Scrap Wood Toolbox Extension: Part 2

Updated 2/18/13: Sketchup Model Link

In the last post, I started preparing stock and making the pieces for my toolbox extension to hold my torque wrench.  I glued up narrower stock to form the top and middle shelves, and, as often happens when doing this, I ended up with a glued up panel that needed some flattening.  I do this with just a jack plane.

Once I have this done, I rip them to width and cut them to length.  I then form the tongues on the ends of the middle shelf with a dado blade partially buried in an auxiliary fence clamped to my table saw fence.

After everything is prepped, I decide to amend my plan to include a back on this box just to help control dust on the tools that will eventually be in the drawers. I rabbet the bottom shelf, sides, and top shelf to accept a piece of 1/4 scrap plywood I had on hand.  I also needed to cut a little length off the middle shelf to clear the back.

You can see the rabbets for the back in the picture below and also where I made the middle shelf a little narrower to give clearance for the back.

Below you can see some really nasty tearout that happened when I was rabbetting the sides to accept the back.  I was using a dado blade partially buried in an auxiliary fence, which ended up doing a lot of the cutting with the chip breakers.  It's also a cross-grained cut in oak veneered plywood.  I like the oak veneer, but it's particularly vulnerable to tear out.  Luckly this will be painted, and at the back of the cabinet.

From there, it's on to sanding.  Like most woodworkers, I hate sanding.  However, I like the results too much to abandon the practice altogether.  I pre-finish the inside of the back panel, and then proceed to glue up everything.  You can see the pre-finished inside of the back panel in the glue up picture below.

As you may have noticed from the sketchup picture earlier, I decide to add some retainer strips to the top of the box to hold the toolbox that will set on top of this one in place.  The front and back strips just sit on top of this extension box, but the side strips had to be rabbetted and attached to the sides of the box because the top box that sits on top of this extension box is a quarter inch wider than the extension box.  Here is the tray formed by the retainer strips, which will accept the top box.

In typical fashion, I realize after I assemble it that I probably should have pre-finished the inside of several of the other pieces.  But I soldier on and paint in tight quarters with a paint brush to get the inside surfaces done.  After that, spraying the outside surfaces seems like an absolute breeze.  I'm using the same Rust-Oleum black spray enamel as I did on the inside of the back panel.  It's been years since I used any spray paint, and I have to say the nozzles on these cans have come a long way.  They don't fatigue your hand as bad as they used to, and the pattern is nice and uniform.

My spray painting technique could probably use some work, but the box is done for now!  Look for a future post on making and installing two shallow drawers on ball bearing drawer slides for tool storage in the empty top section of this box.  If I had this to do all over again, I would probably put the cutouts for the torque wrench more near that back of the unit.  That way a smaller third drawer could go in the front of that bottom section.  This would give the unit a more uniform look, and provide a little additional storage space.

 

Making your own tool storage, or like this one?  Drop me a comment or email!