Front Lid Pins and 14 Drawer O82

[egrep]

I've enjoyed learning much about my new tool chest here, thank you! It has greatly enhanced my enjoyment of my new tool chest!

I was very fortunate to find a 14-Drawer O82 Style only 40 minutes from my house, at a very attractive price. I would put it at 95% condition. It has mild scratches and stains, but looks very clean and fresh. The felt is in 99% condition, truly amazing. IT has the sewn pockets in the headliner as I've seen in a similar model here. Both locks work fine and I was able to get keys here. I removed the tacks on the bottom and replaced with the plastic feet, somewhat out of necessity to avoid damaging other furniture, etc. I also picked up nickel backplates for all the knobs, but now having learned the age, relative rarity and condition I am going to forgo those to keep it absolutely stock.

The one area that needed some attention were the front lid pins. They were bent on both sides. Something I imagine isn't a rare occurrence given how attractive it is to use the lid fully extended as a table. I imagine I'll craft some sort of 'blocks' to provide level support when doing the same.

Here's my concern, I appreciate y'alls insight. The new pins in the kit I got from the spare parts store here are quite a bit shorter than the pins I withdrew from the lid on my chest. The new pins are actually shorter than the hole is deep, the difference is that much.

When putting the lid back in place, it is inevitable that the pins get pushed in further. So, they don't maintain the depth into the cabinet grooves they should for full support -and- they can get pushed in so far that it takes needle nose pliers to retrieve them, and they could even go fully inside the hole.

I wonder if the size changed at some time? I suspect it would be simple enough to cut a small dowel to size and put it in the hole, but would that be prudent? Or perhaps Scott has some longer pins around for just this purpose?

Thanks for your advice and the wealth of your knowledge and experience!

And here's the O82 as it was when I brought it home. I consider myself quite fortunate.

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[Bill]

I had an old Gerstner that had one pin like that. I just filled up the hole with wood bondo until the pin stuck out far enough. I then left it alone to set for 24 hours.

[steve cleveland]

Can you straighten the old pins and reinstall them? Or like bill said fill the old hole with something to keep them from pushing in.

[Bill]

They are made of some pretty hard stuff. They are not that much. Why not get new ones from Gerstner. Or, hit up on the "wanted,trying to find" section and see if someone has an old undamaged one they would be willing to part with. Most of the people in here are more that willing to help someone if they can.

[Bill]

Right now I am on again off again working on an old model O41. Lots of structure issues. Today, I decided to work on the issue of the floor in the top compartment. It's a common problem with the older chests where the floor has drop say a quarter inch or so. Some time ago I found a small starrett screw jack in a box I bought. I use it just for this issue. I run a bead of glue along the where the back wall and floor meet. I place the screw jack on a couple of blocks and then place a longer flat piece of wood on top of the jack to spread out the force. I then start raising the jack until the floor meets the side wall. I let it sit for 12 hours and then let it down slowly to see if it held. The center rack for the smaller drawers can drop as well. Usually installed with nails on the older chests, screws on the newer. On the older boxes, I remove the nails and install small diameter counter sunk wood screws in the same holes and that will bring up the center rack to position. On the newer ones, I have found that just tightening up the screws will do the job. As always, these may or may not work. There's always that one. But, I lucked out on this one as you can see in pic #2. The floor came up and stayed up. Now to the veneer issues and bringing the joints back together on the bottom floor of the box to the side.

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[user459]

Good thinking, Bill. I don't know many guys who use a gold ingot for a jack block. You California guys slay me!

[Bill]

Actually, I use that chunk of wood to set the drawers on when applying finish. What you see is several years of over-spray of various finishes. I guess I'm too cheap to throw it away. It still comes in handy. Remember what they say, There's no such thing as scrap wood. It's just wood that ain't been used yet.