BY CHRIS SCHWARZ
On certain holidays, such as New Year’s Day, craftsmen in Japan clean their tools, put them on a shrine and offer them gifts such as sake and rice cakes. It is their way of thanking the tools for the service they have provided and will provide in future days.
As my collection of hand planes grew from a few rusty specimens handed down from my great-grandfather to a small arsenal of high-quality instruments, this Japanese tradition began to weigh heavily on my mind. My planes generally squatted on my workbench when not in use, and I had to constantly move them around to avoid knocking them to the floor as I worked.
After some thought, I decided that a cabinet dedicated to my planes was the best way to protect them from dings and to honor them for the service they provide almost every day of the year.
This cabinet is designed so it can be used either as a traditional tool chest that sits on a bench or a cabinet that hangs on the wall, thanks to a tough French cleat. Because planes are heavy tools, the case is joined using through-dovetails. The lid is a flat panel door assembled using mortise-and-tenon construction. And the dividers inside the cabinet are screwed together so the configuration can be rearranged easily as my collection or needs change.
As you design your own chest, you should measure your planes to ensure there’s enough space for everything you own, and plan to own. This cabinet should provide plenty of room for all but the biggest collections.
INCHES
hardware
MILLIMETERS
hardware
STEP-BY-STEP
step 1 • Mark the length of your pins and tails on the ends of all your boards A and B. There’s some debate as to whether you should mark exactly how long you want your pins and tails, a little less or a little more. I prefer to mark just a little more (no more than 1⁄32″) so the ends of the pins and tails stick out a bit when the joint is assembled. Then I come back and plane them flush after gluing up the case.
step 2 • As with all things in dovetails, there’s a debate as to whether you should cut your tails (the male part of the joint) or the pins (the female part) first. Because I like to have narrow pins and wider tails, it’s easier to cut the pins first. Lay out the location of the pins using a sliding T-bevel and cut them with a dovetail saw. Here are my four best tips for sawing straight lines. First, start your cut with the end of your thumb guiding the blade above the teeth.
step 3 • Second, once the cut is started, hold the saw handle like you would hold a small bird that you are trying to prevent from flying away. Don’t clench the handle; just keep enough pressure to prevent the saw from flying out of your hand. Third, never apply downward pressure with your hand; this will cause your blade to drift left or right. Let the saw do the cutting. And fourth, imagine the saw is longer than it really is so you take long smooth strokes.
step 4 • With the pins defined, get out a coping saw with a fine-tooth blade and remove as much waste as you can from between the pins. The closer you get to the scribed line at the bottom of the joint, the less cleanup you'll have with a chisel. If you overshoot, you're cooked.
step 5 • Clamp your pin board to a piece of scrap and remove the rest of the waste using a sharp chisel and a mallet. I like to sneak up to the line on one side, sneak up to the line on the other and then clean up any junk in the middle. Clean out the corners of the pins using a sharp knife.
step 6 • Put your tail board on the bench with the inside face pointing up. Position its mate on top of your tail board and mark the locations of the tails using a mechanical pencil. Be careful not to shift either board during this step, or you should erase your lines and start anew.
step 7 • Transfer those lines on your tail board across the end using a square and down to the other scribed line on the outside face of the board. Clamp the tail board in a vise. Lately I've found that my joints are better if I skew the board in my vise so I'm actually cutting straight down — though the result is angled. Angle the board one direction and make half of the tail cuts. Remember to cut just ever-so-slightly outside the lines.
step 8 • Then turn the board around and clamp it at the same angle and make the remainder of the tail cuts. Some people say it’s easier to clamp the board vertically and go for it. Give both a try and see what works best for you.
step 9 • Use your coping saw to remove the waste from between the tails. I've always found that short, light strokes are the most accurate and least likely to tear out the grain or overshoot the line.
step 10 • Now you need to slice off the ends of your tail boards. Clamp the board as shown in the photo and again use your thumb to help guide the first couple strokes of your cut. If you have a cross-cut backsaw, use that. Otherwise, your dovetail saw will do the job just fine.
