Drawbore Toolbox
A hand tool chest held together purely by drawbored mortise-and-tenon joints — no glue, no screws, just timber geometry and a hand-driven peg.
Built as a demonstration piece from our All-Timber Joinery Masterclass, this toolbox is joined entirely by drawboring — the same technique used in traditional timber framing and Japanese joinery. Every corner is a hand-cut mortise-and-tenon, locked tight by a single hand-driven timber peg. No glue, no screws.
The method: cut a tight mortise-and-tenon joint, drill through it with the hole in the inner piece offset by less than a millimetre, then drive a hand-tapered peg through by hand. The peg acts as a lever, drawing the joint together under hundreds of kilos of mechanical force — a join that tightens rather than loosens as the timber moves with the seasons.