Thread: Tool Cabinet - WIP

Hi Ian. What stands out to me straight away is the richness of colour of the timber handles. Joy to behold. Do you replace all your handles regardless?

Originally Posted by Mountain Ash

Hi Ian. What stands out to me straight away is the richness of colour of the timber handles. Joy to behold. Do you replace all your handles regardless?

Not quite, MA - there are a couple with original rosewood handles, which I very happily preserve, but a couple of the Bailey types came to me with broken or missing handles, so they needed replacement. The Veritas planes (top shelf) came with those 'orrible upright handles made for folks who don't use planes often (or for pretty short sessions, at least), so they got the flick - I still had some 'real' rosewood (Dalbergia sp.)at the time, so they got that.

I must admit, I do like woods that take a fine finish for handles - beech is an excellent wood for tools, for sure, but it can't match the lovely tactile finish the "finer" woods like rosewood & ebony take. My owner-built planes (which are getting to be the majority these days!), have a variety of species for handles & infill - she-oak, bull-oak & black wattle mainly. Two woods that look very spiffy, and take a really fine finish similar to the Dalbergia rosewoods are Solomon Island "ebony" (Xanthostemon melanoxylon):
No 3.jpg

And "western rosewood" (Acacia rhodoxylon):
PP1a.jpg

Unfortunately, the SIE is a bear of a stuff to work with, it's more like cast iron than wood, and inclined to be brittle. The western rosewood is also tough stuff, though nicer to work with than the SIE, but the trees are small and the wood is difficult to dry in large pieces, so I haven't ever had bits big enough for anything other than small planes. Don't be fooled by a photograph:
PPs cf.jpg


Cheers,
Ian

Thanks MA and Ian.

MA, I don't know what what make the rasps are, they're bought from the forum marketplace some time back. Wood Rasps and assorted files.
As these are my first set of rasp (apart from a Shinto), I don't have anything to compare against. But they do cut quickly and am happy with their performance.

The initial reasoning for the inner doors is to maximise storage space since cabinet is quite deep (~390 mm). But it does become an obstruction, hence I am now leaning against it. Still need to find a workable solution to organise bulky planes (plough, rebate and combination planes) effectively. I don't like separating the fence & rods from the main body as chances are I'll be spending more time looking for them when needed...

By the way, I ended up using 40 mm long particle board screws to attach the hinges to the plywood carcase.

Cheers,
Andy

Thanks to MA's prodding, here's a bit of an update: cabinet drawers to fit underneath the tool cabinet.

This was a rough & ready project using whatever leftover material I had on hand. The carcase was made of a smorgasbord of melamine panels screwed together, with masonite backing.
IMG_20220514_110519255.jpg

The two small drawers were converted from unused internal doors of the tool cabinet (decided not to use them to keep the tool cabinet space flexible for any future modification). I installed pine trims on the big melamine drawers and the carcase front edges just to make it a bit fancier than it really is.
IMG_20220618_181053226.jpg

For a facelift job, front pine panels were screwed onto the front face of the drawers. The panels were made of my favourite free material: discarded bed frames. I ripped them up on the TS and glued to laminate. I'm now quite comfortable to square up narrow stocks, but getting wider pieces flat is still a bit of a challenge. Work holding is one of the issues.
IMG_20220702_120541498.jpg

Here's the cabinet with the panels on. Running out of 5/32" screws, so the bottom two drawers are without drawer pulls. Will possibly leave it as it is, accidentally knocking my ankles and knees on the knobs wouldn't be fun.
IMG_20220725_112411305.jpg

It looks alright overall, but upon closer inspection the flaws are obvious. The front panels aren't flat. To exacerbate the problem, the melamine drawers are also not completely square. Hence there are gaps between the front face of the carcase and the front panel. I had to glue thin strips of wood in some of them.
IMG_20220730_183628151_HDR.jpgIMG_20220730_183715827.jpg

Cheers,
Andy

Happy with the tool cabinet and drawers, but the existing "built-in" cabinet next to them - while not exactly an eye-sore, it is definitely a nose-sore.
IMG_20220729_114932545 (1).jpg

It's poorly built with lots of opening, and while dismantling I found the source of the oh-not-so-lovely fragrance. Piles of cockroach poo galore at every nook and cranny. I ripped it up completely and replaced it with open shelves. Some of the timber pieces are re-used for the shelving (after soaking them in bleach).

It's much better and there's some semblance of order now. One can only tiptoe and contort one's body to negotiate the mess for so long...

IMG_20220814_211141684.jpgIMG_20220814_211110359.jpg

Cheers,
Andy

All looks very neat, Andy (will it stay that way? ).

Any 'mistakes' with the workshop furniture are only going to be noticed by a select few & better to learn there than on something you want to take pride of place in the living room....

Cheers,

Thanks for posting Andy. Great progress. An old boss of mine used to keep an eye out for hard rubbish days and old beds on the piles. He picked up lots of beautiful Oregon (bed rails) and Tasmanian Myrtle (heads and ends).

Nicely done, Andy.

Originally Posted by IanW

All looks very neat, Andy (will it stay that way? ).

Any 'mistakes' with the workshop furniture are only going to be noticed by a select few & better to learn there than on something you want to take pride of place in the living room....

Cheers,

My approach to workshop stuff is similar to Ian's, but a little different.

First; Is it functional? Does it do the job. [Critical]

Second; What did I learn from this? What will i change or refine next time.

Third; Next time means every future project.

Thanks Ian, MA & Graeme,

It's a good learning exercise indeed.

Good point about being functional. Being rough & ready, it's not as painful to see it suffers inevitable damage in the shop. (I naively used a tiny hammer to de-nail a piece of hardwood and the handle duly broke. The head bounced on the concrete and hit the.... you guessed it: the newly installed front panel drawer, leaving a nice ding).

Cheers,
Andy

Ah well, like us, our gear inevitably gathers a few dings & scars with time. They're badges of honour, showing we've weathered the storms......