Fall Front Toolbox (Pt.3)

Finally I made it.

Friday evening the toolbox was in a condition to give it away.

Anyway, the last day of working on it had some little disasters.

As last time written I had a tight time frame for finalizing the toolbox. I had to be ready last Saturday. And just to mention it. It was kinda ready on Friday evening.

I had some extra workshop hours on Friday. But as always when you start to hurry up things are going to develop into the wrong direction.

First things first. The following tasks had to be done last week:

• Making recesses for the piano hinge into front rail and lid - ✓
• Planing back frame flush -  ✓
• Fitting the front rail and gluing on -  ✓
• Mounting lid to the carcass - ✓
• Planing lid frame flush - ✓
• Mounting handles - ✓
• Mounting a latch - ✓
• Installing a divider for the plane area -  ✓

I ended my last post with having the front rail glued on.

So the very first task was to plane the rail ends flush to the carcass.

Bang! Disaster number one. You already suspect what happened.

Although I was planing pretty carefully the end of the rail splintered. Not the end of the world, but time consuming in this situation.

End of rail splintered

Immediately I started a repair job. I have set in a little wedge to open the crack a bit more.

Inserting a wedge

Next I've inserted some glue into the crack.....

Inserting some glue

...and finally used some painters tape to "clamp" the fix.

Painters tape to hold the repair work

No time to waste. I went over to the next task. Mounting the piano hinge to the rail and the lid.

That was a straight forward process - I thought. Already with the first screw screwed in, I managed it to make the next crack into the rail. Damn!

I have removed the screw again, pre-drilled the hole afterwards, inserted some glue into the crack and inserted the screw again. Not beautiful but pragmatic I think.

Mounting the piano hinge

The lid mounted I have flushed all edges to the carcass and called it done.

After doing this I had to fine adjust the lid a little. Therefore I grabbed my block plane and as I was bringing it to task it felt down on the concrete floor. $h*t!

The iron has survived this fall, but there is a serious ding at the edge of the sole. I guess a case for the plane rehab Doc.

A divider inside the case, two handles and a latche have been the last details I have added to the box. 

Divider and some tools inside the box.

So, drum roll now please.
This is the "Fall Front Toolbox" more or less completed.

The more or less completed tool box

That was all I could achieve last week and I'm glad how it came out. With a week more I could have done the drawers too. But anyway, it is like it is.

Saturday

On Saturday evening I gave it away as a birthday present for the 50ies birthday of my best friend.

He didn't expect something like this and was really surprised.

I was bothering him all the time with my stories about nice tool finds on the flea market, tool rehabbing, hand tool woodworking and so on. Now he has a good base to start his own hand tool journey.

By the way. He decided not to go my way about painting the box. We would like to have this natural look and to be able to see all these joints used here.

Heck, I thought I could hide some defects under some coats of chalk paint.

What's Next

There have been two things left to be done. Building the two missing drawers and to give the box a finish.

I'll update you as soon as I have done the drawers.

This project done I can get back to my "Secret Project". I'm already under time pressure again, because Santa is knocking heavily at the door already.


Stay tuned and healthy!
Stefan