My Wardrobe Steamer Trunk

The Great Divide

25/6/2017 became the day of the 'Great Divide'! To me there was a mixture of feelings, some anxiety surrounding the task that lay ahead, while, at the same time a level of excitement knowing the time was right to make the attempt.

Daughter number two (as seen in dress up mode in introduction) and soon to turn 30! came to lend a hand and give much needed support. Out came all the tools and my mental plan of how to go about making it happen.

So, my wardrobe steamer trunk was wheeled out and placed on the 'operating table'! With hammer and nail pulls in hand we started on the bottom hinge plates.

Daughter lending a hand

First nail for my daughter and 'snap' not the handle but one of the forks.... great... Grrrr! A few minutes later, on my first nail, both forks... double great, and double Grrrr's! Obviously cheap knock offs from good old reliable China.

But hey, the handles still work ha! Thinking caps were put on and a few other tools were tried... no luck.. a good start and still on nail number one!

Yep!

"A chisel", daughter suggested. I was a bit apprehensive, with respect for the chisel which is for timber, not Titanic steel! But hey, desperate measures needed, so sacrifice an older chisel, I will replace with a new later.

We managed to get in behind the nail head with the chisel and eased out enough length to get pinches in to pull it out, but still couldn't free it. In came my trusty cutter friend and snap... Got ya !

That was one down, still have fifteen to go. The steel was 'So' hard to work with, but we ended up getting five out, not bad for a first attempt. The job so far was looking ok... but can't say the same for the chisel!

The flat black head nails were the hardest to work on.
There was more room to get under the brass ones

The wonder chisel! and still being used,
but not sure for how long

I continued the next day working on a flat head nail that I had already started, I had lifted the edge on one side, but no way could I get the other side to lift. Continued with the chisel to try and cut through the nail, like a few yesterday did. But no luck with this one!

I found yesterday that some nail heads would snap off when hit, allowing me to get to the stem... but again, not this one!

I thought I would try my (Fein Multi Master) cutting device and cut it with the metal blade cutter. This did work on the steel to a degree, but I considered it too dangerous as it bounced around way too much, one slip and it would gouge into the body... so not worth the risk.

Back to the chisel, but, as seen in the photo above the missing chunk was not allowing me to toggle the right spot to snap it. The nail head was so deformed by this stage and there was less head to get a good grip, while at the same time too much stem to punch back inwards.

"Oh, what the heck"!

One beastly nail

This is what clinched rivets look like from the inside

This is what a clicked over nail looks like from the inside

Hearing my plight, in came husband with stronger wrists than me. He tried all the things I did... still, not this one! We left this nail for a while and moved onto another. Also, moved to another chisel, so that's two to replace. Continued to have trouble with these flat head nails.

"Bring in the drill" he said. I mentioned how I tried that on the drawer pulls and the steel just laughed at the idea! Still we will try it on the divide. It took some doing to start with, but it looked like it was going to work. I think having the metal of the hinge, plus the timber structure of the trunks frame to be able to push into helped big time. A far cry from the 6mm timber structure of a stand alone drawer with no strength behind it.

The routine was: several hits into the metal head with a hole punch, then drilled unto using a bit to fit into the nail head size. Next a larger drill bit was used to countersink the head, this was driven in as far as it could go without hitting the edge of the canvas. Finally, the nail was punched back into the trunk. We were finally on a winner.... yah!

All the nails including the beastly one were taken out using this process. Fantastic effort and finally a divided trunk.

Thanks to Hub's x