Repairing a Sipco oak machinist chest

I picked up this once nice Sipco (Schartow Iron Works) 9 drawer oak machinist chest. It was looking sad with a missing front, missing drawer, missing drawer lining, and bad finish. Otherwise, it was in pretty good shape. The box was sturdy and the existing drawers were sound.

I began by removing and repairing the drawer tower. The drawers in chests like these have side runners. The interior tower had a break at the end. It was installed with six nails from the top and one from the rear. It was the rear nail that caused a problem, so I removed it first. Then I carefully pried off the assembly.


The little piece of white wood is the drawer stop that I plan to put in place.



The rear nail caused a splinter which probably interfered with the drawer. Maybe that is why it was removed and then MIA. I glued the splinter back in place and glued a drawer stop above it to keep the drawer from hitting the back of the box.



After the glue dried, I carefully impaled the tower back on the six nails. I drilled a hole through the original hole in the back of the box and spiked a nail into the bottom of the tower to prevent lateral movement.

Great start!
Subscribed for updates.

The next repair was to make a drawer. I found some suitable red oak stock and cut out the front. This is the easy part.



Making the drawer took all morning. Here is a shot that shows my Stanley #45 combination plane in action. I used a 1/8 cutter (that I made) to cut a groove in one of the sides for the drawer bottom.



Then I used the rabbet plane to make the groove wider.



I used the tablesaw to rough cut the rabbets on the drawer front. Then I used a shoulder plane to trim them to size.



I split a piece of poplar on the bandsaw and then cut the drawer bottom to size. I used the handplane to bevel the edges so they would fit tight in the grooves. This technique leaves the middle of the drawer thicker and stronger.

But wait, not so fast. The drawer has a bead. I used a 10 ppi Disston panel saw to cut the bead quirk. Ordinarily I would have used a beading plane, but this drawer (and the originals) was made with the grain vertically. Cutting a bead cross grained would be tearout heaven. After the quirk, I used a chisel and sandpaper to finish the bead.



And then, yada-yada, the drawer was finished.



It is pretty small. The original did not have sides but rather a drill index. I decided on a small drawer--often referred to as the "whisky drawer."



Here is the box with all drawers now in place.

Nice box. Glad to see your bringing it back. Had to have been a sweet box in its day.

jhn9840
John

Nice save. Any updates on this box?

Thanks for your interest.

Sorry to leave you hanging, but some projects languish in my shop for years. As for the Sipco chest, I did get around to making a mock up of the front.



I had some clear pine furring strips about and fashioned them into a front just to see if I had the details right. Well the sides did OK and now I am thinking about the panel for the center. The sides are only 3/8" thick and that does not leave a lot of room for the panel. I have the red oak on hand and am ready for milling once I devise a panel plan that I am happy with. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, go over to the General Tool Discussion and check out the Woodworking 101 thread. That thread contains a lot of woodworking lore as well as GJ member's projects.

Nice job.
I thought I was the only one that used a handsaw for drawer front beads.