3rd Machinist Chest refurb underway
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2013 10:48 am
You could call me an 'addict' for these things. I have several adult nephews with mechanical aptitudes, so I've started refurbishing machinist chests for them. Basically I find a chest for under $100, and spend over $200 in restoration supplies.... logical? -- no fun? -- yes!
Here were the two past ones in 2012:
https://forum.shopsmith.com/viewtopic.php?t=10604
Now I'm starting to get somewhere on the 3rd one. I bought it a few months back as an "old cube of grease," with the back-panel warped out of attachment, and various other troubles. I did a whole lot of hand-planing and scraping to get back to bare wood. Also I counted about 51 hole-plugs that I made with the Mark V. Each place needing a plug (each old rivet-hole) was drilled-out with a little block of wood used as a guide for my hand drill. I also made use of Shopsmith's long cam-clamps to hold parts in alignment for reassembly and drilling new hardware rivet-holes:
[ATTACH]20146[/ATTACH]
As mentioned on another thread dealing with accurate sawing, these old chests really don't work well with solid backs -- they'll always crack or warp with humidity changes. In fact the premium grade chests often use plywood for the back, like this nice little kit:
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Kits/Tool_C ... t_Kit.html
I like to use lapped boards with a little bit of gap to make the replacement back. And, often as not, something isn't totally square so I really waste time to try to pre-cut the board exactly to size. I just install the board "long" and then have fun manually cross-cutting it. In principle I don't often use handsaws and "[plane] shooting boards" for general work, but if something is built like this then it's very fun to trim it down to a nice flush mate.:
[ATTACH]20145[/ATTACH]
So, this one is now where I'd call it 50% done. I need to fix the bottom drawer which has "wallered out" grooves, and I need to make a better-looking front panel. Then ultimately install new fabric liners, corner hardware decorations, mutiple latches, etc.
Here were the two past ones in 2012:
https://forum.shopsmith.com/viewtopic.php?t=10604
Now I'm starting to get somewhere on the 3rd one. I bought it a few months back as an "old cube of grease," with the back-panel warped out of attachment, and various other troubles. I did a whole lot of hand-planing and scraping to get back to bare wood. Also I counted about 51 hole-plugs that I made with the Mark V. Each place needing a plug (each old rivet-hole) was drilled-out with a little block of wood used as a guide for my hand drill. I also made use of Shopsmith's long cam-clamps to hold parts in alignment for reassembly and drilling new hardware rivet-holes:
[ATTACH]20146[/ATTACH]
As mentioned on another thread dealing with accurate sawing, these old chests really don't work well with solid backs -- they'll always crack or warp with humidity changes. In fact the premium grade chests often use plywood for the back, like this nice little kit:
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Kits/Tool_C ... t_Kit.html
I like to use lapped boards with a little bit of gap to make the replacement back. And, often as not, something isn't totally square so I really waste time to try to pre-cut the board exactly to size. I just install the board "long" and then have fun manually cross-cutting it. In principle I don't often use handsaws and "[plane] shooting boards" for general work, but if something is built like this then it's very fun to trim it down to a nice flush mate.:
[ATTACH]20145[/ATTACH]
So, this one is now where I'd call it 50% done. I need to fix the bottom drawer which has "wallered out" grooves, and I need to make a better-looking front panel. Then ultimately install new fabric liners, corner hardware decorations, mutiple latches, etc.
. Not only the wood restoration work, but also the finished patina! The appearance of that chest as well as your first one clearly shows the true appearance of a beautiful chest with some history!