Over the years, little by little, I've been purchasing woodworking tools for my now 10 year old daughter. At times, she likes to woodwork. I don't know if this is a hobby she will want later in life. However, I want to give her solid working tools that she could use her whole life. The modest collection has grown to the point where we needed some sort of tool chest to put them in. I thought it would be fun to build it with her. She wasn't interested in doing this. Such is life, no pressure. As such, I decided if she didn't want to participate, I would keep the construction very simple.
I had quite a bit of scrap Baltic birch in 3/4", 1/2", 3/8" and 1/4" widths. I don't use it much (backs and drawers) so it has been accumulating over time. I thought this would be the perfect project to use it up. It would be strong, stable, and since I planned on painting the tool chest, plywood would be fine.
The dimensions were mostly determined by the piece of 3/4" stock I had. Roughly speaking, it will be half size in terms of height and width relative to what a full tool chest is. Of course, half length, width, and height translates to one eighth the volume of a full sized tool chest. Funny how math works that way. Again, given her tool collection and likely planned expansion this should be adequate for likely needs. If not, that is good as that means she must be getting into woodworking and we can then make a proper chest.
For the construction itself, it is simple butt joints with glue and screws. I purposely wanted to this to be a simple construction. My last tool chest took 160 hours to make. This one with paint took about 40 hours. I have to admit, it was nice to have something simple to build. The dust frame butt joints went on in the opposite butt joint orientation. The bottom was screwed on. I think this will be more than strong enough. The top was constructed out of plywood and given a faux frame and panel look. The dimensions of the top are 1/8th and inch longer and wider than the carcass. That way, the lip of the top has some wiggle room on install and it should be easy to open and close. I elected not to put a lock on the chest. I just don't think it's necessary.
The two drawers were made from scrap poplar and some scrap cherry veneered plywood bottom. Rather than use traditional dovetails, I used butt joints, glue, and nails. It should be fine. If I were to do the drawers over, I would made them different sizes. They are roughly the same size. I'm finding it would have been nice to have one drawer longer and one shorter given the tools I really wanted to put in the drawers. For the bottom, I didn't put any partitions in it. Not sure what all of her tools will be. For now things are just loosely stored there. When we get closer to her final tool collection maybe then we can customize the bottom. Or maybe not.
I used multiple applications and sandings of wood filler to hid the screws and fix and imperfections/boo-boos. Now, with the construction done, it was time to finish it. As I mentioned, I wanted to paint the outside. I asked her what color she wanted. She said she wanted it painted like a tiger. A tiger? Yes, she confirmed. Well, ok it's her tool chest after all. On the next post I will go over how I finished it to look like a tiger.
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