I really love scrap wood projects. What better way to enjoy woodworking than to make something entirely of scrap from previous projects? It takes all the pressure out of the situation, since you haven't bought expensive stock. But all that aside, this project has a purpose. My problem was this: I have a cheap mismatched roll around mechanic's style toolbox that I keep my wrenches, screwdrivers, sockets, and the like in.
However, I have a torque wrench that is too long to fit inside one of the drawers. For a long time, it has been just sitting on the lip of the bottom section of the box or on the floor, and it's constantly at risk of getting knocked off. You can see it right in front in the above picture. I really wanted to keep the torque wrench in that box because in my shop that's where I keep all its closest tool brethren. So I came up with this simple little middle section to go inbetween the top and bottom boxes that I already had. The key feature that would allow it to hold the torque wrench is just a simple cutout to allow the torque wrench to extend beyond the width of the toolbox.
Are there a million other ways to do this? I'm sure there are, and probably at least half of them are better than this way. But I'm interested in something that's easy to build and can be entirely built with the scrap wood I have on hand.
For anyone who doesn't know me, I am an absolute wood hoarder (the beginning of this video describes me perfectly WWMM Shop Cabinet).
As usual, though, I don't have enough big enough pieces to do this the easy way. Since I just recently got a craigslist biscuit joiner, I decide to glue up some narrower stock I have on hand to make the pieces I need.
I'm using a single piece of mdf I have on hand that's big enough for the bottom.
For the sides, I have pieces of oak veneer plywood on hand that are big enough.
But I'm glueing up narrower stock for the top and middle shelf. The middle shelf is of mismatched species, but I plan to paint this black anyway so that doesn't matter to me.
The main box is assembled with simple glued rabbit joints, and the middle shelf is a tongue and dado. You can see the joinery in the above pics as well as the cutout for the torque wrench. You may be wondering what all the open space above the torque wrench slot at the bottom is for. I plan to come back and install two drawers on ball bearing slides in that space to expand my tool storage a bit. Look for another post on the assembled box soon.
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