– Bruce Kieffer
Edina, Minnesota

The post Rare-earth Magnet Bit Holders appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

All of this stuff has needed organization for some time, and with this gluing supplies caddy, I think I have the solution. On top it’s amply sized to hold all the glue options, plus a quart of mineral spirits for checking for glue splotches and a small pail and sponge for cleaning up squeeze-out. Underneath, there’s a drawer for storing a bunch of glue brushes, a putty knife and my new Rockler glue bottle caps. The drawer is divided and slides out from either the front or back of the caddy to make it easier to find what I need. It’s held closed with pairs of rare-earth magnets to keep it from sliding open when I carry the caddy from where I’ll keep it to the bench for use. If your gluing supplies could use tidying up too, that’s a good excuse to commit some energy and a bit of lumber to this project on a Saturday morning sometime soon.

Building the Carcass

Get this build underway by gluing up panels for the carcass sides from 3/4″ stock, as needed. Rip and crosscut them to final size, according to the Material List. Then cut a pair of workpieces for the carcass front and back to size.

The front, back and side panels connect with 1/2″ box joints. I made them on the router table with Rockler’s box joint jig and a 1/2″-dia. upcut spiral bit. But, you could also make them on the table saw with a 1/2″-wide dado blade and a shop-made jig. Raise the bit or blade to 3/4″ so the pins and slots of the joints will enable the workpieces to mesh completely together. Start the joints with a pin at the top edges of the front and back pieces, and machine the pattern across the full width of these two parts. Then use them as spacers to mill a mating joint on the top edges of both side panels. Here, there should be a slot that starts the pattern. Mill four slots and three pins only.

Next, install a 1/4″ straight or spiral bit in your router table so you can plow 1/4″-deep grooves on the inside faces of the front, back and sides for the caddy’s top deck. Adjust your router table’s fence so these grooves align with the bottom edge of the bottom pin on the front and back panels. Plow them the full length of the workpieces.

Use the same router table setup to plow grooves for the deck on the side panels. This time, however, mark the cutting limits of the router bit on the fence so you can start and stop these groove cuts 1/2″ in from the front and back ends of the side panels in order to hide them when the carcass is assembled. Square up the ends of the grooves with a chisel.

Now you can cut a 1/4″-thick deck panel to size — I used MDF for mine. Prepare a 3/4″-thick bottom panel, too. Then go ahead and dry-assemble the six carcass parts you’ve made up to this point to ensure that the box joints close properly with the deck and bottom panel in place. If they do, sand the inside faces of the front, back, side and bottom panels up to 180-grit.

How you’ll install the bottom panel in the carcass is entirely up to you. I decided to use biscuit joints and machined four evenly spaced #20 biscuit slots into the adjacent surfaces of the bottom and side panels for this purpose.

As you can see, the drawer can be opened from either end of the caddy. And since this project is intended to be carried where it’s needed, it’s a good idea to provide some provision for a drawer “catch.” Four 3/8″-dia. rare-earth magnets can accomplish this purpose nicely! We’ll embed two magnets in the top face of the bottom panel and do the same in the bottom edges of the drawer’s front and back pieces. This way, when the drawer is closed, the pairs of magnets will attract one another and hold the drawer in place. I used a 3/8″-dia. Forstner bit to drill shallow holes for the magnets in the inside face of the bottom panel and then glued the magnets into place with quick-setting two-part epoxy. Make sure the top faces of the magnets are flush with the panel’s face.

Next, spread glue over the pins and slots of the four box joints and into the biscuit slots, and clamp the carcass together with the deck, bottom panel and biscuits in place. When the glue cures, rip and crosscut two strips of 1/4″-thick scrap to create drawer guides. Glue and clamp them to the bottom of the deck inside the drawer “tunnel,” with their long outer edges flush against the carcass sides.

Adding the Handle

Cut a blank for the handle to size, as outlined in the Material List. If you’re building your caddy from solid lumber as I did, make sure to orient the grain direction so the long grain will be parallel to the handle’s top grip (the grain should run horizontally when the handle is in place on the caddy). Lay out the handle’s shape, using the Handle Drawing as a guide.

Now step over to your band saw to cut out the handle, or use a handheld jigsaw. Sand the cut edges and faces of the handle smooth. Then ease the sharp edges of the portion of the handle that will extend above the carcass with a router and 1/8″-radius roundover bit. Or break these edges with sandpaper.

Cut a divider for the upper area of the caddy to size from 3/4″ material. It should fit snugly between the side walls of the carcass. Center the front end of the handle on the length of the divider, and fasten the parts together by driving #8 x 2″ countersunk screws through the divider and into the handle.

Slide the handle assembly into place on the caddy. Drive more countersunk screws through the sides and back of the caddy to secure the divider and back end of the handle. Cover the exposed screwheads, if you wish, with matching wood plugs. Trim the plugs flush and sand them smooth.

Assembling the Drawer

Joint and plane enough 1/2″ stock to make the drawer’s front, back, sides and drawer divider. Cut the parts to size. We’ll assemble the drawer with box joints to mimic those on the caddy. Set up your box joint-making system again, only this time, adjust the cutter height to 1/2″. I arranged the pattern so the drawer faces would have pins on their top and bottom edges. Mill all four corner joints.

Just as before with the carcass, dry-fit the corner joints. If all looks good, plow a 1/4″ x 1/4″ groove for the drawer’s bottom panel into the inside faces of all four parts. Locate these grooves 1/2″ up from the bottom edges of drawer workpieces. That placement enables you to rout the grooves along the full length of the drawer front and back. Stop the grooves 1/4″ in from the ends of the drawer sides so they won’t show.

I decided to install the drawer divider with dadoes rather than simply nail or screw it to the sides, because sometimes a rogue nail will go sideways when driven into such thin material. I used a 1/2″-wide dado blade set 1/8″ above the table to plow dadoes all the way across the width of the drawer sides for the divider panel. I located these dadoes 8-1/4″ from the same ends of the drawer sides.

After you cut a 1/4″-thick bottom panel and a divider to size, fit all the drawer parts together without glue to make sure the joints close correctly. If they do, sand the inside faces of the parts up to 180-grit. Then glue and clamp the drawer together. Make sure the corners remain square under clamping pressure; the diagonal corner-to-corner measurements of the drawer should match.

Once the glue dries, mark and drill a centered hole into the bottom faces of the drawer front and back for the other pair of magnets. Epoxy them into place, but before you do that, make sure to orient them so their polarity will attract the magnets in the carcass bottom instead of repel them.

Finishing Up

Finish-sand the outer surfaces of the caddy and drawer, and break all sharp edges either with sandpaper or a 1/8″ roundover bit. Then measure and mark a center point on the outer faces of the drawer front and back, and bore a 3/16″-dia. hole through each for a machine screw to attach the drawer knobs.

Apply finish to your new caddy. I wiped on several coats of Rockler’s Sam Maloof Poly/Oil Finish — it’s an amber-toned oil/varnish blend — to make the most of the grain pattern and color of my caddy’s southern yellow pine.

