Re: applying moldings to toolbox
Adam Cherubini
>I can only say how I did mine-
As for milk paint, I like to rub it out dry until the tooth is gone and it becomes smooth. A rag will work. A rag with loose pumice works better, but I use a green scotch brite pad (shh don�t tell anybody). If any amount of black is mixed in with the paint, the rubbing will produce a beautiful shiny luster. That can be nice on its own. But more often than not, I add BLO over the paint. This usually darkens and brings out other, sometimes unexpected colors. You need to test this.
I don�t have an upper molding, but I think these were there for strength. So let�s just say the carcass is dovetailed together. Because the handles want to pull the sides off the chest, I put my tails on the front and back. Okay? To keep the front and back from coming off, I dovetailed my moldings together and put their tails on the sides. With the dovetails really hold the moldings flat and together, all the nails need to do is keep the moldings from sliding up or down. In that case a single row of a few nails will suffice. If you are nailing these moldings on like they are decorative, you have to reconsider my rationale. And I think that would be a mistake, BTW.
Shear strength of nails isn�t the problem. The problem lies with the two bottom nails that see tension. Clinched nails can take some tension. Not sure I would go that route. From what I can see you�ve got a late 19th c style chest and it sounds like you are using 19th c hardware with early 18th c fasteners. Why not just use screws? Dean�s chest�s handles look like Seaton�s. Those long cleats are an excellent design. On the Seaton chest, those cleats are held on with screws. The heads are on the inside of the chest, countersunk or counter-bored into the case sides, and then stopped up with putty. The handles on my chest go front to back (not a good design, but it is an accurate early design). These are likewise held on with screws (like Seaton�s). But I made full depth runners for my till, so they fastener thru a good 1-1/2� thick case. Full, that chest weighs several hundred pounds, so I move it infrequently. Not sure how well those handles would hold up if I were moving that monster frequently.
I wrote something a while back about toolchests and building mine. I should try to dig that up. Jay Gaynor from Williamsburg helped me with it. I examined a bunch of 19th c chests. These are fairly well thought out items (or at least the surviving examples). There are very very few surviving 18th c chests and no two seem to be alike. I tried to use the differences between 19th c chests and 18th c chests to establish typical 18th c features. Of course I ignored my research/observations and did whatever I wanted to in the end, which I�m disappointed with now.
Adam
