Machinist's chest restoration #2

Machinist Chest Restoration

[Oct. 30, 2016]

Toolbox after repair, refinishing, and refitting:

My wife bought an old tool chest at auction for $5. I call it a machinist chest, although it is not a typical machinist chest design, and it has some unusual features. For starters, it has a tambour front cover (most of which was missing), and it does not have the typical assortment of drawer sizes. In addition, the top drawer has no drawer handles (by design), and opens by a method which I had to guess at. Here's a list of a few of the problems with this chest when I first got it:

Tambour door missing all but three slats (fortunately the bottom piece with lock was still there)
No key for the lock
Handles for tambour cover missing
Top handle missing covering, and rusted (as were the handle mounts)
Brass plated corners completely rusted
Appeared to have been exposed to water, and was very dirty, almost black
Brass drawer handles very tarnished and dirty - wasn't sure they were brass until I cleaned them (nice surprise - they turned out to be solid brass and not plated)
Screws holding cover for tambour slot so rusted they could not be removed
One drawer front slightly cracked
All drawers slightly warped.
Bottom rear corner piece broken off and missing.

It's very possible this chest was custom built by the owner; I could not find a manufacturer's mark on it anywhere.

Here is what it looked like before it was restored:

The box with drawers removed. Most of the tambour front was missing.

The top of the box - the box was so dirty and stained it was impossible to see wood grain anywhere.

A closeup of the drawers, and the badly tarnished brass fittings.

Getting Started

As a first step, I removed all of the hardware. This was difficult as some of the pieces were rusted almost completely through. Further, the screws appear to be brass plated, and in most cases had rusted badly. In a few cases, I had to open up screw slots with a Dremel tool. Below are photos showing the state of the chest as received.

Brass plated corners and brad nails very badly rusted. The rusted brad nails also left stains in the wood.

Brass drawer fittings tarnished to a dark brown; brass plated screws often rusted. Note the dark color of the wood drawers - no wood grain was visible.

Top handle and fittings rusted. The handle probably had a leather or plastic covering originally, but there was no sigh of it. The handle itself was lightly rusted, but the brass plated fitting were rusted almost through.

With all of the hardware removed, I next washed all of the wood pieces with a nylon scrub sponge and DeckBrite wood cleaner. I used DeckBrite mostly because I already had some, and also because I wanted something that would remove any surface staining, and hopefully help with a slight mildew smell. All of the wood pieces were washed quickly and then hosed off to prevent soaking the wood and causing any further warping.

After cleaning, all of the wood surfaces were sanded. In addition, the sides and bottoms of all of the drawers were sanded to achieve a smooth fit.

Here's the chest after cleaning, but before sanding.

Chest after cleaning and sanding. This photo also shows damage to one rear corner - piece broken off and missing.

A piece of walnut was cut to replace the missing corner piece. As some of the original finish nails were missing, the box was reinforced using a brad nailer. All nail holes were patched with wood putty.

Refinishing

The outside facings parts of the box are made of walnut, so I used a clear finish (wipe-on clear gloss urethane) as follows:

Coating #1 - sand and wipe on finish
Coating #2 - light sanding, wipe on finish
Coating #3 - rub with #0000 steel wool, wipe on finish
Coating #4 - rub with #0000 steel wool, wipe on finish
Paste wax - after the finish dried for a couple of days, and before the handle and brass corners were added, the box and drawer fronts (including the brass handles) were polished with paste wax.

Here's a before and after look at the refinishing:

Box drawers before cleaning and refinishing.

Box drawer's after cleaning and refinishing (brass removed, polished, and re-installed).

After polishing with paste wax.

Here's the finish I used on the wood - MinWax Wipe-On Poly clear gloss.

Brass Cleanup

As noted earlier, all brass fittings were removed for cleaning. The brass was cleaned using Brasso, and then further polished using a buffer. The original screws were discarded and replaced with new solid brass screws. The pictures below show the brass before and after. Unfortunately, the pictures don't show much difference before and after buffing, even thought the buffing did add a noticeable polish.

Brass before cleaning.

After cleaning with Brasso.

Brass after final buffing.

To the left is a close-up of one of the brass drawer handles.

Missing Pieces - Key

The key for the lock was long gone, and there was no manufacturer mark on the lock (just a cryptic "83" stamped on the back). I attempted to make a replacement key from a small piece of sheet metal. After an initial failed attempt, I was able to figure out how the lock mechanism worked, and make a working key. I was glad I was able to do this, as the lock mechanism was in the "locked" state even though the lock pins were not engaged, which meant that I would not be able to close the tambour door fully.

The working key was made by grinding and filing a piece of sheet steel. I was able to use the first non-working key as a guide to making the second key. The teeth for the second key were cut using a metal bandsaw (very carefully!), and hand filing for final fit.

