The Prologue
My Stanley 45 had lost it's home when I acquired it. A sad but frequent story. I planned to rectify this when I had the opportunity, and recent events brought that closer.
As far as I can determine, my 45 would have originally been supplied in a simple pine box with a sliding lid. Of course, any number of more sophisticated alternatives have been built by owners, and so my first task was to decide on my design.
Out of the blue, I stumbled upon an old chest of drawers that had been broken up and discarded. It was quite a mess, and clearly had not been too much to shout about when it was new - probably over a hundred years ago. Built cheaply, it had pine drawer boxes, and these were actually in pretty good shape compared to the rest of it. I collected the boxes up and took them home.
It wasn't long before something clicked in my head, and I was measuring up to see if I could possibly make a suitable box for the number forty five. With care, the old pine could retain its rich patina, and give the box a look of an age contemporaneous to my combination plane.
So the decision ended up quite easy. I would build a simple looking box, similar to an original, but with some distinct accents to make it unique. I would use the old pine, and try to retain as much of it's character as possible. Fitting out of the box would be simple, but effective in protecting the plane's parts when in transit.
My Stanley 45 had lost it's home when I acquired it. A sad but frequent story. I planned to rectify this when I had the opportunity, and recent events brought that closer.
As far as I can determine, my 45 would have originally been supplied in a simple pine box with a sliding lid. Of course, any number of more sophisticated alternatives have been built by owners, and so my first task was to decide on my design.
Out of the blue, I stumbled upon an old chest of drawers that had been broken up and discarded. It was quite a mess, and clearly had not been too much to shout about when it was new - probably over a hundred years ago. Built cheaply, it had pine drawer boxes, and these were actually in pretty good shape compared to the rest of it. I collected the boxes up and took them home.
It wasn't long before something clicked in my head, and I was measuring up to see if I could possibly make a suitable box for the number forty five. With care, the old pine could retain its rich patina, and give the box a look of an age contemporaneous to my combination plane.
So the decision ended up quite easy. I would build a simple looking box, similar to an original, but with some distinct accents to make it unique. I would use the old pine, and try to retain as much of it's character as possible. Fitting out of the box would be simple, but effective in protecting the plane's parts when in transit.