Good wood for tool chest

[slow-poke]

I'm forever in need of one more drawer, especially short 1" drawers for things like callipers, rulers etc. I have a little space enough for a few drawers under my Kennedy like box, so after failing to find anything suitable on Kijiji etc. I'm going to make one out of wood. Suggestions for a suitable wood that:
+ doesn't have a tendency to warp or split
+ will finish nicely
+ available at H.D.

Perhaps Oak?

 

[trlvn]

First choice would be quarter sawn white oak. However, not available at big box retailers. In any event, you will want to be able to plane your stock down to specific thicknesses so starting with rough lumber shouldn't be a deal breaker.

Time for some hand-cut dovetails!

Craig

 

[Mcgyver]

Oak is a great wood, but what equipment do you have, and how experienced are you? (buying wood at HD suggested to me maybe not super well equipped to work with wood, i.e. It can be challenging to do glue ups etc if you can't joint and plane afterward and with a jointer and planer buying in rough is better than HD.) You might be better off with sheet goods, e.g. plywood, than oak. HD does sell oak veneer plywood if you want the look.

 

[mmcmdl]

Nothing beats a good piece of Ash ( so I've been told ) .

 

[Dan Dubeau]

If you're not looking to make an heirloom quality tool chest (ala gerstner) and just want something utilitarian I would simply go with baltic birch ply. Depends on what woodworking tools, machinery and experience you have, but you could design something in cad, send it to a place with routers/lasers and get a flat pack and finger joint/key corner kit back you just need to glue and assemble. You could make the drawer fronts out of a nicer wood, and also veneer the edges of the ply too if you wanted to be fancy. Search around your area for a router/laser place and see how much they'd charge. I've long wanted to do that for a couple areas in my shop, but have not got around to it yet.

Surely there has to be a place like sendcutsend but for wood/acrylic, no?

 

[slow-poke]

There will be next to no weight in the drawers and I'm not equipped for wood so this will be a bit rough and ready. I have some birch plywood here. I will attempt to make it square., Probably just do some slots with the mill and use sliders for the sides. The front fascia will hopefully hide my inaccuracies. I'm going to wing it (never a good idea).

 

[Brian H]

I had the same question as Mcgyver. In my experience, (20 yrs as a finish carpenter) you are better off to go to somewhere like Windsor Plywood for materials.
Most of the inexpensive plywood has a very thin veneer that you can't sand easily without completely removing it. A good multi ply substrate with a quality veneer (cabinet grade plywood) with a nice hardwood edge trim (birch and walnut are nice together) would work well for what you are looking to do.
A reasonably good table saw and lots of sanding can get you there, but jointer and planer is definitely easier

 

[darrin1200]

Not sure where in Ottawa you are located. A couple of good wood locations are;
KJP Select Hardwoods over in Nepean
Wood Source. In Manotick

Not sure if you get down to Ogdensburg at all, but i just saw this the other day In Harbor Freight. $85 US is pretty cheap And it’s not bad quality.

8 Drawer Wood Tool Chest

Amazing deals on this 8 Drawer Wood Tool Chest at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

 

[JustaDB]

If you're not looking to make an heirloom quality tool chest (ala gerstner) and just want something utilitarian I would simply go with baltic birch ply.

Birch ply is the direction I'm headed. While I'm looking for a somewhat larger tool chest than what's in the vid (and what @slow-poke is looking for) I simply do not have the time (patience?) for an heirloom edition:

Simple, relatively inexpensive, easy to build, functional, no complicated joinery, plywood edges easily trimmed out. I recently picked up the drawer slides on sale from PA, 50% off. I scaled his original design for my anticipated needs (deeper cabinet, thicker drawer bottoms, additional drawers). I'll be getting a start on it soon.

My intent is to contain the lion's share of my lathe/mill tooling, metrology & associated hand tools within. I may even put my surface plate on the top.

 

[trevj]

I'm forever in need of one more drawer, especially short 1" drawers for things like callipers, rulers etc. I have a little space enough for a few drawers under my Kennedy like box, so after failing to find anything suitable on Kijiji etc. I'm going to make one out of wood. Suggestions for a suitable wood that:
+ doesn't have a tendency to warp or split
+ will finish nicely
+ available at H.D.

Perhaps Oak?

Hard to go wrong with the tried and true classics, Oak, Mahogany, Walnut, Maple, or Chestnut (if you can source some).

Pretty sure those were the Gerstner choices, over the years.

IIRC. Lee Valley still sells Veneer packages, if you want to 'cheat' it a bit, and make plywood look like it's better stuff, and have the best of both worlds.

