Travel Tool Chest & Workbench Build Process

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After pondering through the week, I decided I most liked the idea of the decorative Dutchman (even if only as it'll be an interesting experience to try making one). I thought I'd try making it in butterfly shape (as if to reinforce the join between the two boards), but it doesn't really serve any structural purpose: it's just hiding a mistake.

I started by sawing out a minimal sized butterfly. There's a definite and very obvious disadvantage to this in that it won't be fully supported underneath, but considering it won't be structural and that the brass bit will provide that structure, I figured it was worth a shot. If all goes wrong I'll have to make a bigger one.

I then chiselled all the edges at a slight angle (thanks for the suggestion Mike). No idea what the angle was (and the sides are almost certainly not at the same angle as it was just by eye, but we'll see whether that's an issue later).

With the butterfly ready, I marked out where it would go with a knife:

You can probably see what I mean by minimal size in the next photo: the crack covers almost the entire width of the narrowest bit of the butterfly:

With it marked out, it was a case of attacking it with 10 mm chisel, knife (for the corners) and 4 mm router plane blade until it looked like this:

Here the disadvantage is clear: the top half of the butterfly will be unsupported, as is the sweet chestnut overhang against which I'll be forcing the butterfly. My plan there is just to epoxy the brass piece in first so it looks more like this:

That does mean that I won't have much excess depth for the taper on the butterfly to help make a tight joint, but again I'm falling back on "suck it and see". If it all goes wrong there will be a plan B available I'm sure.

A quick test fit (not pressed in very hard as I wanted to be able to get it out again without breaking anything!)

I'd hoped to get some of the gluing done tonight given the long cure times, but I had a pounding headache and figured it was probably better to do relatively irreversible things when I'm feeling a bit fresher.

I am a hobbyist metalworker and woodworker. I work as an electronic design engineer and spend most of my working days in front of a computer so I enjoy having the opportunity to use my hands and make things in my spare time. I particularly enjoy making tools as I can then use them on other projects. This website showcases some of the things I've made.

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