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Gerstner tool chests, or 'equivalent' are a necessity in the machine trades, to protect mics, vernier tooling, and any other type of small gage/inspection tooling which must not be allowed to rust, not even the tiniest bit. The wood absorbs any moisture content in the air, rather than allowing any moisture to form on the tooling from condensation due to ambient temperature change. At one time, there were a number of makers of hardwood tool chests of the same general pattern, of which the Gerstner works is the only survivor today. Yes, a Gerstner chest is relatively 'delicate', and will not withstand rough handling. They were intended for the use of careful machinists and toolmakers, who were accustomed to handling precision tools with great care. The Gerstner, and other makes, of hardwood tool chests are very commonly available on the ebay, or can sometimes be found cheaply locally, with a 'wanted' advert on the 'Craig's list' internet bulletin board programme. With a bit of looking, you might find a dirty older Gerstner box, in the common 20in. size, for $100-150-ish on ebay, and they are easy to clean up/refinish. I've done up a couple of these, as spare-time projects, all they are likely to need, as a generality, is a bit of lacquer thinner or acetone to remove the black cutting oil stain, some sanding of the wood, down to 320 emery paper, light or dark oak stain to taste, some grain-filler, and then shellac, varnish, or lacquer, as you prefer. If you have the time and patience to apply a number of coats of shellac or lacquer, and rub it out in the traditional manner, you can make an old Gerstner box look like 'fine furniture'. The Gerstner works will supply any metal corners, drawer-pulls, replacement felt, etc., and the parts are not particularly expensive. For that matter, any good local fabric store can supply the high quality felt needed to re-line a tool chest, in your choice of colours. (most of the old tool chests used a dark green, some a dark red, and a few used light grey, but you could opt, for example, for a light pastel green, blue, yellow/gold, or any other colour preference you might like) A refinish type I've not done myself, but have seen, and thought it nice, was a way to salvage a badly scarred/battered wooden chest, by using common automotive 'bondo' filler in the grain/cracks/scars, and then opaque black lacquer, with many coats, then rubbed out to a high finish as was done in the Chinese lacquered furniture tradition (or the '50's custom car tradition, for that matter) Do we use Gerstner chests in our little machine shop here?..... yes, of course, but we have only one of them, these days. As dumb luck would have it, we were able to find a larger oak tool chest in the Gerstner pattern, an estate sale find, which was hand made by an old toolmaker who must have spent countless hours on it, using a bit better grade of wood, and fitting it up a bit better than Gerstner practise. Rather amazingly, a young man, presumably his grandson, and having the general appearance of someone to whom smoking dope and playing video-games was his primary purpose in life, was selling this chest, amongst other items, at our local swap-meet..... "uh----oh, yeah, the wooden box with all that junk in the drawers?.....woodja gimme $50 for it?" cheers Carla
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