Travel Tool Chest & Workbench Build Process

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The first job this afternoon was to get a pile of tools together to sharpen. I figured I might use any or all of these so they seemed an appropriate set (except the chisels, which were just in the pile because I'd been using them all). Some of these might not need sharpening, but I figured it couldn't hurt and I wanted as easy a life as possible:

With everything hopefully nice and sharp, it was time to put the dulcet tones of David Ford on the stereo and start attacking the box with the planes.

For the four big faces, I clamped an offcut to the end to prevent break-out of the end grain and then used my #4. This felt like quite hard work, especially the side faces. It wouldn't normally have been, but the chest is big and I had to contort myself into quite an awkward position up on a step ladder to work on it! Also I hadn't done a very good job of ensuring the side panels had consistent grain direction so I had to plane them in two directions, which added more fun. Thankfully the top and bottom were a bit more straightforward.

For the back I used my LA smoothing plane, but not for any good reason. I'm sure the #4 would have been fine.

For the front, I used the #7 as it made it much easier to control the plane on the relatively thin edges: the long length allowed the back to sit on one of the other edges while planing on the skew:

I haven't done anything in terms of filling in any gaps or sorting out that broken out bit on the back, but I'm completely knackered (I feel ready for a weekend now) so I'm calling that done for now. I'm sure some things will surface when I'm looking at it pre-finish application but there's time to worry about that when I'm less tired.

Just before closing the garage I thought I'd do a dreary weather photo shoot. I'll try to take some better photos if we ever have any sunshine again.

I guess the next thing to do is start thinking about the drawers, but I'm not going to think too hard about that before next weekend!

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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