Wooden Toolbox, Part 4: Upper Tray, Drawer, and Finishing Up

Last post I had completed the main box.  This time it's on to the upper tray and drawer.  For the tray, I made the depth (front to back) a little more than 1/16" less than the inside dimension of the box.  It's length is about 3" shorter than the inside length of the box.  This was to allow a drill to stand up on the floor of the upper compartment and still be able to put the tray in place.

The 3/8" thick tray components dovetailed

... and test fitted into the box

Made a handle / divider that fits into stopped dadoes in the ends.
The handle is 1/2" thick to add a little comfort when picking it up.

Close-up of one end of the handle / divider

One corner of the tray with cleaned up dovetails

Glued up the dovetails first, then later glued on a 1/8" plywood bottom
with some creative "clamping"

It fits!

I made the height so it would stick up 1/8" from the box upper edges

I just love fitting drawers to openings.  After the drawer front and back were fitted to the opening and the drawer sides to the depth, the drawer was dovetailed together.

Fitting the front into its opening

Fitting the left side and getting its length directly from the box

The parts in relative position

Marking the sides with a triangle

... and the front/back with a triangle.
I sometimes use a double triangle so I don't confuse it with a reference edge mark

Dovetails complete

I had another decision to make.  Do I plow grooves for the 1/8" plywood drawer bottom, or do I glue the bottom to the underside of the drawer?  I did a little test groove in some scrap to help with this.

1/8" groove with some scrap plywood fit in place

First, my 1/8" plow iron is a bit wider than 1/8", and the plywood is a little less than 1/8", so the fit was sloppy.  Second, if I inset the groove 3/16" or 1/4" from the bottom edges, I would lose 5/16" or 3/8" of useable space in the drawer.  So I decided to glue the plywood to the bottom of the drawer.  But since I sized the drawer components precisely, I had to remove the thickness of the plywood from the drawer parts.  On the drawer front I used a rabbet so that the plywood would not be seen with the drawer closed.

Here, I've glued the dovetails together and also glued the bottom 
to the drawer, using the metal toolbox as a clamp again

Then I cut out a bit of the front to form a finger pull

And lastly I could do the final fitting all the way inserted
(before the finger pull I had no way of pulling the drawer back out!)

Added a couple coats of shellac

And here it is partially loaded, ready for work

This was a really fun build.  It's solid as a rock, but a bit heavier than I might have liked.  But that's OK.  It's built for a purpose and I think it'll serve that purpose well.