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Brass Type Cabinet

Over the summer I took on my most ambitious woodworking project yet — a cabinet built to store the brass type I use for hot foil stamping. I based the tray size on an antique "Quarter Case" made by the Hamilton Manufacturing Company of Two Rivers, Wisconsin.

Overview

With 24 cases — the correct term for the drawers that hold type, hence "uppercase" and "lowercase" — plus a utility drawer, the finished cabinet stands just over three feet tall. Each case has 30 compartments, big enough to hold one letter with room left over for punctuation or numbers. It's made of plywood and particle board, and it may not be the prettiest piece of furniture I've built, but it gets the job done.

Overhead view of the finished cream-painted cabinet, two rows of case drawers with dark cast iron pulls arranged in two columns of twelve, plus a wider utility drawer at top with a matching pull Close-up of the cast iron case pulls, alternating Hamilton Mfg Co and Wesel Mfg Co markings, screwed into the pale wood drawer fronts The cabinet with one case drawer pulled halfway out, an antique Hamilton No. 3030 Quarter Size Case resting on top as the sizing reference for the new trays Side-by-side comparison of a newly built case tray in pale plywood next to the weathered antique Hamilton No. 3030 Quarter Size Case it was modeled on Close overhead view of an empty case tray's grid, thirty small compartments divided by thin plywood strips Overhead view of a case tray's compartments, each hand-labeled by point size — 10PT, 12PT, 16PT, 20PT, 24PT, 48PT, ODD — and filled with loose brass type sorts A case drawer pulled open on the finished cabinet, its thirty compartments empty and ready to be filled, flanked by the cast iron drawer pulls

Process

Every case tray is built from thin plywood strips, notched and interlocked into a 30-compartment grid, then set into a carcass sized to hold two trays per opening. Below are some shots from along the way.

A car trunk loaded with cut sheets of plywood and particle board plus bundles of thin divider strips, the raw materials hauled home for the build Stacks of thin plywood divider strips, freshly ripped and squared on the table saw, ready to be notched for the case grids Rows of divider strips with evenly spaced notches cut for interlocking assembly, laid out on the workbench next to a speed square and utility knife The cabinet carcass mid-build, showing the notched rails that will hold two case trays before the drawer fronts are attached A case tray partway through assembly, notched divider strips slotted together to form the grid of compartments The cabinet's front panel with case openings framed out in pale wood strips, ahead of the pulls and trays being installed
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