Replicating the Seaton Tool Chest by David Nelson

I looked at the building of the chest in two distinct parts. The first is constructing the chest itself. The second will be gathering or making the tools in the chest. I have not seen the original chest in place nor have I been able to speak to anyone who has so I will make assumptions about the construction and materials as I go through the process.

Upon analyzing the chest, the construction process breaks down into logical pieces.

First is the construction of the carcase and some of the built in components and the assembly of the sides and bottom of the chest. This includes applying veneer to the inside of the floor, sides and rear panel. The inside of the front panel is not veneered because the built-in till hides the bare surface.

The second is veneering and finishing the built-in till and installing it in the carcase, then veneering and finishing the sliding cover and installing the cover slides and the cover.

The Tool Chest of Benjamin Seaton.
Courtesy of TATHS

The third step is making the battens for the top and bottom and the chest lid and saw till and installing them on the chest; mounting the lock and inlaying the catch on the lid; then finishing the exterior of the chest.

The fourth part will be making and assembling the removable sliding till, then finishing the till. The sliding till lifts out of the chest so requires no attachment to the chest itself.

For the contents I will use tools from my collection to represent the pieces in the chest. Although, with minor exceptions, my tools are not as old they are similar in appearance and identical in function. As far as the tools I believe Benjamin made I have already begin to make duplicates of them. As part of the display I will also make suggestions about the tools in the chest and advise of some substitutions that I think would have been made by Benjamin’s contemporaries.

Building the carcase

After looking around various lumberyards in the area I realized I would not be able to obtain 24-inch wide pine boards. The next choice was to get some ¾ material 11 inches wide and edge join it. I was able to get boards sawn through the center of the tree at a local yard. The boards had a slight bow across the width that I would correct later. The 24-inch height of the chest meant that I would have two joints showing. I decided to have three joints instead with two of them behind the top and bottom battens.

I sawed the boards to rough length for the front, back and sides. I then jointed the edges and used ¾ inch tongue and groove planes to make the joints. The pieces were then glued together. After the glue set I made kerfs inside the bow, clamped the board to a flat surface, inserted wedges in the kerfs and glued the wedges in place. When the glue set the boards were less than 1/16 out of flat, which was closer than I expected to get.

The dovetailed parts of the carcase and the bottom. They have been test fit. The groove to take the base has been made in all four sides. They are ready to have the 1/16 inch mahogany veneer glued to the inside of the rear, both sides and the bottom.

I decided to cheat on the bottom and lid. For these two pieces I wanted stability so I used some ¾ inch oak plywood for the base and 20 mm birch plywood for the lid. The finish on the outside of the chest will conceal the grain of the wood. The bottom and the lid will have mahogany veneer inside to hide the grain.

Next I marked out and cut the dovetails for the front and back. I used the drawing on page 24 of the Seaton book to estimate the size of the dovetails.

Drawing of the chest structure from The Tool Chest of Benjamin Seaton.
Courtesy of TATHS

I used a 1 to 6 ratio for the angle on the tail. I marked the depth of the tails with a cutting gage. I made them a little deep so I can plane them flush when the carcase is glued. Using a bevel gauge and divider I marked them out with a pencil on one side. After I marked them out I used a marking knife to scribe the end of each board to give the saw a place to start. Because of the slight bow in each piece I clamped a batten to the end of each piece before I marked the pins. I then marked the pins. After sawing and chopping the pins I fitted the four parts together and adjusted the tight fitting area so the parts could be seated.

I used the tools in the picture to layout and cut the dovetails. For those interested the saw is a number 2 Silver Steel Atkins with 14 teeth per inch and no set on the teeth. The teeth are sharpened in a rip pattern. The chisels are Ward and Payne. The other tools are homemade or unmarked

Dovetail details.

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