When the topcoat cures, install the two drawer knobs and fill this handy shop project up with your collection of glues and applicators. I attached a hook to the back of the handle for hanging Rockler’s 5″ Glue Roller and mounted a Glue Bottle Dock to the front with a couple of machine screws.

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

The post PROJECT: Gluing Supplies Caddy appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

I had some curly maple boards left over from another project years ago, so I’m putting that beautiful material to use here as showy door panels and for the four drawer faces. The rest of the cabinet is mostly made of hard maple, 1/2″ plywood and 1/4″ MDF. But of course, feel free to use any solid wood or sheet stock that suits your tastes and budget for this project.

Building the Carcass and Doors

Let’s get this tool cabinet build underway by first ripping and crosscutting stock to size for the carcass top, bottom and sides, according to the Material List dimensions. Then rip stock to width for the four door rails and four stiles, and crosscut them to length.

Next, cut 1/2″-wide, 3/4″-deep box joints into the carcass parts and door frame workpieces. You can carry out this joinery operation on the router table or at the table saw with a 1/2″-wide dado blade and a shop-made or commercial box joint jig. Notice in the Exploded View Drawing that the box joint pattern is unbroken from the back of the cabinet to the front of the doors. Both long edges of the carcass side panels have pins, but the door stiles have slots on either edge instead. Plan these box layouts carefully before cutting them.

With that joinery behind you, plow 1/2″-wide, 1/4″-deep grooves on the inside faces of the carcass top, bottom and side panels for the back panel. Locate these grooves 1/2″ in from the back edges of the parts. These grooves can run the full length of the side panels but must start and stop 1/2″ in from the ends of the carcass top and bottom panels so the grooves won’t show when the box joints are assembled.

Switch to a 3/8″-dia. spiral or straight bit to rout 1/4″-deep grooves on the inside faces of the door frame parts for the door panels. Position these grooves 1/4″ in from what will be the outside “show” edges of the door frames. For this operation, both the rail and stile grooves must stop short of the part ends in order to be concealed when the door frames are assembled. Square up the ends of these grooves with a chisel.

Go ahead and plow dadoes across the carcass sides for the divider panel. Locate them 9-1/16″ up from the bottom ends of the pieces so the drawer compartment below the divider will be 8-5/16″ tall in the completed project.

It’s time to dry-fit the cabinet carcass and door frames to double-check the dimensions of the back panel and door panels. Cut a plywood back panel to length and width. Then prepare two 3/8″-thick door panels from solid wood. Here’s a great chance to use some highly figured or book matched stock to give this tool cabinet some real curb appeal! Cut these panels 1/16″ narrower than a tight fit in the door frames to allow for seasonal crossgrain wood movement. This is particularly important if you’re building this project during the winter and the relative humidity is low.

Now dry-fit the cabinet’s top, bottom, sides and back panel together to verify that the box joints close completely and the back panel fits correctly. Do the same for each door frame with the door panels installed.

Take some time to finish-sand the cabinet and door parts you’ve made so far. Apply a coat of finish to the door panels now while their faces are fully accessible. Then glue up each of these three assemblies — the carcass and both doors — using clamps and cauls to close the joints. You can glue the back panel into its grooves. But be sure the door panels can float freely in their frames unimpeded by glue so they can expand and contract across the grain. I used Titebond Liquid Hide Glue for these glue-ups. It offers long open time for stress-free assembly, and any dried squeeze-out can be scrubbed away with water.

When the cabinet carcass and door frames come out of the clamps, clean off any residual glue and sand or plane the corner joints flush, as needed. Then make up a pair of French cleats — one for the cabinet and one to fasten to the wall. Either scraps of 1/2″ plywood or solid stock will work fine for these cleats. Bevel-rip one edge of each to 45 degrees; these edges will mate together when the cabinet is installed. Glue one French cleat to the top back of the cabinet, with its beveled edge facing down and in toward the back panel. Reinforce this glue joint with #8 x 3/4″-long flathead wood screws driven into countersunk pilot holes.

The last component to make on the carcass for now is a divider panel. Rip and crosscut it from 3/4″ stock, and test-fit it in its dadoes in the cabinet. Don’t glue it into place yet; we’ll do that after the drawers are hung to make their installation easier.

Making the Drawers

This cabinet’s drawers are inset style, with drawer faces that also serve as the front panels of the drawer boxes. Drawer lock joinery is a good machining option for drawers like these, because it creates an overlapping tongue on the drawer face to hide the end grain of the drawer sides. To learn how to set up and rout these joints.

Prepare enough 3/4″-thick stock for the four drawer faces and 1/2″-thick material for the drawer sides and backs. Because the widths of the drawer parts are so narrow, it’s a good idea to machine their drawer lock joints on wider stock, in order to maintain stability during routing. So, I sized the width of my drawer component workpieces wide enough to yield several parts from each workpiece. That way, I could rout the joinery first, then simply rip the parts free and to final width afterward. Carefully measure and cut the drawer faces, sides and back workpieces to final length. Once the drawer lock joints are routed, it won’t be possible to adjust the drawer part lengths without also ruining the corner joints. Go ahead and mill the profile on both ends of the drawer fronts, then repeat these cuts on the drawer backs, using the same bit setup.

Change the fence setting so you can mill the corresponding drawer lock profile into the inside faces of the drawer sides. Once you’re done with that step, rip the drawer faces, sides and backs to final width.

Switch to a 1/4″-dia. straight bit or an undersized plywood-cutting bit, depending on the drawer bottom material thickness you will be using for these drawers. Set the bit’s height and projection out from the fence to 3/16″. Plow the drawer bottom grooves along the full length of the drawer faces and sides.

Next, dry-assemble one of the drawers so you can measure between the grooves to verify the final dimensions of the drawer bottom workpieces. Cut four drawer bottoms to size from 1/4″ plywood or MDF. Sand the drawer parts up through the grits to 180, then glue the four drawer boxes together.

Hanging the Drawers

Notice in the Exploded View Drawing that this project’s drawers hang on simple shop-made drawer guides. They’re a classic solution, especially for light-duty drawers this small. We’ll plow a stopped groove on both sides of each drawer to fit the drawer guides using a 1/2″-dia. straight or spiral bit in the router table. Install the bit and raise it to 1/8″. Adjust and lock the router table fence 7/8″ away from the center of the bit to rout the drawer guide grooves in the three narrower drawers first. Mark the cutting limits of the bit with a strip of tape on the router table to tell you where to start or stop the cuts.

The goal for these grooves is that they are aligned horizontally, parallel with one another across each drawer and centered on the widths of the drawer sides. Their lengths should also match, at 6-1/2″, stopping short of the drawer faces by 1″. Mark their length on the top or bottom edges of the drawer so you can see them clearly as you rout. Then plow both grooves on each drawer, standing the drawer upright on the side being routed and feeding it along the router table fence. Make a pair of groove cuts on all three shallow drawers, then raise the bit to 1/4″. Repeat the groove cuts, plowing them to final depth.