 

[Arbutus]

Artist paint & brush drawers - 1/2" to 1" deep. About 16" x 12" x 5". Amazoom $45

 

[slow-poke]

I actually have one of those artist drawer sets in my electronics area, I use it for jewler screwdriver sets etc.

Skiing today, but hopefully will start constructing the tool box on Monday. If I live to a hundred there won't be enough time for all the fun projects.

Justdb, thanks for the video, a few good tips. I'm going to drag my table saw home from the cottage, I'm going to need it;-)

 

[Mcgyver]

Artist paint & brush drawers - 1/2" to 1" deep. About 16" x 12" x 5". Amazoom $45

What is your take on the quality/robustness? They look good in the photos, but I'd kind of expect something inexpensive from Amazon would just barely be strong enough handle a paintbrush. You've tooling in yours, think they'll stand up ok?

 

[ChazzC]

If you're not looking to make an heirloom quality tool chest (ala gerstner) and just want something utilitarian I would simply go with baltic birch ply. Depends on what woodworking tools, machinery and experience you have, but you could design something in cad, send it to a place with routers/lasers and get a flat pack and finger joint/key corner kit back you just need to glue and assemble. You could make the drawer fronts out of a nicer wood, and also veneer the edges of the ply too if you wanted to be fancy. Search around your area for a router/laser place and see how much they'd charge. I've long wanted to do that for a couple areas in my shop, but have not got around to it yet.

Surely there has to be a place like sendcutsend but for wood/acrylic, no?

HD (in the U.S.) offers a cut-to-size service via Columbia Forrest Products with free 2-day shipping and sheet cost less than the limited selection they have in the store. I had some back & forth emails with Columbia to verify the costs I wanted, placed the order with HD on March 1st (2023), was shipped the 2nd and delivered the 3rd; by the 6th the project was complete (needed time for the Polyurethane to dry). Here's a post I made at the time with the results; as noted in that post, all of the cuts were accurate & clean and the material was actually 3/4" (not 23/32"). I got some pre-cut 3/4" Red Oak later last year to replace the cheap, warped crumble-board bottom in our kitchen sink base cabinet - looks great.

 

[slow-poke]

What is your take on the quality/robustness? They look good in the photos, but I'd kind of expect something inexpensive from Amazon would just barely be strong enough handle a paintbrush. You've tooling in yours, think they'll stand up ok?

Very cheap. Mine is mounted under desk and the drawers are shallow and can simply be pulled out. Ok(ish) if on a bench or stack.

 

[Arbutus]

What is your take on the quality/robustness? They look good in the photos, but I'd kind of expect something inexpensive from Amazon would just barely be strong enough handle a paintbrush. You've tooling in yours, think they'll stand up ok?

They are solidly made with a 3/8" beech front, and 3/16 plywood bottoms and sides. Nothing is loose or badly fitted, the parts are smooth and finished with a clear varnish. Not a Gerstner by any means but these drawer stacks are quite substantial and attractive.

I keep my reamers in one stack and small milling cutters in the other and they get a lot of use. So far I have had no issues and I'll probably get another soon.

 

[slow-poke]

Well it's no Gerstner, but it should do the job.

This will sit directly under the Waterloo tool chest shown below. I 3D printed matching drawer pulls.

Opinions on finishing please.....

1) I actually found some brown stippled paint at H.D. so one option is to paint it in brown stippled to match.
2) Stain / polyurethane the front (oak) faces and paint the remainder to match the Waterloo
3) Stain / polyurethane everything

 

[wmetfab]

I have some bone dry clear maple ive had for many years.
I have a bandsaw, tablesaw, jointer thickness sander
If you could give me the sizes, qty and not in a rush I might be able to pre-mill them to size and you finish the rest.
U can also get door skin material I think its like 36x84 just inder 1/8,
I use that for tray bottoms
Perhaps we could trade for ??

 

[slow-poke]

I have some bone dry clear maple ive had for many years.
I have a bandsaw, tablesaw, jointer thickness sander
If you could give me the sizes, qty and not in a rush I might be able to pre-mill them to size and you finish the rest.
U can also get door skin material I think its like 36x84 just inder 1/8,
I use that for tray bottoms
Perhaps we could trade for ??

I appreciate the offer, the stain and paint is drying as of a few minutes ago (l'm an impatient fellow at times).

I decided to go with option 2, if I don't like it I can always paint the drawer fronts. I had some leftover stain from when I refinished an oak stair case so I sponged some on.

Tomorrow I will put the drawer fronts back on fill it with tools and live with it for a while. If it looks to weird I will pull out the rattle can. The textured paint is great at hiding imperfections.

 

[slow-poke]

I just need to get some felt to line the drawers.