Cabinetmaker's Tool Chest

I have had an attraction to early cabinetmaker's tool chests since I started accumulating tools about thirty years ago. The one in the opening photograph is my favorite and most decorated, adorned with elaborate inlays and exotic woods. This chest was advertised in the local newspaper. I purchased it from a retired minister who had bought it in Virginia in the mid-1960s. When he found it, it was full of the original tools. The minister told me that he did not have enough money to buy the chest and its contents, so he just bought the chest. It is a rare thing indeed to find an intact chest with its original complement of tools. Many tool dealers mine the chests for their tools and sell them off individually for a higher profit than could be had for the whole package.

Most joiners, cabinetmakers and carpenters in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries stored their tools in a chest like this. They were usually constructed during an apprenticeship and then filled with tools as the craftsman could afford them during his working life. The chests served several functions, most important being safe and secure storage. The chest was also an easy way to transport tools to either the jobsite or a new shop. I think that the chests also served as a resume of sorts, exhibiting the craftsman's skills to potential employers and clients.

When I was looking for a way to store my chairmaking tools, I decided to make a version of a cabinetmaker's tool chest, albeit smaller than the typical chest. My chairmaking tools are specialized and not generally used unless I am working on chairs. So it seemed logical to store these tools together, with the chest being moved out of the way when not in use. I occasionally take workshops and work away from the shop, so like the originals it travels well despite requiring two people to move it.


My chest is made of eastern white pine and mahogany with veneers and inlays of rosewood, mahogany, zebrawood, and ebony. Its painted with milk paint and I had the Federal eagle painted on the front by a local painter. In the shop it sits on a dolly and is easily rolled to where its needed.

Pommel Knife

A pommel knife (bottom) is a chairmakers tool. It is basically a drawknife with one of the handles in line with the blade. This configuration allows the chairmaker to shape the chair seat in the area of the pommel (the raised area at the front of many windsor chair seats). This tool was developed beacause the bent handle of the drawknife would not allow the tool to negotiate the curve of the pommel.

Too Many Clamps?

Cliche you think. If you have done any woodworking or even know a woodworker you have no doubt heard the line "you can never have too many clamps." There is a good reason for this. The photo above shows two 8-foot long glue-ups for turning blanks. Thirty-two clamps in use. If I didn't have the clamps I would have to glue over two days, losing valuable time. Since I make a living at this, that's an important consideration. So, stock up!

Saws Happen

I don't collect saws. Really. I readily admit the dozens of saws that you see in the pictures are mine, but I swear I did not collect them. They just happened. You could say that I have "accumulated" them over the past thirty years. They conglomerate like dust bunnies; everywhere you look in my shop you find saws. They hang on the walls and from the rafters, they stand up in corners, and they lie on the floor in the attic.

There are panel saws, back saws, dovetail saws, gents saws, tenon saws, carcase saws, stair saws, ripsaws, crosscut saws, miter box saws, bow saws, turning saws, fret saws, and coping saws. Oh my!

The reason I have so many is that I just can't pass up a bargain. Hand saws are truly ubiquitous. Before the advent of power saws every tradesman owned at least two and every home probably had one. Fast forward to today and you find them showing up at nearly every yards sale, auction, and second hand store.


As unlikely as it may seem, I usually don't buy, but I always look. And when I find an old saw that has been well cared for and has a shapely, carved apple-wood handle and a long line of straight and well-formed teeth, a brass medallion and a strong etching on the blade of a proud manufacturer, with a price of 3 or 4 dollars, then I do buy.

Being a user and lover of old tools, I simply cannot pass up these bargains. While I may never use all of my adopted saws (I do have my favorites), at least they will be at home in a working shop and among friends.

Can Opener

A lowly can opener. Hardly. This is one of my all-time favorite tools. I say that because it is simple and does its job perfectly. I use it to open paint and finish cans. But wait, there's more. You probably noticed some writing on the business end of this beauty as I did. What you find there is the manufacturers name and a Patent date. The Patent date is Nov. 7, 1933.

I am sure that there is no need to tell you this, but there is actually a Google Patents site. This site is Shangri-La for tool geeks. The place where you can really get far more than you would ever need to know about any patented tool. Ahhh, nirvana. Punching in the Patent date delivers me the details of U.S. Patent No. 1934594, Container Opener by Henry J. Edlund, Burlington, Vermont. This dude was obviously way ahead of his time. Check out the drawing below and see all it can do.


Not too long ago I lost my can opening sidekick and was rather distraught about the whole thing. I was doing a job at the local library and after I got home that evening I found that it had gone missing. I enlisted my friend Lucy, the library director to help me track it down. It was no use. It was gone. I still suspect the library maintenance man, as i did notice him lusting over it while I worked that day.

However, all hope was not lost. After searching eBay for months, one turned up. And if I have to open cans on a job site in the future, I'm using a screwdriver.

Making Gains

This apparantly is a gain, which, according to "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language" is "a notch or mortise cut into a board to receive another part [origin unknown]." American woodworking texts from the turn of the twentieth century use this term. I do not find it used in English woodworking texts.

Its most common usage in the literature relates to the housing or recess made for a hinge leaf. Its made with a knife, chisel and router plane.