Now lower the router bit back to 1/8″ again, and reset the fence so it’s 1-3/8″ from the center of the bit this time. Rout the drawer guide grooves on the deep drawer’s sides. Raise the bit to 1/4″ and repeat the cuts to deepen them. Select a piece of 1/2″-thick, dimensionally stable hardwood for the drawer guides. Shape one end of it with a 1/4″ roundover bit in the router table to match the round ends of the drawer guide grooves. Then rip it into 9/32″-thick strips, and crosscut eight of them to 6-1/2″ long. Bore three evenly spaced countersunk pilot holes for #4 or #6 screws through each drawer guide.

These drawers are sized to allow just 1/16″ of clear space above and below when they’re hung in the cabinet. That’s why installing the drawer guides accurately is paramount to the drawers working properly. I made this task easier by creating a simple installation jig for the guides that can both hold them in position relative to one another and keep them in alignment when they are fastened. It’s simply a scrap of plywood with four 1/2″-wide dadoes milled across it on both faces to hold four runners in position at a time. I determined the location for the jig’s dadoes by stacking the drawers in their correct arrangement with 1/16″ spacers in between each and underneath. I stood the jig blank beside the stack and transferred each drawer guide groove directly off the drawer stack onto the jig’s edges. Then, I plowed 1/8″-deep grooves across the jig at the router table, using the same bit that had cut the drawer guide grooves in the drawers.

When the jig is ready, set four drawer guides into it with the rounded ends all facing in one direction, and set the jig inside the tool cabinet, resting it on the cabinet bottom. I tacked the guides into place with 3/4″ 23-gauge pin nails first. Then I followed up with #6 x 3/4″ flathead wood screws driven into each pilot hole. Repeat this process to install the remaining four guides on the other side of the cabinet.

Next, mark the locations for two knobs on each drawer face. I located them 2-1/2″ in from the ends of the drawers. Install the eight knobs temporarily on the drawers with their machine screws. Now, cross your fingers, say a quick prayer and slide the four drawers into the cabinet. If you’ve worked carefully, they should fit into place with even spacing in between. If their sliding action on the guides isn’t as smooth as you’d like, you may need to sand the walls of the drawer guide grooves a bit to reduce the friction. When the drawer action meets your satisfaction, go ahead and glue the divider panel into its dadoes, because the drawer compartment is now done.

Installing the Doors

We’re in the home stretch on this tool cabinet, as far as the tricky aspects of woodworking are concerned. But, there’s the matter of hanging the doors on their piano hinges. If you’ve worked with conventional butt hinges before, think of piano hinges as really long versions of butt hinges but with much shallower hinge leaf mortises and a lot more screws!

Mark a 1/2″-wide, 23-3/4″-long hinge leaf mortise on the inside edge of each door. (The mortises begin and end where the door rails cross the stiles.) Rout them 1/16″ deep, and square up the corners. Then mark and mill matching mortises on the front edges of the cabinet sides.

Cut the two hinges to length, and fasten one to each door with four or so screws spread out evenly. Make sure the hinge knuckle faces inward when each door is resting on your workbench before you drive in the hinge screws. Now lay the cabinet on its back and elevate the doors from underneath so they are flush with the front edges of the cabinet. (I used a couple of cardboard boxes under my doors.) Attach the cabinet-side hinge leaves with more screws to hang the two doors. Open and close them to check their action.

Given the fact that the narrow edges of these doors close flush against the front edges of the tool cabinet, and their frames align with the cabinet carcass, your options for catch hardware are more limited than with traditional cabinet doors. I opted for a simple rare-earth variation from Rockler. It has an angled steel bracket for inside the cabinet with a strong magnet attached, and the receiver piece for the door is simply a large, thick washer held in place with a screw. I mounted the brackets to the top inside face of the cabinet, one per door and centered on the cabinet’s width.

Outfitting the Interior for Tools

Before applying finish to your cabinet, now is a good time to consider how you’ll outfit the doors, upper interior and drawers for tools. Since I planned to store my chisel collection on two removable walnut racks, I decided to dedicate the doors to longer, lighter tools hung as simply as possible. One door holds a collection of three French curves. The other door stows three handsaws and an 18″-long rule. I used a combination of 3/4″-dia. dowel pieces in short lengths, steel magnet cups and 1/2″-dia. rare-earth magnets to hang the saws and the rule. Each dowel is secured with dabs of 5-minute epoxy in a shallow hole I drilled in the door panel. The magnet cups are fastened to the dowel ends. For the other door, my three stainless-steel French curves needed a different solution. I used two or three magnets and magnet cups per curve, fixed to the door panels just like the dowels. The curves are held in place with a second set of magnets on top, sandwiching them magnetically.

For three of the drawers, I wanted to isolate a selection of more fragile or sharp-edged/tipped measuring and marking tools to keep them from banging into one another when the drawers are opened and closed. Rockler’s 1-1⁄8″-thick Foam Organizer Sheet (item #80293) makes that an easy process. This foam is laminated in thin layers that can be scored with a sharp blade and peeled out to create a custom pocket for each tool. After cutting pieces of foam to fit the drawers (two sheets for the deeper drawer), I set each drawer’s collection of tools onto the foam to determine the best layout, traced their shapes with a marker and scored the foam along the layout lines. Peel away enough layers so each tool will be recessed in the drawers and not interfere with opening or closing them.

Finishing Up Those Last Few Assembly Steps

Once you have the interior outfitted for tools, remove the door hinges, catches and drawer pulls to prepare the project for finishing. Maple looks good with any clear finish, and figured maple really sparkles under a coat of shellac. I sprayed a coat of de-waxed shellac onto all the bare project parts. When that dried, I top-coated with several light coats of aerosol satin lacquer.

Give the lacquer at least 24 hours to cure before installing a brass knob on each door. I did that by threading their machine screws tightly into each knob, then cutting off the screwheads, shortening them into 1/2″-long threaded posts. I drilled 3/16″-dia. pilot holes into the edges of the door stiles deep enough to fit their posts. Then I dipped the posts into 5-minute epoxy and inserted them into their pilot holes. When the adhesive sets, rehang the doors on the cabinet, this time driving a screw into every hinge leaf hole. Install the magnetic door catch hardware again, too.

Choose a spot for hanging your new tool cabinet and mount the second French cleat on the wall. Orient the cleat so the bevel faces upward and inward. Mount it to a wall stud with 2″ flathead wood screws driven flush into countersunk pilot holes. Hang the cabinet on its cleats with their beveled edges engaging. Then remove the drawers and drive another long screw through the cabinet back near the bottom so it hits the wall stud. Doing this locks the cabinet in place. Reinstall the drawers, load the cabinet up with tools and enjoy this practical, attractive showpiece in your shop!

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

Hard-to-Find Hardware:

Slotted Piano Hinge 1-1⁄16″ Wide x 36″ Long (2) #19241
Solid Brass Classic Knob, 5/8″ (10) #35451
Angle-Mount Magnetic Catch, 20 lb. Hold (2) #55146
Rockler Foam Organizer Sheet, 2′ x 4′ x 1-1⁄8″ Thick (1) #80293
Rockler Drawer Lock Router Bit, 1/2″ Shank (1) #22637

The post PROJECT: Precision Tool Cabinet appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

You can make this table as large or small as you like. I’ve sized mine to fit on top of Rockler’s Material Mate Panel Cart. The cart enables me to tip the clamping table down when I’m done using it to save space. But you could mount this project to a wheeled cart or leg base you make yourself or even to a couple of prefab cabinets you already have on hand. There are lots of options.

