Hi Dave -
I wish I had some woodworking skills. I've been getting pretty good with the steel chassis though. Check out some of my amps at:
http://mcnally.cc/amps.htm
You'll see I like the pre-painted black Hammonds. The smaller ones are pretty thin steel though, the DynaClone transformers will bend 'em up pretty good.
Essential tools - get a Greenlee Chassis punch (not the electrician's variety) for the type of tube socket you want to use. Usually an octal is 1 1/8" - but there are lotsa variations. The Angela gold octals seem to be the best, although not cheap. Also, you'll want a genuine Uni-Bit - not an eBay import copy. They are great for switch holes, 9 pin socket holes, etc. They don't twist the chassis up like twist drills do. After you get used to using them, you can drill a pilot hole, then count the cuts as it gets to your target size. A rat tail file and half round file are good to have, as well as decent drill bits. I like to mark with a grease pencil, then use an automatic center punch, then drill a pilot hole. I haven't found a drill press to be very useful, lately I've done everything with a Makita battery powered drill.
I personally like to use stainless steel phillips hardware, it looks a lot better than the cheap zinc stuff. I do like the zinc nuts though, with integral star washer. They make assembly a lot easier.
Lately, I've been doing all of the metal work the first evening, cleaning up the chassis in the kitchen sink with dishwashing liquid to get rid of the cutting oil (I use that on the punches, Uni-Bit and everything) and then mounting all of the parts. Next evening I wire them up.
Sorry to be so windy - but I've been enjoying the metalwork as much as the rest of it. The MK-III clones were fun, but no holes needed to be drilled - I kind of missed that.
... tom