Make a Swedish Tool Chest with Whitney Miller
We've long been fascinated with the Swedish tool chest form. Roy Underhill had one at The Woodwright's Shop, and Chris got a close look at one in Sweden that belongs to Johan Lyrfalk, and came down through his family. It's similar to a Dutch chest with its slanting front lid, but the Swedish one is in some ways simpler. And it's larger – at least our version is – it's not a chest for travel.
The video – which stars and is edited by television professional and do-it-yourself maven Whitney Miller – shows you step by step how to build this Swedish chest – and her joy in making it comes through on screen. (Which is to say she a lot of fun to watch, beyond the woodworking instruction!)
The Swedish chest is assembled with through-dovetails at the corners. The top and bottom are screwed to the carcase. The interior of the chest is fairly open and offers plenty of room for planes and larger tools on the floor. There are three drawers, assembled with rabbets and nails, that will hold your smaller tools and shop sundries. The drawer frame and dividers are assembled with screws, then nailed in place through the outside of the chest, as in our inspiration piece.
The interior walls of the chest are lined with tool racks, and there are saw racks on the lid. The rack layout is easy to adjust to suit your own storage needs.
We built it in cherry, because we couldn't resist the call of the wide cherry boards at the lumberyard that day. The inspiration chest was painted, and probably made from pine.
The build is an excellent primer on through-dovetails and simple drawer construction – and when you're done, you'll have a handsome chest in which to store your tools.
Dimensions are: 32-1/2” wide, 18-1/2” high and 19-3/4” deep. The top is 8-1/2” wide, the drop lid is 13-1/2 wide. Most of the stock for the carcase is 7/8” thick.
The entire video is just more than an hour – tightly edited to be compact but filled with good information that's fun to watch. It's an excellent video for beginning woodworkers, with just the information you need.
You also get downloadable PDFs with plans and a cutlist, as well as information on using "marriage marks" for layout, and applying our favorite non-toxic soft-wax finish.
The video can be watched one of two ways. You can stream it (after logging into your account here at Lost Art Press). Or you can download the video and put it on any device. The video is offered without DRM (digital rights management), so the files will be easily moved to any of your devices, now and in the future.
Whitney Miller is also the author of "Henry Boyd's Freedom Bed." You can read more about her in this two-part article by Kara Gebhart Uhl.