A builder who goes by Txinkman on Flickr found this beat-to-the-splinters old machinist’s box on eBay and bought it for $10. You might have thought he’d been ripped off if you didn’t see what he ended up doing with it. Like a lot of such projects, this was clearly a labor of love, a quest to create something beautiful and unique, not just something sturdy and functional. And is usually the case with such labors, it probably ended up costing more on parts that was “required” and took ungodly numbers of hours to finish, but the results, the obvious pride, and the amount of attention this project is getting speaks for itself.
After the jump, more pics of the build process, comments from Txinkman, and pics of an even more spectacular, expensive, and time-consuming box-rescue he did last spring.
After Txinkman bought the “miserable old box” (as he calls it) on Bay, “this thing sat in my garage for almost two years and I shuddered every time I walked by it. Close up, showing the plywood front apron and the general, well, miserable condition. The nail laying there was used to secure the front apron closed when it was in a vertical position.”
Finally, he broke down and starting in on the rescue mission. Here he begins the sanding. “The wood was in such poor condition, I just decided to hell with it, I’ll veneer the entire thing. The fancy Plane tree veneer cost me like $30 from a guy in Michigan, but I actually stooped to using the rolled packaging it came in as the case veneer. (Oh Jesus, I’m so embarrassed.)”
“A rare peek into the Veneering Studio. Looks embarrassingly like a kitchen doesn’t it? This is the first time I’d veneered an entire box.”
“Everything that’s going to be veneered is. Slight contrast with the original interior.”
“Drawer fronts, inside lid, and portions of the main case were veneered in matching burl. Frog Tape masks off the case while the burl is shellacked, no stain or dye needed. Really good looking stuff. I elected to shellac these at this stage so that, even while masked, any dyes used on the case seeping onto the burl would just wipe off.”
“The case veneer being dyed. Actually, I wasn’t at all satisfied with how the dye job came out on the sides and I had sanded it off and was redoing the sides. I threw together the little tray in the foreground from some leftover trim. Surprisingly, it came out kinda neat.”
“The finished project. I put some dividers into the top drawer. I also added brass strips on the drawer tops which had to be built up for a flat veneer job. Actually, I had originally intended for this thing to be a catch-all in the garage for small tools and drill bits. Obviously, it got away from me. Okay, I’ll admit it, for a time filler between restoring machinist’s chests, this thing got way out of control.”
So how much did all this cost, in time and money? “In absolute start-to-finish time, maybe three months. Actual hands-on hours? Probably something like 75 hours.”
Cost? “Depends on who’s asking. My wife is (hopefully) convinced I pick all my materials out of dumpsters behind hardware stores, or shoplift them, whichever will get me more hard time when I’m caught. In real life, and you have to promise never to tell, I think I was into Lee Valley for something like 50 bucks on what sits on the box with probably twice that in assorted stuff I bought from them that I either didn’t use or justified as capital investments. The veneer cost me $30. Then there’s the wood fillers and dyes and stains and shellac and wax and felt and sundries. (Wow, I’ve never used the word “sundries” before.) Maybe another 40 bucks worth there.”
And what’s the primary use of the toolbox? “These things have to have a use? What are you, a Prius owner?”
Captain Nemo’s shore box? Here are some before and after shots of another toolchest Txinkman restored, this one, in a clockwork styley. While he didn’t keep actual track of the refurb time on the MOB (Miserable Old Box), Txinkman admits “I did keep track of the hours on the Gear Box, and counting conservatively, it was over 200 hours. I stopped keeping track after that, it was way too depressing.
See Txinkman’s Flickr photostream for more pics of these projects and other examples of his work.
ADVERTISEMENT
