Chris’s Birthday Celebration

Chris is turning 23 this year and is officially an adult. He has his own apartment, benefits, a real job–and is officially off our “payroll”. We will celebrate with him a couple of days after his actual birthday. Here’s some of what we’re working on:

The Present:

I found a machinists toolbox from the 1930’s with lots of tools on EBTH.com. It is definitely vintage and has required some repairs to undo some clumsy ones that were done at some point in its life. Here are some of the listing photos:

As you can see, it has had kind of a rough life, and unfortunately, the auction company shipped it with the tools in it which didn’t do it any favors.

The first thing we did was to remove all the hardware so that we could thoroughly clean all the surfaces with paint thinner. This removed the surface grime and the white paint. We also ordered all new hardware from Gerstner because the box had obviously been stored in a garage, or some other area that was not climate controlled, so all the hardware was rusty. Unfortunately, the new hardware is REALLY shiny….but at least it will all be there and isn’t covered by rust.

As we were working with the box, we saw that we were going to have to have the handle and the lock replaced, but that has to be done at the Gerstner factory in Dayton, OH. Fortunately, I had to attend a trade show in Indianapolis in February of 2020 (back before 2020 became the worst year ever), so I left for Indy a little early and spent some time with my dear friend, Liz, in Dayton and had the handle and lock replaced while I was there. At that point, work on the box ground to a halt.

Just before Christmas, we took the front panel that covers the drawers apart, and Mike carefully glued the center panel and one of the rails. He also repaired the runners for some of the drawers that had come loose.

We put it away again in preparation for the holidays. We were running out of time, so the push was on to complete the remaining work. With 7 days to go, we started sanding the main body of the box, and the rails from the front panel. We finished the sanding the following night and applied ebony stain to recreate the dark grain that the box had when it arrived. We had to stop work at that point to allow the stain to dry thoroughly.

We carefully masked the main portion of the box and used spray lacquer as the finish since that is what would have originally been used when the box was built in the 1930s.

Mike had also sprayed the components of the front panel of the box with lacquer, and we put the felt on the panel as it was originally. It is tricky work because the felt has to fit exactly to cover the unfinished back of the panel, but not cover any of the outer edges which need to be able to move freely in the frame to avoid cracking the panel with changes in humidity (which cause the wood to grow or shrink).

The finished front panel minus the pull hardware–the holes were too large and had to be filled. The top edge of the frame and the top of the panel were really damaged and required some careful repair work. I think that it turned out unbelievably well.

We had the felt rolled out so that it would be flat when we were ready to reline the drawers and the inside of the front panel. This was the smallest piece of felt that we could buy from Gerstner. I expect that we will have enough. (Good grief.) The Calvin and Hobbes Treasury has come in handy to hold down the end.

The box now has its official Gerstner label–there was an oval discolored area on this drawer and we wondered why. The modern labels have changed shape, but it still looks great.

The new hasps are on the box–the holes matched up pretty well.

We weren’t so lucky with the corner hardware….

Mike had to carefully drill all new holes and the screws are so tiny….but he got all the new hardware on.

Next problem is to figure out how to get the front panel reinstalled…..

Mike figured it out while I was in the kitchen. Here it is:

We ended up using the old mirror frame (which I think is so funny), and the new mirror (the old one was shattered in transit). We are going to wait for the adhesive on the felt to dry thoroughly and then we are going to put the tools back (and the 1932 edition of the machinist’s handbook) in it and top it with a big blue bow.

Happy Birthday Chris! We love you.