step 11 • Now remove the waste from between the tails using a chisel and a mallet. Remove the waste from the outside face of the board first and then remove the rest from the inside face. This will result in a neater joint if the grain buckles while you are chopping it. Again, clean up your corners with a knife.
step 12 • Now it’s time for a test fit. Assemble the joint using a dead-blow mallet and a backing block to distribute your blows across the entire joint. If your joint is made correctly, you should be able to push it together most of the way using only hand pressure and need only a few taps to seat it in place. If it’s too tight (a common malady), try shaving off a little on the inside faces of the pins — parts that will never show in the completed joint. Then ease the inside edges of the tails just a bit.
step 13 • This is the completed joint. You can see the pencil lines on my tails and how the ends of the pins and tails stick up just a bit. This makes it easier to trim them flush to the case, but more difficult to clamp up. More on that later. Cut the other joints and then dry assemble the case. Measure its width and length to determine how big your door E should be. You want the door to overhang the case by 1⁄16″ on either end and 1⁄16″ on the front, so size your parts accordingly.
step 14 • As much as I enjoy handwork, I decided to cut the mortise-and-tenon joints for the frame and panel door E using my tailed apprentices (my power tools). I begin making this classic housed joint by cutting a sample mortise with my mortising machine. Then I cut all the tenons. The rule of thumb is that your tenons' thickness should be one-half the thickness of your stock. The door is 3⁄4″ thick, so the tenons are 3⁄8″ thick with 3⁄16″ shoulders on the face cheeks. I begin making my tenons by setting the height of a crosscut saw blade to just a shade more than 3⁄16″ and setting the fence so it’s 1″ away from the left edge of my saw blade.
step 15 • Now I raise the blade to 3⁄8″ and define the edge shoulders in the same manner.
step 16 • Now install a dado stack in your table saw. These tenons are 1″ long, so I like to put in enough chippers to make a 5⁄8″ cut in one pass. Set the height of the dado stack to 3⁄16″ and set the fence so it’s 1″ away from the leftmost tooth of your dado stack. Make several passes over the blade to remove the waste from the face cheeks.
step 17 • Now turn the rail on its edge and remove the waste from the edge cheeks in the same manner.
step 18 • Test the fit of your tenon in your test mortise. When satisfied with the fit, cut the tenons on all the rails this way, being sure to check the fit after cutting each one.
step 19 • Finally, raise the dado stack to 3⁄8″ and remove the remainder of the waste on the edge cheeks. The bigger edge shoulders ensure that you won’t blow out the ends of your mortises while clamping up the door.
step 20 • Now use your tenons to mark exactly where your mortises should go on your stiles. I like this method because there is much less measuring, and therefore less room for error.
step 21 • Cut 3⁄8″-wide by 11⁄16″-deep mortises in the stiles. With a hollow chisel mortiser, you need to be careful about how you cut the joint. As you can see from the photo, I cut one hole, skip a space and then cut the next one. Later I come back and clean up the area between. If you cut all your holes right in a row, your chisel is more likely to bend or snap in a cut because it wants to follow the path of least resistance.
step 22 • Now cut the 3⁄8″ by 1⁄2″ groove on the door parts that will hold the panel. I use a rip blade in my table saw as shown in the photo. Don’t worry about stopping the groove in the stiles. The hole won’t show on the front because it will be covered by edging. On the back you'll almost never see it because that is where the hinges go. If the hole offends you, by all means patch it. Assemble the door E and make sure it fits on the case. When all is well, plane down or sand the panel for the door and glue up the door — making sure not to put glue in the panel’s groove.
step 23 • Disassemble the case and cut the 3⁄8″-deep groove for the 1⁄2″-thick bottom C. I made the cut in two passes using a plunge router outfitted with a straight bit and an edge guide. On the pin boards, you can cut the groove through the ends because it won’t show. Make sure you put the groove 1⁄2″ in from the bottom edge of the sides because you need room for the French cleat that attaches the cabinet to the wall.
step 24 • On the tail boards you will need to stop the groove in one of the tails as shown in the photo. The dovetail layout shown in the drawing allows you to put the groove solidly into a tail.