Sizing Down MDF and Laminate for Assembly

You can certainly cut MDF with an ordinary circular saw or on the table saw with a helper, but be advised that a 3/4″-thick 4 x 8 sheet weighs nearly 100 lbs! So, I laid a thinner piece of MDF on the shop floor to serve as a waste board underneath, then cut my 3/4″ substrate for the clamping table on top of that. A track saw yielded perfectly smooth, flat edges when I trimmed the MDF to my 40″ x 60″ table size — but again, the final dimensions are entirely up to you. The other benefit of the track saw was its built-in dust collection, because believe you me, MDF creates clouds of fine powdery dust in no time! If you don’t have a saw with dust collection, be sure to wear a dust mask when you cut this stuff. Or consider hauling your sheet outside to cut it there on a nice dry day.

I’ll be using my clamping table regularly for glue-ups, so I wanted a durable surface for the project that would be easy to clean. High-pressure plastic laminate for countertops fills that bill nicely! I bought a 4 x 8 sheet of matte gray laminate from a local countertop supply company. I also bought a sheet of what cabinet shops call “cabinet liner.” It’s a much thinner plastic laminate that costs less. My reason for using it is that a backer piece of laminate will add durability to the bottom face of the table and creates a moisture barrier, like the top face. Balancing the panel helps the MDF from warping due to uneven moisture absorption.

Trim two sheets of laminate so they’re oversized for the project by 4″ in both dimensions — you want a 2″ overhang all around to provide some margin for error when positioning the laminate on the substrate. After marking the size of my laminate, I set my track saw blade super shallow and cut the pieces to size. Be very careful when handling these cut sheets after you’ve trimmed them: cleanly cut plastic laminate will have razor-sharp edges. You won’t notice how sharp they are until it’s too late and you’re searching for Band-Aids! File or sand those edges now to make the sheets safer to handle.

Laminating the Substrate

Applying plastic laminate isn’t difficult, and it’s a great technique to know for future cabinet or countertop projects. But before I explain the procedure, there are a few important things to cover. First, keep your work surfaces and laminate as clean as possible while installing it.

Any random sawdust or particles of debris can form bubbles under the laminate when it’s glued in place. They’ll not only show as a raised bump but are impossible to fix.

Second, whether you use 3M High Strength 90 aerosol contact adhesive as I did or a roll-on variety, once both surfaces have adhesive applied, they will stick together the instant they make contact, and undoing them is nearly impossible without breaking the laminate.

You’ll need to install a barrier or a series of spacers between the MDF and laminate in order to position them without accidentally sticking them together; I used a large sheet of cardboard as a barrier layer. But long dowels closely spaced will also work.

And third, if you use roll-on solvent-based contact cement, the fumes are harmful to breathe and flammable. Be sure to have adequate ventilation in the shop, wear a cartridge respirator and extinguish any pilot lights or open flame.

The photo series here shows how I installed the gray laminate to the top face of my clamping table, but the black cabinet liner is applied the exact same way. Start by vacuuming or brushing off the MDF and the back face of the laminate carefully — again, any debris will be problematic. Lay down drop cloths or use offcuts of laminate to protect from overspray if you use aerosol contact adhesive as I did. Then apply an even coat of adhesive over the entire back face of the laminate and the MDF surface.

The adhesive must dry to a tack before the parts are bonded together, so while you wait, consider how you’ll position the laminate over the substrate. Remember, the laminate is larger than the MDF, and it’s floppy to handle. I laid a long scrap stick against one end of my substrate so I’d have a visual reference for where this end was.

I also set several Bench Cookies along both sides of the substrate to serve as spacers for the cardboard along the edges. When the contact cement was tacky and nearly dry to the touch, I set the cardboard in place over the substrate. Then, I carefully laid the laminate on the cardboard (adhesive side down).

I adjusted the laminate and the cardboard to overhang the substrate, then pushed the cardboard and the laminate backward, exposing a couple of inches of the MDF. I carefully pulled just the laminate forward and stuck the laminate to the MDF. With that end of the laminate and substrate now stuck together, I could slowly pull the cardboard out from beneath the laminate to present both cemented faces to one another.

I used a J-roller to then roll the surface of the laminate thoroughly from the center outward, further bonding the adhesive. If you don’t have a J-roller, you can just wrap a towel around a piece of 2×4 or other large scrap and press the surfaces flat that way instead — it will work just fine. Take a few extra minutes to roll the edges of the table all the way around the perimeter so the laminate is fully bonded there, too.

Edge-trimming and Installation

I gave the contact cement several hours to cure, then I trimmed off the overhanging edges using a router fitted with a piloted 1/16″ roundover bit. If you still have the table’s other face to laminate, do that now.

Since my tabletop was ready to go, I could attach the panel to my Material Mate Cart with four scrap blocks — they just friction-fit against the corners of the cart’s top metal framework so I can lift it off when needed.

Routing the T-Slot Grid

The T-slot grid in my table consists of 3/8″-wide, 3/8″-deep slots spaced 2″ in from the table edges, then 6″ from the ends and across the field area. Rockler’s Indexing Dado Jig, mounted to my router, made easy work of milling this series of slots with a 3/8″ straight bit.

The colored grid shows how I set up the groove pattern. I routed the red slots first, then the blue slots, with the Dado Jig’s fence following the edges of my tabletop. From there, I could rout the rest of the green slots with the Dado Jig’s fence fitted inside the previous slot cuts.

Once all the slots were routed, I swapped my straight bit for Rockler’s T-slot Cutter Bit and left the Indexing Dado Jig on the router. I adjusted the router’s cutting depth so the bottom of the T-slot bit was flush with the bottom of my groove cuts.

Then, I could simply repeat the routing process with the new bit to reshape the lower areas of the grooves into T-slots. It’s a dusty process, but it worked great, thanks to the jig!

When I finished all of the T-slots, I knocked those razor-sharp laminate edges along the top of the grooves down with some sandpaper wrapped around a scrap to finish this handy shop project.

Advice for Using the Clamping Table

You now have a substantial grid of T-slots to help you for all sorts of project assembly or for other sanding and routing tasks! The more I use this accessory, the more applications are made easier by it. Here are a couple of tips I’ve learned to keep in mind. First, if you use Rockler T-slot clamps, choose the styles that push laterally, not the types that apply downward pressure. Those “downward” clamps can produce enough force for their T-bolts to lift and break the MDF, ruining the T-slot. Second, if you use this clamping table for glue-ups, you’ll invariably get some glue drips down in the slots. No problem! They’re easy to clean out by simply running the router and the T-slot bit through those slots again to whisk away the dried glue. Finally, I also use my clamping table for general assembly, which sometimes involves lots of small fasteners and other hardware that could get lost in the slots. In those situations, I just grab a larger scrap piece of sheet material and cover over the area of the clamping table I’m not using to hide that portion of the grid. It’s a simple way to keep those little items right where you can see them and out of the T-slots where they don’t belong.

