Wood for home-grown cases?

I would avoid oak. When in contact with iron it creates a black stain - tannic acid iirc.

Bill Schwab said the following on 12/21/2005 10:20 PM:

Maple was recommended to me and it's worked well so far. I've no clue at all as to why it is better or worse than another type of wood.

Mike

Make the boxes out of anything available. I use Walnut and Cherry because it's there. It's easy to line them with felt and put a little WD40 on it. Bugs

SNIP

Hey Bill,

Be very careful about the "foam" used, as it can also deteriorate and become a godawful mess to clean off. See what has happened to old camera carry-cases that seemed so nice, and wrecked the camera after a few years.

Oil, or a bit of "Lano-lube" (lanolin, aka wool grease, which as I understand it is used to keep gage blocks from rusting, so it must be OK for use on precision tooling...)

If you can find some, camphor wood is nice as it has a "natural anti-rust" function. I believe that it was traditionally used for the sides of toolbox drawers for exactly this reason (presumably the sides were enough wood to ward off rust, and it was not regarded as "pretty" enough to use for the visible parts). Not having any handy and having failed to go track any down, I jut put a bit of synthetic camphor block (from the old-fashioned drug store which still has it) in the toolboxes to ward off rust. Felt is better than foam for linings - you can get thick felt and cut it out as you would foam, or simply use wood, which is also fine, if you stay away from oak.

So those gorgeous oak machinists chests at Sam's for $90 - Bad idea?

Boxwood?

If you want fitted insides, there's a closed-cell urethane foam you can use. It's available at hobby stores. One brand is "Mountains in Minutes". (They use it for making mountains in model RR setups) It comes as two liquids. When you mix the liquids, they expand about

30:1 into a foam that cures up dry and hard (not tacky or sticky) in a few minutes. Wrap your object in plastic film or a baggie, put it in the box making sure that no part will be covered with foam you later have to rip out, pour in the goop. When it has expanded and cured, take out the object and slice the foam level with the top of the box.

I have not noted this stuff to be corrosive to aluminum, (so probably not to steel either), and I don't think it would harbor moisture because it's closed-cell.

Personally I would certainly avoid any oak. For an easy to work material Poplar or even pine would be my choice. If on the other hand you want a fine peice of furniture, cherry or maple would look great. :-) ...lew... (a long time woodworker)

And all those oak Gerstner boxes as well...

It may be best to not put the tools in direct contact with unsealed oak, but in light of the fact that Gerstner has been using oak forever, I don't think it's necessary to avoid oak altogether.

If you use yellow glue (Titebond, etc) let it cure thoroughly, at least a few days, before using the box, otherwise it will cause rust.

Ned Simmons

Oak in direct contact with metal is a really bad idea. As others have mentioned, tannic acid does a number on metals, making verdegris with copper-based alloys and black stains with iron-based ones.

Watch your foam and glues, too. Some foams use steam as a blowing agent, there's other chemicals used, too. Last thing you need is the equivalent of a damp rag wrapped around precision tools. Some glues are either water-based or have reactive chemicals in them, too. Make sure they're really dried out before using. Felt lining or cutting up tool tray liners might be the wisest choice. Mahogony used to be the wood of choice for tool cases, cuts like pine. You could rout out pockets out of the solid with finger grooves for your various tools. I've done this, it's tedious.

I built a slide-top case for my big Starrett combination square with extra compartments for the protractor and center heads with only hand tools, it came out great. I used strips of luan door skin for build-up(seconds from the lumber yard for cheap), used yellow glue for assembly and lined it with Craftsman tool chest drawer liner strips(freebies). I finished it with Deft Clear Wood Finish, I used the brush-on form. It dries fast and can be recoated quickly. It's lasted 20 years with just a few dings outside.

Once you get boxes or cases, you can use some of the vapor-type anti-rust blocks. These are kind of like the anti-rust tabs included with micrometers and fine tools, they give off an invisible vapor and help prevent rust. Only work in closed spaces, though. Brownell's carries them as does Midway(reloading and shooting supplies).

Stan

Lew,

This is fascinating, because you are all saying to avoid oak, and pine seems not to scare you. My intuition would have been 180 out of whack - I figured the hard wood would be better.

