[Antique] Machinist's Tool Box - Restoration And Mystery Drawer

[Glenn Brooks]

Very nice restoration indeed. 7 or 8 coats of Tung oil will give you a hard high gloss that will last you years and years.

Iam no expert at all on hidden drawers, but enjoy watching Antique Roadshow. They occasionally show similar drawers with hidden latching mechanisms and springs/hooks/arms that open the drawer when some other lever or drawer is pulled a certain way. I wonder if you have signs of a hidden locking mechanism inside the case, corresponding to cut outs you show in the pictures?

 

[Bill Gruby]

Here is one type.

"Billy G"

 

[kevin]

Hey Billy G -

That hidden drawer mechanism is pretty neat, but I'm pretty sure nothing like that was used on the chest I have. I'm pretty sure that whatever mechanism was used, it was all mounted on the top drawer, with no hidden buttons, access holes, or anything like that.

Right now I'm leaning towards the idea of some sort of "touch latch." None of the touch latches I have found online seem to be quite right, but I may be able to adapt something.

The quest continues . . .

 

[jpfabricator]

My .02, the drawer was probably opened by pulling the bottom from the drawer below. The notch is so a square could fit in the drawer.

Sent from somwhere in east Texas by Jake!

 

[RJSakowski]

How about duplicating the pulls on the lower drawers?
http://www.houseofantiquehardware.c...BFB83CB62972&gclid=CMvx9_myitACFRQbaQodLTEPHw

 

[francist]

I had a thought about the secret latch -- whether those notches were left over from the actual catch mechanism or were they to allow clearance for the missing mechanism. I can see myself doing the exact thing: designing the catch, anticipating that my drawer would need to be narrower, putting it all together only to find that I needed more clearance where the tambour ran at the corner! Would pee me off, and I'd probably take my chisel and quickly knock out two corners of that secret drawer back so it would work.

Anyway, this was my thought: two kind of finger-hook shaped things that were attached to the inside of the tambour and hooked over the back of the second highest drawer. If the uninitiated opened the tambour fully the top drawer would be locked closed and the tambour also only opens up so far. But it if you only open the tambour part-way so as just to clear the second highest drawer, the finger would not be engaged yet and that drawer could be pulled open. And, with it fully open, the secret drawer face is also visible. To open the secret drawer you would need to reach inside the open drawer below and slide the secret one forward a bit.

I don't have the dimensions of the case to see if the travel of the tambour and hook finger would actually work, but you could lay it out if those dimensions were available.

Maybe?

-frank

 

[kevin]

Adding handles : I considered just adding handles to the hidden drawer, but I decided not to because I felt I somehow owed it to the original builder to stay true to the original. Also, I kind of like the idea of a hidden drawer.

Adding mechanism to tambour: Clever idea; unfortunately, not possible without major modification, as there is no room to add anything. Also, note the notches in the hidden drawer are in the back, not the side. Also, the underside of the drawer is very smooth, and it is hard to open from below unless one or two drawers are removed so I can get a finger behind it.

Lots of good ideas so far, and the discussion has given me an idea. I prepared the drawing below to give an idea of how the box is constructed. The drawing shows a side view of the top two drawers, and some other critical elements. Note there is no clearance above the top drawer (hence the notches in the drawer back).

The idea I have (shown in purple in the drawing), is to make two flat metal "springs" that will clip into the notches on the back of the hidden drawer. The idea is that if the hidden drawer is pushed in to compress the springs, and then quickly released, it will spring out enough to open from the top.

I don't know if this will work, but I will give it a try and report the results here. Meanwhile, I'm still open to other ideas.

P.S.

Thanks to all the posters for their ideas and comments so far.

 

[kevin]

My idea in post #17 turned out to be a bust in two ways: First, a sharp bend in the spring steel caused it to snap in half (as I should have known). Second, even with some alternate configurations, there just was enough "springiness" to open the drawer. I'm going to try some other ideas - I'll report back here with any results.

In the meanwhile, I've finished all other work on the chest, and I thought people reading this post might like some before and after pictures.

Here's the chest when I got it:




Here's a close up of the drawers:




Here's the finished chest:



As before, you can see my build log here:

https://sites.google.com/site/lagadoacademy/miscellaneous-projects/machinist-s-chest-restoration-2