Hard-to-Find Hardware:

Rockler Material Mate Panel Cart (1) #56889
Rockler Indexing Dado Jig (1) #59237
Rockler T-Slot Cutter Router Bit (1) #26099
Rockler Straight, 2-Flute Router Bit (1) #90462

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Made almost entirely of 3/4″ Baltic birch plywood, this cabinet has some definite heft, ensuring a stable base for a tall machine. Built with rock-solid rabbet-and-dado joinery, it’s easy to make and can be tweaked to fit specific drill presses and storage needs.

Since woodworkers (and benchtop drill presses) come in all sizes, it’s a good idea to first measure your ideal working height. You don’t want to reach higher than is comfortable or have to bend over. Stand as you normally would using a drill press with your hand held where it would rest most comfortably on the feed handle, and measure the floor-to-hand height.

Now measure your drill press and use both measurements to determine how tall the cabinet must be, including the height of your wheeled base. I’m 5′ 11″, so a cabinet about 31″ high works perfectly for me.

Plywood Playbook: Tips for Taming Baltic Birch

Baltic birch plywood is a reliable building material, but the thin outer plys easily splinter on the corners when they’re freshly cut. Take care when handling it, not only for personal safety (I can’t tell you how many splinters I got during this project), but also to avoid damaging the plywood. These edge splinters, while seemingly tiny where they stick out, can continue separating from the stock for several inches if snagged, potentially ruining a clean edge.

Lightly sand all fresh edges and corners to remove protruding splinters while a project is in progress, then give them a more thorough sanding afterward to slightly round over these areas. Once sanded, a few coats of finish such as polyurethane can help prevent further splintering of the delicate edge plies.

Should a completed plywood project get “dings” on the edges during use, sand these over to prevent another running splinter from forming.

Cutting Parts, Milling Joinery

Begin by cutting workpieces for the main carcass. A table saw is perfect for breaking down your plywood sheets, but you can also use a track saw or a clamp-on guide for a circular saw. Keep in mind that plywood is prone to splintering, so use a sharp, clean blade and orient the stock so the blade cuts down into the face side of the material. This way, any tearout will be on the unseen side.

This is a solid cabinet, thanks to a simple but strong combination of rabbets and dadoes (and technically, grooves when the dado is in-line with the grain). A dado blade on your table saw, or a straight (or rabbeting) bit in a router table tackles all the joinery you’ll need to make quite nicely.

Cut the drawer and shelf sides, and the sub-top workpieces, to length only. This provides a longer working edge to make cutting these joints safer and more efficient — fewer passes needed over the blade or bit. Once your joints are milled, just rip the parts to final width.

Finally, cut the door and drawer front slightly larger than their Material List dimensions. Since those must fit perfectly inset into the face frame, we’ll tweak the fit a bit later.

Marking and Fitting the Top, Sub-top

Speaking of fitting, before reaching for a glue bottle, there are a few preliminary things to do, beginning with a dry assembly.

Visually, the main top is just a flat surface, but there’s a lot happening underneath it. With the dry assembly clamped up, mark the underside of the main top to show where the three sub-top pieces are located by tracing them from underneath.

Disassemble the top and sub-tops, and arrange them on your marks to lay out the leaf supports. The separate sub-tops create gaps for attaching the supports on the underside of the main top. You’ll need to stagger the supports for internal clearance, but this won’t affect their holding ability. Their exact location depends on the supports you use, so a bit of tinkering will show the best arrangement. Trace around the mounting plates and mark screw holes, and also carefully mark where the supports will exit the sides of the cabinet.

Transfer your exit hole marks to the top edges of the cabinet sides, enlarging them a bit for wiggle room. (Mine are 1″ high by 1-1/4″ long.) Cut the holes for these openings with a jigsaw. To minimize splintering, use a fresh fine-cut blade for wood or even a metal-cutting blade, and turn the saw’s orbital action as low as it goes. Clean up the exit holes with a light sanding.

Assembling the Cabinet Carcass

Assembling and gluing a cabinet this large and heavy while keeping everything square is difficult, so I like to start with a single corner and let it dry before going further. I’ve glued and clamped the cabinet back to one of the sides, using Rockler’s Clamp-It Assembly Squares to ensure a 90-degree joint. Once dry, this secure corner joint helps register the rest of the assembly as you add the remaining side, structural bottom and the three sub-tops.

A separate inner bottom piece adds weight for even more stability. Just brush some glue onto the structural bottom, slide the workpiece in, and anchor it with a few screws driven up from underneath the cabinet where they won’t show.

The last piece of the cabinet is the main top. Because it’d be more difficult to do later, lay out and mark the hinges for the folding wings now. This is also the time to drill pilot holes and drive in all the screws for the hinges and leaf supports; having those pilot holes already threaded will make things easier later. As with the supports, you may need to stagger the hinges.

Remove the hardware, then place and attach the main top to the cabinet with screws driven up through the sub-tops.

Putting on a Good Face

Cut the face frame rail and stile workpieces to size. I’ve opted to assemble the face frame with fast-and-easy pocket-hole joints. I doubled up the screws on the wider bottom rail and used single screws on the ends of the narrower top rail.

Before attaching the assembled frame, measure the opening and trim the door and drawer front to allow a uniform gap all around. Do a test-fit on your worksurface. A reveal of 1/8″ is ideal; it’ll look great and allow the door to swing freely. When the gap is just right, give these workpiece edges a careful sanding to remove their sharp corners.

Attaching face frames can be done in a variety of ways: brads and glue, pocket screws from inside or with biscuit joints. But this cabinet’s double-thick top and bottom offer a lot of gluing surface (nearly the full width of the face frame top rail, and more than half of its bottom rail), so I opted to just glue and clamp the face frame in place. Glue joints will be plenty strong here.

Inside Work Comes Next

While the face frame glue joints dry, build the drawer and pullout shelf. Assembling them is pretty much the same process as the cabinet, but because they’re smaller it’s easier to assemble everything at once. Just make sure the drawer and shelf remain square when the clamps are tightened.

Next, prepare the inside of the cabinet for drawer slides. Slide hardware varies widely, so follow the specific instructions that are included with your slides. However, for a framed cabinet like this, all slides need something to attach to.

To support the slides used here even with the face frame, I’ve cut four 1-1/2″-wide spacers from 3/4″ stock that run front to back in the cabinet. The slides attach to the middle of the drawer/shelf sides, so the drawer spacers should be located 1-1/2″ down from the top. To center the shelf midway in the remaining opening, position their spacers 12-1/2″ below the drawer spacers.

Locating these is straightforward for the first side, but getting an exact match on the opposite side can be tricky by measuring only. So I made a variation of story sticks using scraps cut to the exact measurements to serve as layout guides.

