Happy Birthday to … my tool chest.
Happy Birthday tool chest happy birthday to you. I just realized it’s 14 years old! I made it at The North Bennet Street School in Boston as the first requirement of the Cabinet and Furniture Making program. It is the first case piece I ever made.
All North Bennet Street tool chests have some common features among them. They have a maximum size, maximum number of drawers (6) and a way to lock it up. It is remarkable how many combinations of drawers, doors, woods, locks, and hardware there are. Each one is as individual as its maker.
It holds my marking and measuring tools and card scrapers in the top row of drawers, next level is chisels/gouges and files/rasps followed by odd tools, thread cutters & etc. and draw knives, scorps, hammers, bit braces at the bottom. The frame that my chest is attached to (the feet that is) I made for its first birthday.
Carved beads my wife and son gave me.
This is how it usually looks
The bottom drawer of the tool chest was carefully designed to hold my hand planes, they now reside in a cabinet on the wall.
Work Benches
One piece of furniture that you often see in my pictures, but that never gets mentioned, is my work bench. This one is the first bench I ever made. It was meant to be a show piece for my store, and to serve as a counter when helping customers with their purchases. It’s completely functional and I use it for demonstrations on weekends.
The vise is based on an 18th Century French design I saw in a book. It’s unusual to have the vise projecting above the top, but it works well for shaping legs or other parts where you need to be able to get around without stopping to turn the piece. The plank with the peg and holes in it next to the vise is called the “dead man” [maybe because of the holes]. It is a support for doors or boards that are held in the vise, and it slides on a track in the rail. It is shaped like a chair splat from a set of New York Queen Anne chairs I made.
The bench is a fitted with a frame and panel in the back. It’s painted with Lexington green milk paint.
The work bench at the shop is a more conventional set up with the same design elements. The legs are cut from 16/4 maple stock and painted with bayberry green milk paint. The bench is weighted down with boxes of Antiques magazines that a kind, retired carpenter gave to me. If your bench is moving around though, you should sharpen your tools.
There are no bench dogs here, I just nail strips of wood down as stops for planing.
Antick 