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Making the tools This is the last chapter of the article. I decided early on to make some of the tools in the chest so the inventory will be closer to what was in the chest at the time it was built. The common tools, i.e., planes, chisels and saws, came out of my collection. Benjamin Seaton or a local craftsman probably made the tools I am making now. The tools were not necessarily made in the order presented below. The scrapers Using the measurements in the book I cut a mahogany block to size and used a hand saw to make the slit for the scraper blade. I have a broken Atkins saw blade I inherited from my grandfather (it was used for scrapers since 1920). Using a Dremel tool with a composite blade I cut a piece from the saw a little larger than need be. The edges were ground to size. After putting a burr on the edge the blade was mounted in the mahogany block. I actually used this scraper on the veneer. It worked fine except it is a little small for my taste. For the unhandled scraper blade I noticed the etched logo was still on the saw. Layout dye was applied to the area around the logo. The boundaries for the scraper were made to keep as much of the logo on the blade. Using a Dremel saw it was cut to rough size and then the edges ground to the correct dimensions. I then put the burr on the tool. This tool was used to scrape the shellac off the stringing around the drawers in the sliding till. Making marking gages First I sawed two pieces of beech large enough to make four fences each. The fences were marked out on the piece and it was cut to the finished dimensions. The piece was still large enough to make four fences. The mortises for the bars and the wedges were cut before sawing into the individual pieces. Once the fences were cut the rods were finished to the approximate size. The wedges were roughed out next. Then a wedge, fence and rod were fit together using planes and rasps. Once the parts were assembled into matched sets I stamped and ID number on each piece of the assembly. The last step was to install the pins according the gages in the book. Some of the gages had no pins. Brads were used for pins. The file handles I scaled the sizes off the photo in the book. The squares out of the appropriate wood and the corners knocked off with a block plane. The holes for the file tangs were drilled on my table saw. I have an Inca with the horizontal mortise attachment. Each piece was mounted to turn between centers. The diameter for the ferrule was turned first on the live center end. Once this was done the ferrule was installed and the rest of the handle turned to shape. One of the handles in chest had no ferrule so I removed it after turning the handle. The handles were finished with a “renaissance” finish. The recipe I found called for 1/3 each linseed oil, turpentine and bee’s wax. This had been made for another project and I decided to use up what was left. Since I was on the lathe I turned the reel for the cotton string. The depth gage This tool consists of two angled pieces moving in dovetailed slots on opposite sides of the gage. The sliding pieces have a pin in one end to mark a workpiece. Since I wasn’t certain how this was going to turn out I wound up making two of them. I used an old depth gage I already had to determine the angle of the dovetailed slot. A fixture was made to guide a dovetail saw to cut the edge of each dovetail in the body of the gage. Chisels and a hand router were used to remove the waste. The moving pieces were cut to approximate size and fitted by hand in each body. Sharpened brads were used as scribe points.
Mortise gages, depth gage, line reel, file handles and scrapers. The bevel gage This was a departure from the other tools being made which were primarily woodworking projects. I wanted to reproduce a bevel gage like the one in the chest, i.e., no slot. The A2 tool steel for the blade came from McMaster-Carr. The brass was left over from a prior project, sash-dowelling boxes. The cheese head screw was made from a ¼-20 hex head bolt. The thread end was chucked in the wood lathe and while the bolt turned I filed the head round. A slot was then cut with a hacksaw. The two Mahogany sides were finished to size and the relief cut out of either end so the brass plating would fit a little below the surface. The brass fittings were fabricated from 1/16-inch thick brass. Toolmaker’s layout dye was used to get visible scribe marks when cutting the brass. Each of the five piece were cut close to the lines and would be trimmed to final size once mounted. The brass insert in the closed end of the gage was made to size with an angle corresponding to angle on the end of the blade. The closed end assembly was clamped together, outside plates, mahogany and interior angled piece. Tap holes for two number 6 machine screws were drilled through the assembly. The holes in one plate, the brass center section and the wooden handles then were drilled out for clearance. Holes for the 6-32 screws were tapped in the remaining brass plate. The screws holding the brass plates on the open end could only go into the wooden pieces. All the pieces, including the blade, were assembled and clamped in place. A tap hole for a ¼ -20 screw was drilled through the assembly. The blade was removed and replaced with a scrap piece of brass the same thickness. Three more holes for a number six wood screw thread were drilled through. Using a drill press to hold the tap vertical to the workpiece the ¼-20 thread was tapped in one of the brass plates. I felt the brass was too thin to accommodate enough threads for a longwearing tool so I decided to solder a round nut to the tapped plate. A brass hex nut was rounded off in the wood lathe. To get a proper fit between the brass plate and the round nut a stainless steel bolt was screwed into the plate. Solder flux was brushed onto the plate and the round nut. The nut was screwed onto the stainless bolt and snugged to the surface of the plate. The assembly was silver soldered and the bolt removed. The clearance hole for the cheese head screw on the remaining plate and the blade were reamed out to ¼ inch. The mounting holes for the wood screws in the brass plates were drilled out to clear a number six screw. The mounting holes in the two plates on the open end and the untapped plate on the closed end had a shallow countersinks put in them. A clearance hole for the round nut was drilled in one of the wooden pieces.
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