With the glue thoroughly dry I turned my efforts to tidying up some of the careless mess I had made 
.
First, the outside of the box got planed all round.
I always like this stage with dovetails - they immediately look neater, especially if you turn the best corner towards the camera and close your eyes.
I also adjusted the top and bottom of the box somewhat - because of my carelessness with initial planing of the parts, it ended up a little bit twisted. Fortunately there was enough wood left to even it up without planing away the joints.
Having done that, I needed to mark a line to saw the lid off. I have quite a few marking gauges but they are very difficult to put a date to, having survived unchanged for so long. Rejecting those that I bought new or with plastic thumbscrews, I chose this one. I guess it's user made - I've seen the cunning cam lock design in several places. (One was in a video of Frank Klausz where he adjusts it so quickly it's hard to see what he's doing.) Unfortunately I know nothing of Mr D.D.Lock or how I acquired his marking gauge, but it's old, it works and it was suitable.
I didn't want to lose too much wood, so chose a fine-bladed saw, that would sit inside the marked line to give me a straight cut.
It worked, but I slipped up in several ways. The saw is ok for date but it's got no Bristol connection. It was made by Garlick in about 1890 but sold by a Sheffield tool dealer, George P. Preston, not to be confused with the more famous Edward Preston of Birmingham.
I could have used any of the saws I showed you earlier, but I just picked up the wrong one. From a practical point of view it was far too fine-toothed, so I had to keep clearing the sawdust out. Part way through I switched to a slightly coarser, unmarked saw of unknown date and origin.
That was much better. Here's the inside view I was looking for
and here's a bit of roughness that will need to be adjusted
There followed an indeterminate but enjoyable period of fiddling about fettling the parts so they would sit together reasonably tidily, but this just used tools you have seen already.
Next, it was time to fit the hinges. With the base and lid together in the vice I measured in the same distance from each end and made a little nick across the edges
I then knifed around the length of the hinges and gauged back for length, then down for thickness.
This is all routine stuff - chopping down, paring across. I like doing this slowly, glad that I'm not on piece work rates.
I sorted out some suitable brass screws, salvaged from somewhere, plus a matching steel one. I've picked up from other forum members that it's good practice to use a steel screw before a brass one and to wax the threads. In softwood like this there's no need to drill a pilot hole but it makes sense to make an opening with an awl.
The hinges are new. I wonder if I ought to darken them down a bit to look older? Tell me what you think.
I don't have a catch for the outside yet. I checked at our local excellent hardware shop and they don't have anything small enough, so I have sent off for some in a bronze finish.
I realised that, although I have a few old screwdrivers, they are nearly all 20th century. However, I do have one of these, which is probably older, though it stayed in production for quite a long time. It's a multi-tool by Horace Britton of Maine, patented 28 November 1893. Shown here, it's a screwdriver
and here it's an awl
You can read the patent here https://www.datamp.org/patents/advance. ... 529&set=12
A bit of a diy gimmick maybe, but it still works.
With a screw in each hinge I could see that I had messed up a bit - I had gauged just the thickness of the hinge leaves, when I should have gone out to the centre of the pin. That won't do!
It was slightly awkward to gauge a new line just a smidge away, when half the thickness of the box had been removed. The best solution I could see was to use this sort of home made gauge, which is just a screw with the head filed sharp, set in a scrap of wood. You adjust it by turning the screw, and it gives a nice clear line. It almost works like a miniature router if you're lucky.
But does it count as an old tool? Well, although it doesn't count as Victorian, the wood was definitely old wood that I reclaimed from a skip and I probably salvaged the screw as well. And I'm doing my best!
With the lid adjusted, it looked like this, which is ok for me.
So I took the hinges off again and did the last stages of cleaning up the box. This was more sanding, plus easing all the edges. Now easing edges is a pretty undemanding sort of job and I could have used several planes, including the nice old Stanley block plane I used earlier on the end grain. But I thought it would be a chance to use a Chariot Plane.
Now, as far as I can find, there's very little written about chariot planes. I think they were a Victorian innovation that got ousted by the many many block plane variants that Stanley unleashed on the world. They sort of overlap with them for what you can do with them - odd little single-handed adjustments.
Like most of them, this one is anonymous, apart from an owner's name and not easy to put a date to.
Fine for easing edges like this. Here it is dismantled
and there's a clue there for some of you as to a possible date.