Even though I now have a working key, I don't plan to lock the chest, as the mechanism is quite finicky and difficult to unlock. Here are some pictures of the key:

An initial failed attempt - it fit but did not turn.

A working key.

Here is a close-up of the key, after a little bit of final work.

Missing Pieces - Tambour

The tambour door was missing most of the slats (all but three), but did include the bottom section with the lock mechanism. Using the three existing slats as a guide, I made replacement slats from walnut. All of the tambour pieces were then sanded and finished with clear satin urethane like the rest of the box (except that the back side of the pieces was left unfinished to enable gluing on the backing).

A makeshift frame was built to hold the pieces for gluing on the backing. The backing was cut from a piece of canvas ducking purchased from a local fabric store The canvas was also washed and dried prior to gluing, to prevent any later shrinking). Contact cement was applied to both the wood pieces and the canvas, and after a suitable drying time, the canvas was applied.

After allowing some further drying time (a couple of hours), the tambour was carefully "bent" along each slat, both to remove any residual glue between the slats, and to further press the backing onto each slat.

The original knobs on the tambour bottom were missing, so I turned two new ones on the lathe from brass rod. The original knobs screws into the wood, but for the new ones I drilled threaded holes in the knobs, and drilled through-holes in the wood to enable them to be attached with screws from behind.

Tambour in frame, ready for gluing.

Completed tambour.

The tambour is retained by a "retention strip" along the bottom. It was necessary to remove this to install the new tambour. Unfortunately, the strip was held in by four round-head steel wood screws which had rusted so badly that the heads broke off when I tried to remove them. In order to remove the strip, I used a plug cutter to cut out a plug around each screw, I could then remove the strip, and then used vise-grips to unscrew each screw. I then cut new walnut plugs to fill the holes left by the plug cutter. The retention strip was then sanded and finshed like the other pieces.

I considered replacing the original round head screws with countersunk flat head screws, but in the end I decided to restore the original look. I did use brass screws rather than steel (the original steel screws were likely brass plated in any case).

Retention strip with rusted screws.

Retention strip removed after "plug cutting."

Below are some close-up photos of the brass knobs I made for the tambour, and the brass screws holding on the retention strip. If you look closely around the brass screw heads, you can see where a plug was cut out and replaced. On the left hand photo, you can see staining of the wood from the original rusted screw.

Missing Pieces - Handle and Fittings

As can be seen from the photo to the left, the original handle and fittings were rusted. In the case of the fittings and screws, the rusting was very bad, and the metal was very thin. The handle was only surface rust, and was salvageable. The handle originally may have had a plastic or leather cover, or might possibly have been brass plated.

I did consider leaving the handle off altogether. This is not the sort of toolbox one carries around a lot, so the handle is really not all that useful. However, when restoring a tool or a piece of furniture, I typically like to finish a piece as close as possible to the original "spirit" unless there is a very good reason to do otherwise. By "spirit" I mean the general look and feel of a piece, not an exact reproduction. This leaves me free to choose a different finish, or to upgrade parts where appropriate.

For the handle, since I had some leather pieces available, I decided to cover the handle with leather, and to make some new brass fittings.

I cut a piece of leather oversize, soaked it in water, and then stretched it over the handle (previously I had wire-brushed the handle to remove the rust). I sewed the leather in place, and then cut and sanded away the excess. I then cut and folded another strip of leather (which I ironed to keep the folds in place), and glued the strip over the sewed seam, using string to hold the strip in place while the glue dried.

Leather cover sewed in place.

Excess trimmed; leather strip made to cover seam.

Seam cover strip glued in place.

Here is the finished handle.

Next, I needed to make new fittings to mount the handle to the box. I cut a section of brass rod, and then cut it lengthwise to create a half section. The rough sawed half-rod was then milled flat, and a piece of flat stock was cut and milled with a very shallow (about .008" deep) groove for the half-rod.

Brass rod cut to length and cut lengthwise.

Half-rod cut side milled flat.

Brass plate milled with groove to fit half-rod.

The two brass pieces were then silver soldered together. After a bit of cleaning, the ends were milled flat. A hole was then plunge milled through each hand, part way through. The milled piece was then sawed in half, and the rough sawed ends were milled flat. The result was two brass "sockets for the handle.

Brass pieces were silver soldered.

Ends milled flat.

Two brass "sockets" after final milling.

The brass handle brackets were next drilled and countersunk for screws (#4).

Handle brackets drilled and countersunk.

This view shows how the hole was plunge milled.