Slick Sole for Smoothing
When using a smoothing plane to prepare wood for finishing, you'll get better results if the plane’s sole is waxed. The wax lubricates the sole and allows the plane to skim over the work. You use less effort, and the end result looks better because you're less likely to have to force the plane through the cut. I use inexpensive canning wax you can find at any grocery store that costs a few dollars for a box. Apply the wax in the pattern shown in the photo below. Then start working until you feel the plane becoming harder to move. Reapply the wax and get back to work.
step 25 • Now plane all the case pieces using a smoothing plane. A sharp smoother, such as this #4 1⁄2″, can virtually eliminate sanding. After planing down the case pieces, I'll hit them with some 220-grit sandpaper to remove any ridges left by the plane.
step 26 • You'll need to make some clamping blocks as shown in the photo to clamp the tails firmly against the pin boards. These are easy to make using a handsaw or band saw. Apply a little bit of glue to the tails and knock the case together. Don’t forget to slide the bottom in its groove when three sides are in place. Clamp up your case using the clamping blocks and let it sit for at least 30 minutes.
step 27 • When the glue in the case is dry, remove it from the clamps and plane down the dovetail joints. A sharp low-angle block plane is perfect for this job. The low angle is particularly effective with end grain.
step 28 • Now it’s time to make the dividers for the planes. This is the easy part. I assembled the dividers using just screws to make sure I could change the configuration in case my plane collection ever changed. The first step is to screw the four outermost pieces together and plane them down so they fit snugly inside the case.
step 29 • As you install the interior dividers, it’s a good idea to double-check your initial measurements against the real thing. I had a rude shock when my #4 was wider than I had anticipated. When everything works, screw all the parts together using No. 8 × 1″ screws. Then screw the whole thing into the cabinet. I ran the screws in from the back side of the cabinet.
step 30 • The 3⁄8″ by 1″ edging creates a dust seal around the edge of your toolbox and gives the piece a nice finished look. I cut a 1⁄4″ roundover on the inside edge of the edging as you can see in the photo. Miter the ends, then glue and nail the edging to the door’s edges.
step 31 • Install the hardware, such as the no-mortise hinges, catches, pulls and chest handles. Don’t forget to drill pilot holes for your hardware or your brass screws will self-destruct as you try to drive them.
Planes at Rest: On Their Soles or Their Sides?
One of the big debates among plane users is whether to place hand planes on their soles or their sides when you're not using them at your bench. Traditional carpenters would place them on their sides to protect the plane’s iron from becoming dinged. Many woodworkers have picked up this tradition, and it’s frequently passed from master to apprentice (as it was to me).
But it might not be necessary. Recently I was convinced by a fellow craftsman that it’s better to place planes on their soles when you are working at your bench. Here’s the rationale. The old carpenter’s saw applied to work on the job site, where you could never be certain about where you were setting your plane (this was back when you might actually see planes on a job site). So placing the plane on its side protected the iron from the grit and gravel that could cover any flat surface in a newly built home. Also, carpenters say putting planes on their sides prevents the iron from being pushed back into the plane’s body, which is what could happen when a plane is rested on its sole.
Woodworkers, however, work on a wooden bench — far away from cement dust and gravel. So they say it’s best to place an unused plane on its sole to prevent the iron from getting dinged by another tool on the bench. What about the iron getting pushed up into the plane’s body? If you think about this statement for a moment, you'll see how ridiculous it is. The plane’s iron is secured tightly enough in the plane’s body to withstand enormous pressure as the plane is pushed through your work. It should be child’s play for the iron to stay in one place with only the weight of the plane pushing it down.
Other woodworkers have come up with other solutions that work, too, including placing the planes sole-down over the tool well of their bench. Or they rest the sole on a thin wooden strip that holds the iron slightly above the bench. But I don’t mess with that. After undoing years of training, I now put my planes sole-down on the bench.