Poplar is a strong possibility. It's pricey, but I could use it only as a "lining" with pine for the outer case. This will be a nice opportunity to practice dovetails where the outcome is not all that important.

OT for a moment, do you like to make dovetails manually or using a router and jig. If the latter, which jig?

Bill

Hmm...poplar should be one of the lower priced options. I guess it depends on the area. If you want top o' the line, then I'd probably go with hard maple but poplar would be my choice to make an everyday case....It's generally available in glued up boards with no knots also at the local hardware hell joint.

I'd skip the dovetails and go for a simple box finger joint.

has curent board foot prices for the Northwest..might help you compare to what you can get in your area.

Now if you wanna talk really good, go for some katalox or similar...machines to a finish you can't beat :)

Koz

Birch plywood, of good quality. Maple is a good choice for solid timber, but so are many others, such as birch, poplar, beech or ash. Lime (basswood) is excellent for inners. Avoid oak, because of the iron-stain problems mentioned.

Line with either timber (especially lime) or closed cell polyethylene foam. Don't use open cell foams, don't use cloth or felt - both are moisture traps and tend to fail with age.

Use good quality hinges and catches. Catches that _pull_ a lid closed will also help keep moisture out. Design space in there for a silica gel bag.

Double-wall construction is good for travelling cases for instruments and it allows you to use simple staggered butt joints. Make the inner from line and the outer from cheap plywood. Other good joints for single layer 1/2" ply are biscuit joints (easy to make with no more than a £50 power tool). Simple butt joints with internal corner blocks are entirely adequate. Comb joints can be cut with various proprietary jigs on a table saw.

Shellac is the best material for an internal finish. Outside a gel polyurethane is hard-wearing without looking too much like varnish.

Make the tops sloped or domed if you don't want things to be stacked on top.

Never seen a Gerstner or Moore & Wright box that's been used on-site, rather than only on the bench? If you can keep oak perfectly dry it's OK, but any water near it will cause staining and rusting problems.

As others have said, also, it's not the "hardwood vs softwood" bit , but the presence of tannin in the oak.

Poplar should be among the cheapest of hardwoods. I was thinking you were just making storage boxes for heavy objects not fancy / display boxes. :-)

I'm not into dovetails but if I were it would be with a router and a reasonable jig. I'm not a "neanderthal" like Roy Underhill. :-) ...lew...

I don't understand at all with all this bad mouthing oak. Why has Gerstner's been building fine oak tool chests for lord knows how long and narry a rusty tool can be found in any of my four OAK tool chests and these range in age from the forties to my factory new oak chest. Not only that, but the only rusty tools here are NOT in the oak chests. Will somebody please tell me what's wrong with this picture? RichD, Atlanta

Andy D> >

Last I knew, water would rust steel even in the absence of oak.

Just for yucks, I went down into the cellar to check on the oak tool box I built when I was working in a boat yard 25+ years ago. It's been sitting unused in the basement for 17 years with a few odds and ends in it. This is not a wet basement, but it's humid in the summer with condensation on the floor and plumbing.

The stuff in the drawers, including a few Fuller countersinks and a set of spare blades for an Ideal wire, stripper are as bright as the day I left them there. There was also a piece of steel round stock stuck in one of the screwdriver slots, enclosed closely by oak all around. There's a sharp line that corresponds exactly to the depth of the hole it was sitting in; clean where it was surrounded by oak and rusty where it was in the open.

Ned Simmons

I would recommend ash. It is strong, much more dimensionally stable than oak, not very porous, and easy to work with. I've made a couple cases with it, and I've been very happy with the results.

If you can find a luggage repair shop that is willing to deal with you, check out the Ohio Travel Bag Company for hardware

They sell a much broader selection of hinges, handles, latches, corner braces, feet, etc. than any place else. The gotcha is that they only want to deal with high volume places like repair shops. If you use their PDF catalogs to come up with an order, many repair shops will be happy to get the stuff for the next time they place an order. They may even be happy to piggy back a small order of their own onto yours to share the shipping.

Doug White

My 50+ year Gerstner is Oak under black silk. The tray is steel - galvanized. The tray and insides are green felt. Tools never touch oak or steel/zinc.

Tricky thing on oak is it is a sponge. Swells with moisture. Ply is much more stable and using a smaller cell wood is better.

Martin Martin Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH & Endowment Member NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

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