A little family history

So, sorry for the poor pics, more to come. Today we made a trip to my wife's grandparents farm. We loaded up her great-great-grandpa's workbench and hardware cabinet. They've been sitting in her Grandpa's barn, which has flooded a few times, but both still in decent shape.

After prohibition, her G-G-Grandpa went into furniture making and production of bank teller windows. He made a decent living, but nothing like they had done pre-prohibition.

The hardware cabinet is mostly made from pine and re-claimed materials. The back and drawer bottoms are mostly from re-claimed crating material. The smaller drawers are mostly fronts and backs from wood, then sheet metal bent for the drawer bodies, attached to the fronts and backs with tacks.

The bench has been used by her grandpa to cut/thread pipe on for years now, so it's got a layer of cutting oil covering the top. My plan is to power wash the bench base and top and see where we stand. I suspect I'll need to remove a 1/4" or so of it and maybe laminate some new wood on to thicken it up. The feet have sat in the mud for 50 years on the floor and have some dry-rot. However, the top does have a working vise and dog holes still.

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Before I will unload from the trailer I need to do some fumigation as there was a brown recluse condo living in that hardware cabinet. I killed at least 20 just pulling drawers out and another 2 that had managed to still cling on after a 100 miles into the trip home, while getting gas. I'm feeling that scorpions and brown recluses share a common bond in annoying their victims. ;)

Sadly the cabinet is a one-piece unit, but luckily for me the nd neighbor called in a favor to feed his dog as he was out of town for the Turkey day festival, so I too shall be calling in a favor to help me get this beast off the trailer. ;)

In that last pic is the hardware cabinet. Her uncle was helping me load, he's about 6'-4", the cabinet is about 6' tall.
 
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Fantastic! Looks to be well worth the effort to give the cabinet a new life within the family. Maybe some skillful work with a track saw would make it a two piece and easier to move. Hope you can get a couple of pics of the drawers and how the metal is bent and wood attached...after the rest of the critters leave.
 
Very cool indeed

I remember my grandfather had a hardware cabinet almost identical to that one. I wish - I wish ---- so many things - but in those days we don't think about it.

Really glad you have this opportunity to reclaim a bit of real history - those things are priceless.
 
Thanks all, I'm honored to carry on this legacy. First up some pics of the bench and the rest of the loot.

First up, the bench, this is the base, the feet are towards the trailer gate
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This is one end of the top, her grandpa added a more "modern" vise to it, the other end under the cabinets has a wooden vise built into the top.
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I'm not sure of the top material yet, but the base looks to be maple and oak.
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These are the feet, one end looks pretty good, the other has some bug damage, may have to cut them down and attach new material.
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The last of the loot is a two man buck saw, and a couple of milk cans, along the funnel/strainer.
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When things get warmer, I'll unload the trailer and power wash the base and top of the bench to see what I have left to restore. ;)
 
Here is the small drawer construction. As mentioned above, they are wood front and backs and the sides/bottom are sheet metal. Given that the back of the cabinet is made from some heating/cooling equipment crating, I'm guessing her G-G-Grandfather had a friend or client in the heating/cooling business and bent up the metal drawers for him.

The kerfs for the metal to inset into the front and back panels looks to be hand cut, can see his saw marks for each stroke in the second and third pics. There are two nails on each end, for each of the sides and the bottom.
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There are some variations of the drawers, with partitions cut to size and nailed into the sides.
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He did upholstery, so some indication of the drawer contents was nailed to the outside for easy recognition.
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BTW, all the drawer fronts are done from mahogany, the backs are pine/fir, so is the case and face frames.

The large drawers are made up of all wood construction, but nothing too fancy. He used materials that were recycled for the drawer bottoms and case back. Some sides are pine, others have some birch and maple. Most bottoms are de-laminated veneers, I'll replace those with new plywood, but may try to save some veneers to add to the "show" side of the drawer bottoms and laminate back on.
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A few other things of interest.

The face frames were all half lap jointed, all appear to be hand sawn.
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One drawer had some extra top/bottom dividers, the cups look to be turned on a lathe (by the screw holes on the back) and assembled.
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Found these in one drawer. I think I see some markings on the chisel, but may have to put it in the blast cabinet to clean it up. I'm planning to turn a new handle for it.
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BTW, I am considering splitting the case. I'll need to add a bit of support for the bottom half, but structurally they could be divided. Just not sure I want to do it yet.
 
Thanks for the pictures, Darren. The drawers look pretty effective for what they were designed to do. If he had a friend with lots of scrap duct work, why not put it to good use. Not much rust and the thin sides allow for more storage. Very creative, I'd say.:thumb:
 
Thanks for the pictures, Darren. The drawers look pretty effective for what they were designed to do. If he had a friend with lots of scrap duct work, why not put it to good use. Not much rust and the thin sides allow for more storage. Very creative, I'd say.:thumb:

You know, at first I was thinking "What have I gotten myself into", but the more I look at the construction and what he was working with, the more I'm wanting to save and keep the cabinet intact and working. As much as I'd like to incorporate this into my shop, we were chatting about maybe making this part of our kitchen storage/decor
 
... we were chatting about maybe making this part of our kitchen storage/decor

It's the kind of thing that will make your guests ask "what's the story behind this piece?". It would also give you great spice storage, and an interesting connection to family history right in the heart of the house.
 
Really cool. I like those metal drawers. Like Ted said, makes more storage in the cabinet.

All in all a good haul.
 
That is quite the cabinet :eek: :thumb: Very cool piece of history. Not sure how to use it but I have faith you'll figure something interesting out.

On the bench top, how bad is it worn? Could you just seal in the oil with like a linseed coat? I'm suspecting that the oil has soaked way way in... Or maybe just make it a metal bench?
 
I did like the tool cabinet... my ex-father in law built a tool cabinet for his garage that I would have given my eye teeth to have. Don't know where it went when he died. He only had daughters and doubt they took it... never knew either of their husbands, so don't know if they were into tools or not.

I wish I had pictures so I could maybe try to copy it... it was about 6' tall, with the upper part built almost like a book... there were individual walls/leaves/pages that had hooks to hang tools on and they swung individually out to display the tools. The bottom half had the drawers for storage. The whole thing was about 6' tall by about 4' wide and 3' deep...Not sure what wood he used, but I remember that it was beautifully built... he was a real craftsman.

I was living in Texas when he passed away... it would have been a bear to move from San Francisco to Houston.
 
Very cool acquisition, Darren. Historical pieces are so much better when their history is part of your own. :thumb:

I have a WWII-era wooden cabinet that was my granddad's. It spent a few years under a tarp on an uncovered patio in LA, so it's in need of some rehab. It still serves its function, though, so it's been pretty low on my list of priorities.
 
I was doing some googling of her GG-Grandpa's name/shop and came across an old article that mentioned him being an a collector. He had several swords, rifles, and guns in his collection, even a gun once shot by Jesse James. I sent the article to my wife's aunt.
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She sent me this photo back.
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In this pic, he's a bit older, but can see the same collection shown in the article above. Also, what I thought was cool, he's standing up on the lower half of the hardware cabinet we just inherited. :)
 
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