Assembly day.

With all the holes pierced for the pegs, it's finally time for assembly. The rain is holding off, so I'm going to do it outside.

Even with all the pre-fitting, it can still be a struggle to get all the pieces together. The idea is that the offset of the holes will pull all the joints together. I am going to give it a trial squeeze with sash clamps, before I put any pegs in. That way I can see if there needs to be any final adjustment of the shoulders.

All of these parts are from gnarly English oak, and even though they were straight and true when I first planed them, some have moved and twisted. This kind of construction allows for that and as long as you can get the tenons part way into the mortices, once they all tap home, the whole of it miraculously transforms into a straight thing. Sure enough, the shoulders of the top rail/stile joint needed squaring up.

Time to gather the pegs. One final check to makes sure all the holes are in the right place.

And then bang them in. It's a very satisfying process, as the pegs squirm through the offset holes, pulling it all tight.

Then back inside, as the sky is darkening with potential rain.

This chest will be taller than most at 35.5"/900mm, for two reasons. It's going to be a combined tool chest and workbench, with space underneath to slide my other toolbox (which is a WW1 British soldier's kit box, I believe). That height is ideal for me to work at.

Another oddity with this chest, is the brackets; because it's going to be a workbench/toolbox, I've upped the amount of pegs by a factor of 4. Period brackets often had only one peg, these have 4 each. It's going to take a lot of punishment, so I want it to be as strong as possible.

Where the rail carvings run onto the stiles, I have left this unfinished, so I can take those final cuts now the front is joined. I have to trim off those pegs first.