Starting with the right side, place the drawer guide at the top, then the drawer slide spacer, the shelf guide and the shelf slide spacer. Three screws in each spacer anchored them. Then, just repeat for the other side for perfect alignment.

While the drawer slides are the same on both sides, the shelf slide on the left is offset to allow the door and hinges to function without blocking the narrower pullout shelf. Normally, slides are even with the face frame, which they are on the right side, but for the slides and hinges used here, I needed to offset the shelf slide on the left by 1-7/8″. To do this, I tacked a second “thick” and third “thin” spacer to the first spacer (see Exploded View Drawing).

Attach the cabinet-side components of the slides to the spacers in the cabinet so the drawer box and shelf will be flush with the back edge of the face frame. Then, attach the mating components of the slides to the sides of the drawer and shelf, and do a test fit. Choose the slotted holes in the slide hardware when installing them so they can be adjusted if needed.

Euro-style hinges for hanging the door use an attachment “cup” that fits into a stopped hole into the back of the door bored with a 35 mm Forstner bit. This can be done freehand or with a drill press, locating the cup per the manufacturer’s instructions. There are a number of jigs made specifically for this task that make the process fast and easy by dialing in the required offset for drilling.

Attach the hinges to the door, then use the door hinges to mark the left frame for the hinge mounting plates and attach them on your marks. Mounting the door is as simple as snapping the hinges onto their mounts. Check the door action and fit. If it’s not centered or too far in or out, Euro hinges are adjustable up-and-down, side-to-side, and in-and-out with screws. Just tweak these screws until the door is perfectly set.

To locate and attach the drawer face, first drill holes for your drawer pull. Then, using 1/8″ shims around the edges, snug the drawer face in place in its opening and drill through your pull holes and into the front of the drawer box behind it. Slip the pull’s screws into the holes to hold the drawer face in place, remove the drawer, and secure the drawer face with screws driven through the drawer front from inside.

The cabinet is now ready for attaching the internal hardware and hinges as well as hanging the folding wings. This is easiest to accomplish by turning the cabinet upside down on a large worksurface. Remove the drawers and unsnap the door hinges first, and get some assistance for upending the cabinet as it’s pretty heavy at this point.

Your pilot holes are already drilled and threaded, so it should only take a couple of minutes to screw the hinges and leaf supports into place. If you plan to use this project mainly in a corner, consider angling the back edges of the wings at this point so they can be lifted while the drill press is in place. Then remove the hardware so you can apply a couple of coats of your favorite protective finish (I used polyurethane).

With assistance, set the cabinet upright onto your rolling base. Center the drill press on top of the cabinet and drill down through the mounting holes in the drill press’s base plate. Slip a pair of bolts through the baseplate, and secure the machine with washers and nuts from underneath.

Now, customize your rolling benchtop stand any way you like to accommodate the accessories you plan to store in it. If this project will be one you’ll be moving around a lot (perhaps because a car needs to park in your shop space, too), it’s worth adding a rear handle. Doing that early on in the construction process will make the cabinet easier to muscle around and very handy thereafter.

Hard-to-Find Hardware:

20″ Series Centerline  Slides (2) #47758
Salice Soft-Close Hinges, Inset (1) #52024
Metal Drop Leaf Supports (2) #30006
Bora Portamate Mobile Base (1) #39379
Butt Hinges, 21 ⁄2″ L x 11⁄2″ W, Nickel (2) #54646
Stainless Steel Metropolitan Pull, 51 ⁄4″ (2) #24418

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials Lists.

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Building the Cabinet Carcass

This cabinet’s side panels will join to the carcass top and bottom panels with rabbets, and its upper and lower shelves will fit into dadoes in the side panels. To ensure that this side panel joinery matches and that the other components will fit into the rabbets and dadoes squarely, it helps to make both side panels from a single piece of plywood to begin with. So rip and crosscut a 24″-wide x 29-3/4″-long panel to size.

Load a wide dado blade in your table saw to cut the top and bottom rabbets into this combined side panel. Raise the blade to 1/2″ above the saw table, and install a sacrificial fence facing on your rip fence so you can bury the dado blade partially into it. Adjust the rip fence so the blade projects the same distance out from the fence facing as the thickness of the plywood you’re using for the project. (These days, it typically will measure about 23/32″ thick, but to my surprise, the Baltic birch I used happened to be a full 3/4″ thick.)

Make a test cut on a piece of scrap to ensure that the dado blade is set correctly, then carefully mill a rabbet across the inside face of the plywood panel on both ends.

Next, plow a pair of 1/4″-deep dadoes across the same face of the plywood. Locate these dadoes 5-5/8″ and 11-1/4″ up from one end of the plywood panel. These will house the upper and lower shelves, so their width should match the plywood thickness you’re using. To mill these dadoes, I used a 3/4″-dia. straight bit and a shop-made jig with a slot that fits a 1″ O.D. guide bushing for a handheld router. When clamped in place, the jig ensures that the dadoes will be perfectly straight. But, you could also adjust the width of your table saw dado blade and cut them that way instead, if you prefer.

With the joinery now milled, switch to a regular saw blade in the table saw so you can rip each carcass side panel to 11-3/4″ wide. Rip and crosscut two 11-3/4″-wide x 24-3/4″-long plywood panels to size for the carcass top and bottom panels, too.

Finish-sand the inside faces of the sides, top and bottom to 180-grit. Then spread glue along the rabbets of the side panels, insert the top and bottom panels into them and carefully clamp up the cabinet carcass. Be careful not to overtighten the clamps. Check the assembly for square by measuring from corner to corner diagonally. The measurements should match, confirming that the assembly is square. I reinforced these rabbet joints with a few 1-1/4″-long, 18-gauge brad nails driven through the carcass sides and into the ends of the top and bottom panels.

Follow the Material List, and measure off of your actual cabinet, to cut accurately sized workpieces for the upper and lower shelves, upper and lower blocking, a pair of narrow cleats and the lower back panel.

Spread glue over one face of each lower blocking piece, and install each to opposite inside back corners of the cabinet at the bottom. Make sure the top ends of the blocking are flush with the bottoms of the dadoes for the upper shelf and do not obstruct them. Reinforce these connections with a few brad nails to hold the blocking in place while the glue dries.

Now finish-sand the front “show” face of the lower back panel and slide it into position in the cabinet, flush against the front edges of the lower blocking. Secure it near its ends by driving 1-1/4″ brad nails through its face and into the front edges of the lower blocking pieces.

Slide the upper shelf into its dadoes until its front edge is flush with the front edges of the cabinet. If it fits well, remove it so you can sand its faces smooth, then install it with some glue spread into the dadoes. I drove 1-1/4″ brads through the cabinet sides and into the ends of the shelf. I also pinned the shelf to the lower back panel by brad-nailing down through it into the back panel’s top edge.

The upper blocking pieces and cleats form two L-shaped assemblies with the face of a cleat butting against one long edge of each blocking piece. Glue and screw these parts together with their ends aligned. Then install them inside the cabinet above the lower blocking with glue and brads. Be sure the cleats face forward toward the upper shelf and the back edges of the blocking are flush with the cabinet back.

