Homemade Machinist Tool Chest Made from Plywood

[Paul Jones]

Here are some photos of a machinist tool chest I built in 1968 when I was a teenager. It is somewhat crude compared to what I can build today but it works well and has been in constant use all these years. It was built from 1/4" scrap plywood we had left over from finishing a basement remodel. For my birthday during the summer of 1968 my father gave me a Rockwell-Delta 9" table saw (which I still have). It turned out to be a very wise and strategic tool investment because I eventually built more than a dozen built-in cabinets and a finished basement for my parents' house on Bainbridge Island, WA.

This machinist tool box was my first project using the new table saw and only took about three days to part-time build using predrilled holes for fine nails and aliphatic glue. The individual drawers slide very smoothly even when full of tools and extend almost fully despite not having any side or bottom runners. The drawers slide on 1/4" thick plywood dividers that act as a shelf and provide plenty of support when the toolbox is full of tools. I added two small downward protruding machine screws near the top front corners of each drawer opening to serve as stops to prevent the drawers from coming completely out and spilling their contents (in one photo with an open drawer you can see one of these screws). The brass tabs along the bottom and top held a fine brass chain that was used to "lock" the chest.

All drawers but the top two are lined in a fine red felt that I bought on sale after Christmas 1968. The felt was attached using a spray can of the 3-M sprayment adhesive (not sure if this is made anymore) and then very carefully aligned and laid down without stretching or leaving any bumps in the felt. This machinist tool chest is now used mostly for storing cutting tools, carbide inserts, and files. I now use the Kennedy metal tool chests to hold my precision tools, parallels, vee-blocks and other precision set-up tools.