23 Comments

    1. The designs are entirely different. The first toolbox has frame and panel construction for the top and bottom, and it also has drawers. It’s a little more “fancy” than this one overall. Two very different designs, but both very instructional.

  1. great episode, i’m trying to figure out how to fit the rim with my egg beater drill hold it flush an tak a pin in.lol clamps i suppose ?.can’t help but feel a spline at each mitre would look the part would the pins work as well against shrinkage

    1. Perhaps you could drill only through the edge band with your eggbeater drill, then while holding it in place, drive the nail the rest of the way into the end grain of the front and side pieces. Just a thought.

  2. Paul,

    Regarding the slippage that is occurring when you are gluing the hinge bar to the chest. I have read other accounts which talk about an old “trick” of using salt in the glue joint to provide some granularity to help minimize this slippage. Have you ever seen this done in your many years of experience?

    Enjoying this build as I do with all your videos.

    Regards, Dave

    1. I haven’t. I don;t find slippage irritating enough, I just let it have it’s way until it sets right and then clamp, nail or screw whats been slipping. I probably wouldn’t try that or sand either, which also solves what’s not really a problem at all.

  3. I am going to enjoy this one very much. The only problem is that if one has more room, one must fill it with more tools. A person can’t have to many tools!

    Thank you Paul and Crew!

    1. Hi Sandy…with regards to “too many tools” I feel its a question of knowing what you are going out to work on ( if your box is used as a journey man’s would have been) to have too many tools can be a hindrance as you only need what you know you need and that is to know your work and do not wish to use a fork truck to lift the box.
      The contents should be sorted every so often…cleaned, sharpened, added to or taken out……in short a box is not to store tools but be a means of carrying tools to the job…….this is only my opinion not a desire to tell others what to do.
      I do know we would all agree Paul has taught us so much in an age where to most ‘plug in tools’ are king

      I recently sold a Stanley 41/2 to a man teaching his nephew the joy of woodworking THAT is what Paul is all about I am sure you would agree Sandy

      John

  4. I’m probably not going to build-along with this project, because I dont really need such a box, and I do need a toolbox like Paul’s other project, but I can’t get over what a nice looking project this one is. Something that intrigues me about It is the color and quality of the pine that Paul uses.. The pattern of the growth rings looks identical to the yellow pine sold in my local home stores, but Paul’s is much more pale, and it looks so much better than “ours”. Is it because the studio lights in Paul’s shop brighten up everything so much, or is there a difference in yellow pine in the UK? As always, thanks for the great instruction and the quality of these presentations.

    1. Often our wood is far younger as we use so much of it in construction.

      Finding spruce, pine or fir in the US that’s more than a year or two old is very difficult for most of us in the US, so the density is not there at all.

      This is generally what I have found to be the consternation with many folks in the US when they hear somebody making something out of pine and begin to cringe.

      You really have to look at the grain and rings and the number of them and how close they are to get some age approximation.

      Also in the US we have southern yellow pine and eastern white pine, so if you got southern yellow it would be different. I can’t find eastern white except in dimensional grade 2 and worse where I am at.

      The really robust stuff Paul uses may be Scot’s pine? Which has a different shade and is quite a bit more dense, I do believe, than similarly aged stuff on our side of the pond.

    2. there is no such thing as Southern Yellow pine here in the UK as such unless it’s imported,which is not generally so. Southern yellow pine is known for its instability; cupping and bowing and twisting as soon as the bands are popped. The pine i am using is Scandinavian Redwood, no relation to the California redwood, which is generally one of the most stable softwoods and has been used for centuries throughout Europe including the UK. It is less yellow than the yellow pine, much slower growing, often with growth rings as close as 1/32″ apart, but more likely 1/16″ to 1/8″.

  5. I think this is a wonderful project Paul. While watching the video I had to laugh for a moment thinking I could see myself sawing off the handles on my bench drawers. Thank you for this video and for sharing your knowledge with us. Looking forward to next week.

  6. I don’t understand how the long grain rim nailed to the end grain of the lid survives seasonal expansion and contraction, which would be substantial across this width, wouldn’t it?

    1. Me too (neither). I would have thought the front trim would split off if the lid expanded across its width. I’m struggling a bit with the whole seasonal movement issue on this project.

      I may be a bit obsessed, because I’ve just seen a dining room table I made recently with breadboard ends: the ends now stand 15mm proud of the table top on both sides, since the top has contracted so much! Over the 90cm width, that’s only 3% movement – hardly surprising given that it’s an electrically heated house (ie close to 0% humidity), but it still looks terrifying. Fortunately the turn buttons and mortises have prevented any splitting or worse. Thank God the table is spruce, not hardwood…

      I would love to understand a little more about when and how to allow for movement. It might be a great subject for a blog post or two???

    2. It is interesting to see the reaction to counter-grain rims on this project. I am replicating only what was done to hundreds of thousands of chests like this one. I have seen chests like this throughout my woodworking life and inspected ones that date back 300 years. It was common and the done thing. Just because we see it as flawed doesn’t mean it was flawed. I own at least five old chests made in the early 1800s that traveled with me to the USA and lived with me there in diverse climate exchanges of high and low humidity and stayed the course.
      Those who followed the Paul Sellers design of two years ago will see how we addressed this issue but in this case we are replicating the authentic design. My new ones will show the flaws but I didn’t design it so I’m fine with it really.
      So, all of that said, should explain why we did what we did. I do understand the cringing, but it will still hold tools and I want the reality of the original as much as possible. Now then, I offer no guarantees for those living in Houston and then those in east Texas or Arizona.

  7. I, too, cringed when I saw long grain glued along such a long endgrain. It seems the only way it would survive is to stay on the same locale for life. Even then, as an “heirloom” piece, it will eventually lose some moisture and shrink. Even it if it’s only a mm, it’s going to look bad at the miter.

  8. I have inherited my wife’s Grandad’s toolbox which is almost identical to the one Paul is building in this series. It’s interesting to see that the mitred edges to the lid which have clearly been glued and nailed in just the same way are in a very good condition and show no sign of deterioration at all. I know for a fact that the box has been stored both indoors and out and in all weathers and conditions and is at least 60 yrs old!

    1. Fifteen years ago I built a pine tool tote as a practice project (mostly to try hand cutting dovetails). The tote is 28 1/2″ wide x 11″ deep. The ends are 15″ high and the sides are 9-1/2″ high. Being a novice woodworker I did it all “wrong”. The grain runs vertically in the 15″ ends and horizontally in the 9-1/2″ sides (i.e. cross grain). To make matters worse I dovetailed the sides to the ends (i.e. dovetails in the short grain of the ends). I live in Oklahoma, USA where the climate ranges from very hot and humid in the summer to hot and dry in the fall to cool and humid in the winter. The tote stays in my garage shop where it is exposed to all the weather changes. Amazingly none of the joints have budged! It’s as solid today as it was when I finished it fifteen or more years ago. Why it has survived I really don’t know. But it has.

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