Mid-Sized Tool Chest via Japanese Style Carpenter Box

For the past 5 years, I have been happily woodworking in my garage (my little slice of paradise).  Lately, I can see where I might want to work elsewhere.  There were two immediate drivers for this:

1.  My dad needed to rebuild his garage when a huge tree destroyed in the backyard fell over and destroyed it.  Figure 1 and 2.  When he rebuilt it, it was larger and he purchased an nice woodworking bench for hand tools.  Since he's an hour away and I visit weekly, I'd like to do some woodworking projects there.

Figure 1.  The tree that crushed my dads garage.

Figure 2.  Just to give you an idea as to how big that tree was.  The base was no more than 30 feet from the garage.  Given all the directions it could have fallen, my dad was lucky.

Figure 3.  The aftermath after most of the tree was removed.  Sadly the 56 Ford pickup took the brunt of it.  It has since been restored (at considerable expense).

2. I was planning to take a class in Jul 2020 at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking to make the Anarchist Tool Chest (ATC) (to store my other hand tools that I don't use that often or are duplicates).  I am not a tool collector but I do have more than I need (who amongst us doesn't?).  I had signed up in Nov 2019 for this class.  Who knew Covid-19 would happen.  The class was canceled.

When I started working on all of this, it was before Covid-19 was a thing.  The goal was to make a tool chest that would be of medium size and hold most of the tools I use.  It was not to be a minimalist tool kit but it wasn't to be a full blown tool chest either.  I spend a lot of time thinking about the tools I wanted and laying them out to figure out the size.  There will be a future blog on the tools in it.  I ended up wanting a tool chest with the exterior diameters of 29" long (driven mostly by saw length), 14" wide (driven by what I wanted in the bottom), and 11&1/4" tall (driven by the 1x12 material I could get).

I debated between poplar and pine.  One day at Lowe's I saw two beautiful pine boards.  Part of the edges were damaged on each (that I thought I could work around) so I got them at 50% off.  That is ultimately what drove the decision.

As to the construction design, since I would be making a large size traditional tool chest in the class (via the ATC), I wanted to do something different.  The two designs I pondered were a dutch tool chest and a Japanese style carpenter box.  Figure 4 shows my decision.

Figure 4.  My mid-sized tool box.  I used the YouTube videos by Treebangham to make this.

It was based on Treebangham's YouTube video (well worth watching for this as well as his other content):  https://youtu.be/bbeDvPNFbdI.  For Christmas 2017 I had made small versions of this as boxes.  As such, being familiar with the making process was a heavy influence.  Also, I like the simple construction design of this sturdy box.  I wanted this to be a sturdy piece.  It's beauty would be the simplicity of its design.  Also, garnet shellac as a finish would make it look good.  I debated on painting it.  Decided the ATC will be painted on the exterior.  For this shellac it would be.

As for it's construction, it's a lot of cut nails and screws.  The bottom is 3/8" plywood that is screwed on so that if need be I can replace it.

The bottom (Figure 5) holds the saws, hand planes, router, small plough plane, and a few other items.  1/2" thick strips of poplar and 3/4" thick pine off cuts were used to make spaces for the individual tools.  Then there are some runners to hold 4 small boxes made of 1/2" poplar.  Something funny happened.  I made the four poplar boxes not thinking too much about them.  When I showed my dad and brother, the commented "ooh, dovetails."  Having done handtools now for 5 years, I don't think of that as a special joint.  I mean, how else would one make a box (yes, I know there are other ways, but really).  There is a clever trick I used for the bottom that I learned from Paul Sellers videos.  I took some 3/4 pine scraps and ran 1/4" grooves in them via my small plough plane.  Then, the 1/4" bottom plywood is housed in this.  I didn't want to nail the plywood to the bottom of the box but I didn't want to go through the hassle of needing some blind dovetails.  I just made the grooved pieces, glued them in the bottom and then inserted the plywood during box glue it.  It's easy and a good solution.

Figure 5

Figure 6  The boxes that hold the top layer of tools.  Ultimately 4 boxes were organized by commonality of tools so that a box can be removed and taken to the bench.

I like the lid locking system.  It involves a piece of wood tapered along the length and width.  It's simple and holds all in place. Figure 7 & 8.  One side of the lid has an angled width making it easy to grab and the other side has a "hidden" hand grab area.  As such, it's easy to remove.  The finish is just garnet shellac on the outside and clear shellac on the inside.  I ran out of garnet shellac during the finishing process so I used what was at hand.

Figure 7 and 8.  Simple lid locking system and lid removal.

Though I haven't weighted it when full of tools, I am guessing it weights about 70 pounds.  As such, I can lift it but I wouldn't want to have to carry it far.  I had a number of ideas as to how to transport it.  Then, I lucked out.  The collapsible wagons that come up for sale time to time at Costco were a prefect fit (Figure 9).  If I were doing it over, I would definitely have taken this into consideration on the design specs.  Glad luck turned my way on this one.

In the future I will have a blog showing the tools that fit inside of it.  Given it's weight, I am already in the process of making a smaller (much closer to a minimal tool chest)  tool chest that will be based on the ATC design.  That way, in the future if I take a class on making the ATC, I will be familiar with it and that should help me in the class.  Also, that way if I don't take a class or build a full size tool chest, at least I have a mini one in that traditional design.