Oak Tool Chest

This is a traditional style tool chest, made from the Rockler plans. Rocker included the plans for 'free' with an order. A year or so later, it seemed like a good project since I had tools that needed organizing. I had a supply of old red oak flooring that had been removed from a friend's house (foundation repair), so it only cost me a little time to clean it up and glue up panels wide enough for the various parts. When I bought all the hardware necessary for the project, from Rockler, they more than made back the cost of the plans!

The Rocker Plans were quite accurate and complete, but had virtually no assembly directions. This was not a major problem, it simply required being familiar with the plans and coming up with a plan of attack to make sure everything got sequenced properly. The biggest problem was cutting the dados and slots on the two end pieces. These were mirror images of each other, but had to match exactly for the drawer runners and shelves to line up properly. I finally made a 1:1 annotated drawing of one side and cut an assortment of pieces of masonite with dimensions corresponding to spaces between cuts. These were then carefully positioned and attached using double sided tape. The slots and dado were then cut with a plunge base router and a template guide bushing. This was time-consuming but it did work well. If I had it to do over, I might look at making a single template for the entire side, and just flipping it over for the matching piece.

The chest was finished with brushed on polyurethane and I lined the drawer bottoms with some black rubber perforated matting, sold as a non-skid mat for sanding, to protect the tools and keep them from sliding around too much.