Toolbox

The first thing we made on this course was a toolbox. At first I was wondering why we were building a toolbox as I thought I had signed up to a boatbuilding course.

Once Merf explained the process that we were going to use to build a boat I then started to understand how it would link into boatbuilding. An example of this is nailing two pieces of wood together so when I plain them they become mirror image of each other and match perfectly, just as the hull of a boat should be. It was also practical for us to build this first so we would have somewhere to store our tools later in the year.

We started by making a cutting list so that we had an idea of how much timber we would need for each part of the toolbox; (sides, ends, handle and base).

The timber we were given was rough sawn Radiata Pine, 150mm wide and 25mm thick. We had to dress this down to 20mm thick for the ends. We used the thicknesser until we reached the right thickness. This also gave us a nice smooth surface to work with.

Ends

Each end is made out of one piece of timber, 640x150x20mm after being dressed. We then cut them in half on the line shown in the picture (1). They are then put on top of each other and nailed together (2).

By doing this it means that when you look at the end of the box it is a mirror image on either side because the two pieces of wood used are exactly the same. We repeated this process for the other end of the box. We also rebated out along the bottom and up the 150mm side, while we had them nailed together.

Once the ends were all dressed up we pulled them apart and folded them out. We then glued them together to make the ends of the box (3).

Sides

We dressed the timber for the sides down to get them smooth but left them as thick as possible because we planned to use the big band saw to do a process called ‘deep ripping’(4) . This is when you cut the timber in half, right down the center.

We then had to dress this cut edge once again to smooth it off. This meant that we lost even more thickness on either side. On the plan it showed the sides to be 10mm thick. Because of the thickness of the timber we started with, after we had dressed the timber we ended up with about 8.5mm thick sides. This is still plenty strong enough.

Handle

When making the handle we decided to use a shouldered tennon joint to join the handle to the sides of the toolbox. We kept the piece of timber extra long in case we messed up the join. Once you have one end right you then have to cut it to the correct length to do the other side.

Unfortunately, I started with a really nice join but then once I cut the other end I made a slight mistake which made the join not fit cleanly when I fit it onto the box.

The handle had sharp edges so we used the bench router to round the edges and make it more comfortable carry around.

Base

The base was made from plywood we just cut the sheet of ply on the big bench saw. A few of us cut the ply for the whole group. We made them slightly bigger than we needed so that they could be planed down to the correct size for each box. We used a hand planer for this.

Construction

Once we had all the parts of the box cut and dressed, we were able to start assembling the toolbox. For this we used PVA glue and nails. I felt that my toolbox had been coming along quite well, but I did pick up on a few faults when it came to assembling. For example; when I cut the sides down to length I didn’t check that the drop saw was cutting perfectly square. When it came to assembling my toolbox, not all of the sides fit neatly into the ends of the box.

Some of the tools we used were:

·         Buzzer (planer) - used for dressing the edges of timber.

·         Thicknesser - used for dressing the faces of timber.

·         Bandsaw - used to deep rip the timber for sides.

·         Seed sander -used for dressing faces of timber

·         Large Belt Sander - has the same use as a speed sander

·         Router - used to make the rebate (rabbit), on the ends of the toolbox, for the sides and base to fit into.