Check the fit of the lower shelf in its dadoes, and finish-sand its faces. Glue and nail it into place, driving brads through the lower back panel into its back edge as well as through the cabinet sides and into the shelf ends.

Adding French Cleats and Edging

A pair of French cleats will mount this cabinet to the wall. Rip and crosscut 4″ x 22-1/4″ plywood blanks for them, then tilt your table saw blade to 45 degrees so you can bevel-rip one edge of each cleat to shape. When installed, the bevels on these cleats should be oriented toward the cabinet’s interior and down toward the cabinet bottom. I attached my French cleats to the cabinet with pocket-screw joints. Install one cleat flush against the top inside back of the cabinet. I located the top flat edge of the other cleat 9″ up from the cabinet bottom. Its back face should also be flush with the cabinet back.

Solid wood edging will hide the front edges of the cabinet carcass to give it a more finished look. I prepared six strips of long and short edging from solid maple. When gluing each one in place, you can hold the edging securely with several strips of wide painter’s tape pulled over the joints instead of using clamps. Install the long edging strips first, keeping their edges and ends carefully aligned with the cabinet carcass. Then attach four short pieces to the front edges of the carcass top and bottom and to the shelves. Carefully measure and cut these to length so their ends form tight butt joints with the long edging. When the glue dries, sand or plane any overhanging areas of this edging flush with the cabinet edges, then finish-sand the cabinet’s side and bottom exterior.

You could make the top panel of the cabinet either from plywood banded with solid wood or from a piece of solid wood. I chose the latter and glued up a blank of 3/4″-thick maple that measured 12-3/4″ x 27-1/4″. After sanding its top face, edges and ends smooth, I installed it with six #8 x 1-1/4″ screws near the front and back corners of the cabinet’s top interior and in the middle. The back three screws were driven into round pilot holes, as usual. I installed the front three screws into slotted pilot holes instead, with the slots oriented front-to-back on the cabinet’s interior top panel. This way, the maple top can expand and contract forward or backward as needed with changes in humidity, but its rear edge (against the wall) will remain fixed in place.

Making Removable Panels and Doors

There are still two more plywood upper back panels to make. You’ll want these to be about 1/16″ shorter and narrower than necessary so they’ll slip into place easily above the upper shelf and be just as painless to remove someday, should you ever decide to add or change battery chargers. Cut the panels to size, and sand their “show” faces smooth.

The key to running cords through these upper panels is to drill a series of 3/8″-dia. holes along the panel edges. I bored three along the center seam between the panels using a sharp brad-point bit and clamping the panels edge-to-edge to minimize tearout around the holes. Then I rearranged the panels to drill three more holes along their top and bottom edges, creating six semicircles along the top and bottom of this panel assembly. You can drill as many holes as you like and wherever they are most convenient, based on the number of chargers you plan to use in your cabinet and where their cords will need to be located for easiest installation. Once the holes are drilled, set these panels aside.

The cabinet doors for this project are about as simple to build as any door can be. Mill stock for the four stiles and four rails to 3/4″ thick, then cut the door parts to final size. I purchased a 24″ x 36″ sheet of clear acrylic for my doors from a local home center. It measured 0.22″ thick. Carefully cut a 3/8″-deep, centered groove along one edge of each rail and stile to fit the acrylic you choose. I did this with a flatop-toothed ripping blade at the table saw in two cuts, flipping the workpieces end-for-end between cuts to ensure that the grooves would be centered on the part thicknesses.

Once the grooves are cut, install a wide dado blade in your table saw again to raise a stub tenon on each end of the rails. Experiment on a test piece when setting the blade height, in order to create tenons that are just thick enough to form a good friction fit in the grooves of the stiles. With that dialed in, mill the tenons on rail ends to 3/8″ long.

Dry fit the two door frames together so you can measure the width and length of the panel openings from the bottoms of their grooves. Cut an acrylic panel to fit each door at your band saw or with a triple-chip blade in your table saw. Then glue and clamp the door frames together with the acrylic in place. When the joints dry, sand the door faces smooth.

The power strip’s cord will need to pass through the bottom of the cabinet. I bored a 2-1/2″-dia. hole through my cabinet to accommodate Rockler’s plastic grommet, which will give this pass-through hole a tidier appearance for the cord.

Before hanging the doors, now is a good time to go ahead and apply a protective topcoat to the entire project. I brushed on several coats of a satin, water-based polyurethane.

Hanging the Doors and Finishing Up

Full overlay 120-degree “Euro” hinges are a simple option for hanging these cabinet doors. I marked locations for the hinges 3″ in from the top and bottom ends of the cabinet, then transferred those layout lines to the backs of the doors. Rockler’s JIG IT plastic Hinge Cup Drilling Jig made it simple to set my drill press fence accurately to bore a pair of 35 mm holes into the back of each door for the hinges’ cups.

Mount the cupped side of the hinges to the doors with their supplied screws, making sure the hinge arms are perpendicular to the door stiles. A second JIG IT jig enabled me to locate the “cabinet side” holes for the hinge hardware easily in order to drill pilot holes for the hinge screws. Fasten the hinges to the cabinet to hang the doors. Adjust the hinges with their set screws so the doors swing easily and have even reveals between one another and the cabinet top. Once you’re satisfied, install a pair of pulls on the inner door stiles to complete them.

There’s not much left to do on our project! Snap the plastic grommet into place and install a power strip inside the lower concealed compartment behind the lower back panel. Choose the chargers you’ll want to hang on the upper back panels so you can install the necessary screws to mount them on their T-slots. Set the chargers into place in the cabinet, and thread their cords through the back-panel holes. I used 1-1/4″ washerhead pocket screws to fasten the upper back panels to the cabinet cleats. Their large, exposed screwheads hint that these panels can be removed when necessary, down the road.

You’ll need to make up two more French cleats to mount your cabinet to the wall. Then choose a location in your shop where these cleats can be attached to two wall studs and where there’s an outlet close by. Set the upper French cleat — bevel facing the wall and upward — so the cabinet will be a comfortable height for you. Attach it with four 3″ screws driven into the wall studs. Mount the top beveled edge of the second cleat 20″ below the beveled edge of the first cleat.

Set the cabinet into position on the wall, and push it down to engage the interlocking cleats. Then plug in the power strip and load this handy project up with batteries. Now enjoy the fact that your tool batteries will always be charged up and at the ready when you need them!

Hard-to-Find Hardware:

3/4″ Baltic Birch Plywood, 24″W x 30″L (4) #GRP40632_4
Full Overlay Blum 120° Clip Top Snap Close Hinges (2) #55793
JIG IT Hinge Cup Drilling Jig, 5mm Tab (1) #58488
JIG IT Hinge Plate Template A (1) #50375
#6 Self-Centering Bit (1) #68991
Stainless Steel Metropolitan Bar Pull, 5-1/4″ (2) #24418
2-1/2″ Standard Plastic Grommet, Brown (1) #51100

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

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– Bruce Wedlock
Peabody, Massachusetts

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Click Here to Download the Plan.

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Download this complete plan.

