online and copied it out in paint pen on the top. (Did I mention she's an artist, too?) I think it sets off the hardware pretty nicely.
And here it is, all completed. We're letting the lacquer dry now. I expect it will continue to fill with tools for quite some time.
