Recent content by Tom M

We visited a couple years ago in October - it was still awefully hot and humid. We walked 9 miles our first day! Then we found out there were buses you could hop on and off! 1. Drayton Hall (plantation) is a must. All original and preserved - not restored so mainly for the architechural...

Thanks. Believe it or not, I found it on eBay! Someone reproduced several of the various Union Tool Chest labels. It wasn't cheap, but after all the work restoring the chest I figured it deserved it. I was very impressed by the qualiy, and am glad I did it. In hind site these tool chests are...

I completed the restoration of my 100 year old Union Tool Chest. Restoration involved: Polished hardware Re-wooded worn drawer slots Refinished (scraped, sanded, stained, shellacked, waxed) Replaced front corners (Gerstner PN) Added rubber bumpers (Gerstner PN) Re-felted drawers Reproduction...

I planned on building my stepback hutch after seeing Gene’s in-process in 2004, and even left a space for it in our kitchen when we gutted it in 2010. I had Gene’s class notes from Olde Mill to work with, but spent the better part of a day in 2017 measuring his, and roughly modeling it as I...

Early on I needed to decide on hardware. Gene used brass axe-drop handles for the doors and drawers. Bess used the axe-drop handles for the doors, but went with brass plain plate drawers handles. I liked the plain plate handles, but was afraid the brass on the natural butternut would be lost. A...

The following is in reference to my wedge problems for the through tenons on the sides of the base. I would probably still use butternut, however I would saw out the wedges. By chiseling them out (as was suggested by a friend) they curled and cracked, so they really didn't tap in very well...

You know my rules. Someone must reply before I post... It's been over 7 weeks since my last post and no replys yet. I think I only have one or two posts left to complete this!

Not to pile on, but you used to see how many views a posting had when you opened the posting, but not anymore. I'm curious how many have actually read a topic.

Troy, that's exactly what I needed. It explains the large notch near the finger tab. I thought the "flange" sat on the top of the lock. Tom

Troy, I finally got working on the key. I started with your picture and scaled it in my CAD program. I then went through 4 design trials to get the depths and widths of the cut-out to fit. I was pretty amazed I could actually move tumblers with the keys gown on my little 3D printer. The last...

I contacted Peter Ross, and we had a very nice discussion about the project. I sent him pictures of the ram’s horn design I was interested in along with a full-sized drawing with a couple reference dimensions (such as the offset required for the lipped drawer to the face frame, and width of the...

Troy, Thanks - this is awesome!

We moved my 92-year-old father-in-law to an apartment this summer and I ended up with his Union Tool Chest. He apparently got it years ago after a co-worker passed away. I've polished all of the nickel-plated parts, removed all the felt drawer liners, obtained missing corner supports...

Gene’s hutch had the type of rat tail hinge which gets mortised into the side of the door, so all you see is the tail on the face frame. I wanted to see the blacksmith made hinge on the door face. I thought this would really add to the piece, and also it would be easier to install. I had seen...

It’s been 643 days since my last update. I hope I get a response sooner this time around! I left off on completion of the doors. That brings me to finishing. Finishing was pretty straight forward and took the better part of a week. I hand sanded (probably to 220 grit) then brushed on...