Wood "collars" were made for the brass brackets using 1/4" walnut; the collars were needed to raise the brass fittings a bit, to provide clearance for the handle. A pocket was milled out of the walnut to fit the brass, and the corners squared with a wood chisel. This was followed by sanding 45 degree chamfers using a disk sander.

Milling the walnut.

Corners squared in the pocket.

Walnut chamfered on three sides.

To provide some contrast with the brass, the wood collars were stained ebony.

Wood collars stained ebony.

Fittings buffed (left - before buffing, right - after buffing).

After polishing the outside of the chest with paste wax, the handle was mounted:

Here is the chest before mounting the handle - stains near center are from the rusting screws on the old handle fittings.

Here is the new handle mounted in place.

Here are some close-ups of the handle:

Handle and new brass fittings.

Brass fitting with wood collar.

Missing Pieces - Brass Corners

Only some of the brass corners were missing, but the ones that remained were so badly rusted (because they were only brass plated) that it was necessary to replace them all. Fortunately I was able to purchase solid brass corners that were essentially identical to the originals.

New solid brass corners were purchased.

One of the old rusted (plated) brass corners, shown next to a new corner.

Here is the chest with brass corners installed on all eight corners.

A caution about installing these corners: It is very easy to twist the heads off the brass screws that come with them (ask me how I know!). When installing corners like these, be sure to drill full length pilot holes, and don't over-torque the screws.

Mystery Drawer

If you look carefully at the picture of the finished chest, you can see that the bottom three drawers have handles, but the top drawer does not. Whatever mechanism was used to originally open the top drawer has of course gone missing, so I had to guess at a replacement.

This picture (from the back) of the top drawer and the next-to-top drawer provides a couple of clues: The top drawer is not quite as deep as the other drawers, and there is a notch cut out of both sides of the back of the drawer.

Based on these clues, my thinking was that there were two flat steel "spring fingers" clipped to each side of the top drawer, and extending slightly into the drawer below. Opening the drawer below would then pull out the top drawer. Further, holding the top drawer in place while pulling out the drawer below would result in the spring fingers bending out of the way, allowing the drawer to open.

Felt Lining

Felt for lining the drawers was purchased from a local fabric store. Felt is available in both wool/polyester blend, and as 100% polyester. I prefer the 100% polyester as it is less susceptible to mildew, looks as good as the wool blend, and is also cheaper. Felt pieces were cut for each drawer so that a single piece of felt would cover the bottom and inner sides of the drawer. Before gluing, each piece of felt was dry fitted to make sure the fit was good. Even then, as there is a slight bit of stretching when the felt is glued in place, I ended up doing a bit of fianl trimming with a razor blade in a few spots.

To attach the felt, I use 3M #45 spray adhesive. The felt is laid on a piece of newspaper, back side up, and the outer edges are given a good spray (but not too heavy), while the rest of the piece is given a light spray. The felt is then attached to the drawer by first lining up the top front edge, working from the middle out. The inside front is then fully attached (again working from the middle out to the ends), being especially careful to get a good crisp fit where the side meets the bottom. The bottom is then attached (again, from the middle out), and then the back and sides. The spray adhesive remains tacky over a few minutes time, so the felt can be pulled up and repositioned if necessary. As a final step, I make sure the felt is pressed fully in place by rubbing it all over with a paper towel pad.

This is the spray adhesive I use.

A piece of felt sprayed with adhesive, ready for fitting. Note the shape which lines the bottom and sides with one piece.

Drawer with felt glued in place.

Cost of Restoration

What does it cost to restore a tool chest like this? Of course, the cost will vary depending upon the type of chest, the condition it is in, how many parts need to be purchased, and the quality of the parts purchased. By way of example, here is some idea of what I spent on this restoration:

Solid brass corners, $10
Felt, $2
Brass screws, $10
Miscellaneous supplies, $10
- Walnut strips for tambour
- Canvas (for tambour backing)
- Brass for handles and fittings
- Spray adhesive
- Leather for handle
- DeckBrite
- Gloss Polyurethane
- Paste wax
- etc.

The miscellaneous supplies were all items I already had in my shop, so there was no additional cost to buy them for this project, but of course I had to spend money when I got them, so I made a guesstimate of an overall cost for this project of around $10.

The total cost of the restoration comes to about $35-$40 (not including my labor, which was around 10 hours cumulative time). So what is the restored chest worth? I have see chests of this type (used, not restored) sell at auctions, estate sales, etc. for anywhere from $30 to $150. If I were to offer it for sale I doubt that I would get more than $50 for it.

But the value of this chest to me is measured in more than dollars. I rescued a nice tool chest from the scrap heap, and put it back to use. The labor involved was, for me, not work but recreation. This tool chest will be a nice addition to my shop, and hopefully will enjoy many more years of usefulness.

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