Wooden Chest of Drawers

[erikmannie]

This is a project that I’ve done before. A lady on my UPS route gives me these really old wooden drawers, and I use them to make wooden chests.

I am not inclined to work with wood, but if I do it is always a father and son project because my Dad has a wood shop in his garage. I do not work on wood in my garage.

I will post my progress in this thread.

 

[erikmannie]

My Dad & I went to Home Depot & bought 2’ X 2’ pieces of 5/8” plywood, wood stain, varnish, and 2 types of trim. I spent $168, which I found expensive.

The drawers were free to me. I had leftover wood glue, knobs, nail gun nails, & sandpaper left over from the previous project.

I also had some leftover trim, stain and varnish.

This chest that I am building is going on top of another chest that I built, & I want it to match perfectly. Hence, the design, all of the trim, stain color, knobs, etc. must identical.

 

[erikmannie]

This was a much easier task this second time around because I just built one of these a month ago.

Comparing the wooden chest to a building, today we built the first story floors and walls. We also have the second-story ceiling cut to size.

Also, today I made the legs that go under this “expansion” wooden chest. That is, it will sit on top of the other wooden chest. These legs will raise this new chest up 7 inches; this will allow me to store some larger stuff under it.

Here are pictures of the first and second story floors and walls, along with the 2 leg/gusset assemblies:

 

[erikmannie]

Here are some pictures of test fitting the first 2 floors:

 

[erikmannie]

Here is a really cruddy picture of the drawers that I am starting with.

Some of the drawers already have knobs installed, & are stained & varnished. These are left over from the first project.

The lady (Ana) gave me about 80 wooden drawers, and I will use every single one of them. These are from her husband (Byron Wilson), who lived from 1918-1992; he was an accomplished craftsman.



Over the last few months, Ana gave me so many of Byron’s tools that I wasn’t able to keep up with posting them on the forum. I wanted to post them on the forum, but there were just too many tools.

I will post a picture of the tool chest that she gave me; it is not a Gerstner. I had already given her $40, but when she gave me this chest I gave her another $100.

 

[benmychree]

George Scherr made/sold Tumico micrometers.

 

[benmychree]

BTW, I do like all those drawers !

 

[toolboxted]

Interesting. Your George Scherr machinist tool chest was manufactured in 1942 - 1944 per 'The' Guide- https://sites.google.com/site/theguideforwoodmachinistchests/

 

[erikmannie]

My Dad & I worked on this today between 8:30-11:00 AM.

Below are pictures of the progress that we made today. We have the risers (“legs”) in place. We also have the first & second stories constructed.

The first & second stories will be entirely covered with an exterior wall & trim. There is also going to be a top that I haven’t even started building.

In the photos, you will notice that we put in 2 temporary struts to keep the bottom of the risers equidistant.

The last photo is of the plywood sides & pine trim that we have cut to length.

 

[erikmannie]

I couldn’t work on this for 5 days because I had to go to work. I went to my Dad’s today for 5 hours and here is what we accomplished. We put on the sides & the trim. We built the top, & glued that on.

This project is (1) sawing wood, (2) fitting it up, (3) nail gun & gluing, (4) apply putty, (5) sand, and keep repeating those steps.