I'll leave it there, as I am up to the maximum number of photos, but the end is in sight quite soon.
.First, the outside of the box got planed all round.
I always like this stage with dovetails - they immediately look neater, especially if you turn the best corner towards the camera and close your eyes.
I also adjusted the top and bottom of the box somewhat - because of my carelessness with initial planing of the parts, it ended up a little bit twisted. Fortunately there was enough wood left to even it up without planing away the joints.
Having done that, I needed to mark a line to saw the lid off. I have quite a few marking gauges but they are very difficult to put a date to, having survived unchanged for so long. Rejecting those that I bought new or with plastic thumbscrews, I chose this one. I guess it's user made - I've seen the cunning cam lock design in several places. (One was in a video of Frank Klausz where he adjusts it so quickly it's hard to see what he's doing.) Unfortunately I know nothing of Mr D.D.Lock or how I acquired his marking gauge, but it's old, it works and it was suitable.
I didn't want to lose too much wood, so chose a fine-bladed saw, that would sit inside the marked line to give me a straight cut.
It worked, but I slipped up in several ways. The saw is ok for date but it's got no Bristol connection. It was made by Garlick in about 1890 but sold by a Sheffield tool dealer, George P. Preston, not to be confused with the more famous Edward Preston of Birmingham.
I could have used any of the saws I showed you earlier, but I just picked up the wrong one. From a practical point of view it was far too fine-toothed, so I had to keep clearing the sawdust out. Part way through I switched to a slightly coarser, unmarked saw of unknown date and origin.
That was much better. Here's the inside view I was looking for
and here's a bit of roughness that will need to be adjusted
There followed an indeterminate but enjoyable period of fiddling about fettling the parts so they would sit together reasonably tidily, but this just used tools you have seen already.
Next, it was time to fit the hinges. With the base and lid together in the vice I measured in the same distance from each end and made a little nick across the edges
I then knifed around the length of the hinges and gauged back for length, then down for thickness.
This is all routine stuff - chopping down, paring across. I like doing this slowly, glad that I'm not on piece work rates.
I sorted out some suitable brass screws, salvaged from somewhere, plus a matching steel one. I've picked up from other forum members that it's good practice to use a steel screw before a brass one and to wax the threads. In softwood like this there's no need to drill a pilot hole but it makes sense to make an opening with an awl.
The hinges are new. I wonder if I ought to darken them down a bit to look older? Tell me what you think.
I don't have a catch for the outside yet. I checked at our local excellent hardware shop and they don't have anything small enough, so I have sent off for some in a bronze finish.
I realised that, although I have a few old screwdrivers, they are nearly all 20th century. However, I do have one of these, which is probably older, though it stayed in production for quite a long time. It's a multi-tool by Horace Britton of Maine, patented 28 November 1893. Shown here, it's a screwdriver
and here it's an awl
You can read the patent here https://www.datamp.org/patents/advance. ... 529&set=12
A bit of a diy gimmick maybe, but it still works.
With a screw in each hinge I could see that I had messed up a bit - I had gauged just the thickness of the hinge leaves, when I should have gone out to the centre of the pin. That won't do!
It was slightly awkward to gauge a new line just a smidge away, when half the thickness of the box had been removed. The best solution I could see was to use this sort of home made gauge, which is just a screw with the head filed sharp, set in a scrap of wood. You adjust it by turning the screw, and it gives a nice clear line. It almost works like a miniature router if you're lucky.
But does it count as an old tool? Well, although it doesn't count as Victorian, the wood was definitely old wood that I reclaimed from a skip and I probably salvaged the screw as well. And I'm doing my best!
With the lid adjusted, it looked like this, which is ok for me.
So I took the hinges off again and did the last stages of cleaning up the box. This was more sanding, plus easing all the edges. Now easing edges is a pretty undemanding sort of job and I could have used several planes, including the nice old Stanley block plane I used earlier on the end grain. But I thought it would be a chance to use a Chariot Plane.
Now, as far as I can find, there's very little written about chariot planes. I think they were a Victorian innovation that got ousted by the many many block plane variants that Stanley unleashed on the world. They sort of overlap with them for what you can do with them - odd little single-handed adjustments.
Like most of them, this one is anonymous, apart from an owner's name and not easy to put a date to.
Fine for easing edges like this. Here it is dismantled
and there's a clue there for some of you as to a possible date.
I'll leave it there, as I am up to the maximum number of photos, but the end is in sight quite soon.
