Woodworker: Jim Platteter

This tool chest is modeled after an 18th-century “gentleman’s tool chest” that Platteter saw at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. These chests, believed to have been made for non-professional, well-to-do woodworkers, were available through tool catalogs in the late 1700s (they are considered the predecessor to the traditional machinist’s oak tool chest). Platteter made the chest for a fellow woodworker, using curly cherry and sassafras as the primary and secondary woods, and embellishing it with bandings of maple and walnut. Like its 18th-century counterparts, it is relatively small, just 11 in. deep by 22 in. wide by 10 in. tall. The finish is polyurethane.

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