Making the Drawers

Your first inclination might be to make the tool chest’s case first, but then the drawers must be precisely fitted to its interior. The easier route – especially considering the interlocking nature of the corner joinery and how that impacts final part sizing – is to make the drawers first and wrap the case around them. Start by cutting two 7-1/2″ x 13″ pieces of 1/2″-thick Baltic birch plywood. They’ll yield all four upper and lower drawer sides.

Install the drawer lock bit in your router table, then take a close look at the photos. Notice that the geometry for a drawer lock joint consists of a tongue-and-groove profile on one piece that fits into a mirror image tongue-and-groove on the mating piece. Adjust the bit vertically so the cutter creates an equal-sized tongue-and-groove. Rockler offers a plastic setup block that can make finding this bit height quick and easy.

It also can help you determine bit projection out from the router table fence. But, if you don’t have the benefit of the setup block, move the fence until the top portion of the cutter will cut 1/4″ into the drawer side stock, and raise the bit 3/8″ above the table.

When the bit’s settings are dialed in, knife a line across the face of the plywood 3/8″ from both ends where the top corner of the router bit will intersect it, to help minimize tearout during routing. Now, carefully mill the profile across one face of both workpieces, on both ends, with the blanks standing vertically against the router table fence, to form the drawer side profile of the four corner joints. Set these workpieces aside for the moment.

Rip and crosscut another piece of 1/2″ Baltic to 7-1/2″ x 20-3/4″ to create both drawer backs. You’ll see that the drawer back has a thin, elongated tongue that covers the ends of the drawer sides.

To achieve this overlapping profile, reset the bit’s projection from the fence using the other end of Rockler’s setup block as a guide (the bit’s projection changes to 3/8″ but its height remains the same). Then mill this cut into both ends of the drawer back stock. Set this workpiece aside for now as well.

The drawer faces come next, and we’ll harvest them from the same piece of plywood as the tool chest’s top rail. Start with a piece of 3/4″ plywood measuring 10-3/4″ x 21-3/4″. Cut the 3″-wide front rail off the top of the panel (see photo 6). Then, trim 1/8″ off each short end of the remaining wider piece to create a single combined blank for both drawer fronts.

Study the photos and you’ll see that the thicker drawer front material creates a tongue that both covers the drawer sides and also conceals the ends of the drawer slides. The goal for this tongue length is 7/8″. To form it, make a series of passes into the ends of the drawer front workpiece, shifting the fence back a little with each pass to expose more of the router bit.

Make each new cut in a scrap piece first to check your progress, before continuing to rout the drawer front ends. Stop cutting when the length of the inside face of the drawer front blank matches the length of the inside face of the drawer back blank.

Now, dry-fit the corner joints. If they lock together well, rip the drawer side and drawer back blanks to their final widths. Then lower the saw blade to 1/4″ and plow 1/4″-wide grooves along the inside bottom edge of each drawer part to fit your 1/4″ drawer bottom plywood. Cut these grooves carefully so the plywood will fit them snugly.

Assemble the drawer boxes again in order to take inside measurements for the drawer bottoms. Cut the two drawer bottoms to size. Finish-sand all the drawer parts, and bring the drawer boxes together with glue and clamps.

Before the glue begins to set, be sure to check the boxes for square by measuring their diagonals: if the numbers match, you’re all set. If they don’t match, adjust the clamping pressure or the clamp positions to correct the problem; out-of-square drawers are a hassle to correct after the fact — especially when they’re made of plywood that can be hand-planed to correct things.

Lock-Align Drawer Organizers

A tool chest without some form of inner dividers will quickly become a disorganized dumping ground for hand tools and other small parts. But Rockler’s system of Lock-Align Drawer Organizers can help.

The interlocking, synthetic rubber components create a grid of compartment walls that you can customize to the size of the drawer by cutting with a utility knife or scissors.

Assembling the Chest Carcass

Cut a pair of workpieces for the chest divider and back panel to size from 3/4″ plywood. Finish-sand them, along with the front rail. Then glue the front rail to one long edge of the divider so the rail’s bottom edge is flush with the bottom face of the divider.

When the joint dries, you can reinforce it with three Miller Dowels as we did, or use countersunk #8 screws or even brad nails, if you prefer. Now, draw a layout line 3″ in from one long edge of the back panel.

Align the bottom back edge of the divider to this line, and glue and dowel the divider and back panel together to complete the chest’s inner subassembly.

Cut the chest’s side panels to shape and sand them. Attach the sides with glue and dowels to the inner subassembly — make the back edges of the side panels flush with the back face of the back panel.

Cut, sand and install the chest’s bottom panel next, with its back edge flush to the back of the carcass and its ends extending evenly out from the side panels. Use dowels or other fasteners to reinforce these joints, too.

Installing Hardware

The finish line for this project is in sight, but there’s a little more milling yet to do. Rockler’s metal flush-mount drawer pulls require a 1/8″-shallow mortise cut into the top faces of the drawers. The easiest way to accomplish this is to create a simple routing jig that controls the length of the mortise cuts, then use a straight bit to cut them.

Our routing jig amounts to a pair of long scraps that straddle the drawer face and also help to stabilize the router base during mortising. Two crosspieces, fastened to the long pieces, stop the router’s travel and limit the length of the mortises to fit the 120 mm-long pulls. Once the drawer faces are mortised, fasten the pulls to them with the included screws.

Next up are the drawer slides. Carefully lay out the positions of the cabinet side components of the slides inside the chest. Inset their front edges 7/16″ back from the front of the chest, and fasten them in place with the included screws. It’s a good idea to use the slotted holes provided on the slides for the screws, in case you need to move the slides slightly up, down or back and forth. Fasten the drawer side member of each slide so it’s centered on the width of the drawer sides. Then, connect the slide components together to hang the drawers, and check their action. Adjust the slides as needed to create even gaps between the drawers and so the drawer faces close flush with the front of the chest.

Cut and sand a panel for the chest lid. We installed ours with a pair of low-profile, partial wrap-around hinges that don’t require mortising. Just mark their positions on the lid and back panel, drill pilot holes and fasten them in place. Then, to keep the lid up while using tools, we completed this project’s hardware needs with Rockler’s Easy-Lift Lid Support — it also simply screws to the lid and back panel.

Finishing Up

You could skip a finish on this project in order to hustle it into service, but eventually raw, blonde plywood will begin to look grimy from use. So why not apply two coats of your favorite film finish — polyurethane, shellac or lacquer — it will keep this tool chest looking great for years to come.

Hard-to-Find Hardware:

12″ Series 757 100-lb. Over-Travel Centerline® Lifetime Slides (2) #49778
Easy-Lift Lid Support (1) #66649
Stainless Steel 120mm Edge Pulls (2) #1014281
Rockler Drawer Lock Router Bit (1) #22637
Router Bit Set-Up Jig for 22637 Drawer Lock Corner Bit (1) #53810
1x Miller Tru-Fit Drill Bit (1) #20300
1x Miller Walnut Dowels (1) #21366

Click Here to Download the Drawings and Materials List.

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